PIPEBOMB(S) ˎˊ˗

10 | is fanfiction harmful?

Hey guys!

This rant today will be a little different from what we're used to, but I think it'll definitely be a very interesting read for you all.

So recently my boyfriend, now fiancé and I  were talking about fanfic. He usually reads Sherlock fanfictions, but just two days ago he came across some WWE Fanfic and was sort of appalled to say the least.

We had a very interesting debate about whether fanfic is harmful or not and this is how I'm going about it. 

To me, writing is a form of art and is also rather therapeutic. Now, fanfiction, specifically wwe fanfiction that I write about is a means of me detoxing and unwinding. It's also a nifty way to ship my two favorite wwe superstars or write about my favorite superstar. 

With that being said, here's a list of pros and cons that we've come compiled.

[ CONS ] HOW FANFICTION CAN BE HARMFUL:

1.  Bad Grammar/Spelling

Now, I've been prone to making a few spelling errors here and there, mostly because I type too fast and sometimes I miss an extra key or it's 3am and my brain isn't at it's sharpest hour. However, I have, and I think we all have come across some WWE fanfic that is DRENCHED in grammatical/spelling errors. 

How is this bad?

It affects the reader. If the reader is constantly reading stuff that's filed with bad grammar and misspelled words, than they'll never learn or worse- they'll think it's right. And that's honestly quite sad because a lot of readers are young. 

I'm not saying you can't mess up with little misspellings here and there, but if you're onto your third book and still continue to do the same mistakes, just no. I sometimes cringe looking back at my second attempt of writing in a little book called "Darkness." It's not horrible but there's little errors here and there. I'm in the process of editing them and it's kinda nice to see how I went from that to it's sequel Unbroken which is much more precise and clean in terms of mistakes.

Know, I understand that a lot of you are young or aren't really good with spelling or whatever it may be. So if that is the case, PLEASE take a look at some of your favorite books that are hopefully well written and learn from them. Notice how certain words are spelled, etc. If you don't know how to spell a word, there's a beautiful thing called Google. Now, if you ever need any one to proof read your chapters, feel free to come to me.

I'll be honest, 90% of the time I do NOT go over my chapter before I publish it because I read out loud as I type. Of course every other chapter here and there there's a few mistakes, but usually it's only 1-2. When I edit other people's papers, I'm much more precise in catching errors, so here I am.

Think of yourself as a teacher almost. Provide good material with the proper spelling and grammar of such sentences. If English isn't your first language and you're learning, that's fine. Find a book that YOU know is well-written. Everyone knows what a well written book looks like, so rejoice in that.

2. Abuse + Violence

I can't even tell you how many Paige + Dean fanfics I've read that have a clear line of abuse. ABUSE IS NOT SOMETHING THAT SHOULD BE GLAMORIZED OR ROMANTICIZED, EVER! I don't think the author always intends to make it seem that way, but when say Paige is "fine" with Dean being abusive and they live a life full of sex and romance with violence coming in only to be washed away by smut, that's not ok. 

That is not a healthy relationship and I can't even bear the idea of a younger reader reading that and thinking oh that's cool.

That's not cool, that's not okay.