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Writing Tip

because I see this everywhere and most people don’t know about it. The hyphen(-), the en-dash(–) and the em-dash(—) are three completely different things with completely different uses. If you write fanfiction, it’s likely that your readers won’t care, but if you want to submit a manuscript for publishing, you need to know the difference.

The hyphen (-) is the basic symbol you find on your keyboard, and it’s meant to only be used for hyphenated words (well-being, two-thirds).

The en-dash (–) is a slightly longer dash. It’s usually the width of an uppercase N, hence the name. You can find it by looking through the ‘insert symbol’ option in MS word or many word processors, and it is meant to be used to show a particular distance, or for intervals (May–August, 1900–1916, pages 12–22)

The em-dash (—) is what people most commonly use, but they refer to it as a hyphen. It’s the longest dash, about the size of an uppercase letter M, and you can either find it through the list of symbols in your word processor, or some word processors actually automatically transform two hyphens (–) into an em-dash (—). It is meant to be used as a break in the sentence, in a place where a comma, semicolon or colon would normally be used or as a break in dialogue. (Her niece—the daughter of her oldest sister—is the one over there.)

*All three types of dashes are normally meant to be used without any spaces on either side of the dash.

allthingswhumpyandangsty

fanfic writers deserve better

if we post too fast, we get accused of using ai (no, you don't know how fast someone can write. you don't even know if the "too-frequent-to-be-human updates" you see are something that have long been finished and sitting in an author's drafts for god knows how long. just because it's recently posted, doesn't necessarily always mean it's recently written too. a lot of writers finish the whole thing first before they start posting it chapter by chapter).

if we take "too long to update", we get people pressuring us to "update faster" even though fanfics are our hobbies and we write for ourselves first and foremost.

if our works are grammatically correct, we get accused of using ai (some of us just love correct grammars).

if our works are not grammatically correct, we get insulted/criticized (mind you, not everybody writes in their native language. kudos to writers who write in their second, or third, or fourth language — I'm willing to bet a lot of people who criticize fanfics because of poor grammar can't even speak other languages besides english).

if our paragraphs are "too long and too detailed", we get accused of using ai.

if our paragraphs are "too short", we also get accused of using ai.

if we are autistic and we write in ways some deem "too robotic", we get accused of using ai.

some people just don't use their brains to think "ai was trained on human-made works, it was trained to look human-made. ai writes this way because the way it writes is the way real humans write — real humans whose works it was trained to mimic". instead they somehow disregard this logic and think "hmmm this work looks ai-generated. I will engage in witch hunt, be a bully and harass writers whose works I don't vibe with".

annasmith2023

Well if I suspect the work to be AI, I just close it. But I also do the same for the works where I do not like the story or the writing or just don't like the character portrayal.

I do not think this is a big ask, what is the use of being rude to people who are doing this for free. You should not be looking at the teeth of the gifted horse. Don't like it, don't read it.

Simple.