I am someone who has many pet peeves. And bad spelling and/or grammar in a fanfiction or original writing is one of them. You have some liberty if you're writing poetry, a slangy conversation (like a text conversation), or something like that.

Let's start out with what I see a lot in writings. And what's great about all this is that it all has one simple solution that I'll get to at the end.

And these are only the first five. There are so many more out there that I'm not covering in this chapter, but if you see a lot of a certain mistake, feel free to comment and maybe I'll cover it in an upcoming chapter. Or, you know, comment to share your frustrations with me.

1. Using text shorthand/slang in actual writings.
My gods, this is annoying. It screams "AMATEUR WRITER" if you do this, sorry.

Incorrect example: "u were supposed to be there," she said. "Ik, sorry." I responded.
Correct example: "You were supposed to be there," she said. "I know, sorry," I responded.

There are a few other things I changed there other than the shorthand, but my point is, don't use "u" or "ikr" or "smh" in any context but a conversation over text or where you would use them in a day-to-day sense.

2. Use correct capitalization and punctuation.
Here's another one that really ticks me off. Also, it's really easy to do right.

Incorrect example: my friend grace came over to hang out Last Night, we played connect 4, i was so bored before she came over.
Correct example: My friend Grace came over to hang out last night and we played Connect 4. I was so bored before she came over.

I don't want to give everyone a grammar lecture, but use your conjunctions! Don't overuse your commas. It's okay to put periods in your writing! Use diverse punctuation! Don't do run-on sentences!

If you are confused about something, there's always a dictionary you can check. I personally use Grammarly.

3. Use similar words correctly.
I can't tell you how much I see these thrown around everywhere they shouldn't be.

Examples:
•your and you're
•their, there, and they're
•were and we're

Please, just raise your hand if you see these everywhere. They're so annoying yet so simple to fix.

Incorrect example: Youre friends are really cool. There house is right on that hill, which were heading to now.
Correct example: Your friends are really cool. Their house is right on that hill, which we're heading to now.

4. Use the "Enter" key more than zero times in your chapters!
You really need more spaces in your chapters. You don't want your whole page to be a straight chunk of writing. It's easier to break things down into chunks. Plus, here on Wattpad, you can only comment on chunks, and it's easier to locate what your commenting on when you have more spaces.

Comment a smiley face here.

And a puppy emoji here.

And a heart here.

See? Now the comments section won't look like:😃🐶💙.

Instead, it'll be:

😃

🐶

💙

Now, insert words where those emoticons are and you're golden.

And a side note, stop putting emoticons in your writings. I've seen it in fanfictions before and I immediately leave. But I think putting appropriate ones in chapter titles are okay.

5. Try to diversify your vocabulary.
Your writings are so boring if you use the same adjectives, verbs, and nouns over and over again. The thesaurus is there, so use it. It's extremely useful and learning new words is always fun. Also, make sure you have a good balance between proper nouns and pronouns.

There are literally so many other common mistakes I've seen in people's writings that bug me to no end. Of course, I know that not all of us have this kind of stuff drilled into our heads from the time we were children. I blame my insanely good literature teachers for giving me a keen eye for mistakes. It leaves me with little peace.

The solution to all of this I mentioned earlier? It's proofreading! Just a short but attentive scan of your writing will catch most of the little errors hiding there. If you want to be extra sure, have a friend proofread as well to give you a fresh look at your own writing. I normally reread every paragraph as I finish it, then closely read the whole chapter before I publish it. And after that, if I reread it again and see errors, I immediately fix them. It's easy, relatively quick, and can improve your writing skills dramatically.

I'll probably make another one of these chapters about spelling/grammar in the future, but there's a lot more to cover other than that stuff!

So... yeah!