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Top Ten Things I hate In Fanfiction:

1. Spelling errors. They are so easily avoidable that there is really no excuse for you to have misspelled words in your story. Most word processors and internet browsers have spell check built in. Also, this very site has its own spell checker, so quit slacking off and check your damn work.

2. Out of character (OOC). If you love the show so much and this person is your favorite character, why would you want to change them? It just doesn't make any sense. If you think of a story in which that character would not fit in, then find a different character that would fit. If you can't, then create your own character. Write an original story and post it on FictionPress. The only time this is acceptable is when you make the character develop and change throughout the story.

3. Original characters as main characters. What, are the original characters not good enough for you? Is it really necessary for you to create a smarter, hotter version of yourself and stick it in every story you write? Keep your sick fantasies to yourself. We don't want to know about your wet dreams. Minor original characters are fine. Well-developed original characters who play a supporting role are fine; however, they are incredibly hard to find.

4. Grammar. Now, I know my grammar is not perfect, but I know it's better than a great deal of the authors out there. I don't expect every author out there to have mastered every complex grammar rule of the English language, but I do expect them to follow the most basic of grammar rules. Knowing how to pluralize and conjugate and having correct punctuation, verb tenses, and capitalization are all I ask. If you have a comma splice here and there, it's alright. But if your story is riddled with them, it's hard to read. Same goes for run-on sentences. It's really not that hard.

5. Point of view (POV). I didn't even know this problem existed until I came to this site. I've seen again and again that younger authors are oblivious to the proper way to write a point of view. I'm always seeing little author's notes saying when the point of view switches. If you write it correctly, the reader will know whose point of view it is. Not to mention that when writing in first person, you should never switch the person narrating IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CHAPTER. Seriously. What are you thinking? Just write the story in third person. It's much easier than switching the point of view every two paragraphs.

6. Dialogue and monologue. Okay, this one might be a little tricky for the slower authors out there. It is incredibly complicated, you know. When people speak, you use this nifty little tool called the quotation mark. "It looks like this!" said Kirei. Never use an apostrophe. When a new person speaks, you start a new paragraph. That way, we can tell that it's not the same person speaking. It gets really confusing when it seems like someone is having an argument with themself. As for monologue (or thoughts, for those who don't have many), don't put those in apostrophes either. Just because it's a smaller conversation doesn't mean it needs smaller quotation marks. In fact, it doesn't use quotation marks at all. You only use quotation marks if the person is thinking out loud. Instead, thoughts are put in italics.

7. Factual Errors. This is pretty annoying to find in any fanficiton. If you are going to write about school in Japan, you better know your facts because many anime fans do. If you have your OC wearing anything other than the normal uniform and they don't get in trouble, just expect that someone is going to cry foul! Also... changing character age differences, home life, and past events that everyone knows about can also be pretty annoying even in AU. Especially age differences. Sorry but even in an alturnate universe Naruto is not older than Kakashi and when people write it that way... it is just silly.
8. Romance that starts out of nowhere. Unless they got together in the show (or it was heavily implied), then you have no business just sticking them together and saying they fell in love at some point in time, but it's apparently not an important enough event for you to actually write about. One would think that would be extremely important. What the hell happened? Why is Sesshoumaru having sex with his brother, and why is his brother going along with it? This requires some serious explanation. Stop being lazy. If it's too hard to get them together in a way that makes sense, then you probably shouldn't be writing it. Now, straight up, no-strings-attached sex is a completely different story. Keep writin'. ;D

9. Amateur sex scenes. I can't stand it when people who have no knowledge of how sex works write about it. I'm not saying that you have to have sex to write about it. I mean, I've seen virgins who have been able to write a good sex-based story because they did their research. If you want to write about two guys going at it, you had better look up how it's done. Also, it wouldn't hurt to study the male anatomy. It would probably benefit you to ask a gay guy about how it's done. Yaoi fanfiction is ridiculously inaccurate. As for yuri, it's kind of hard to do that wrong...unless you're retarded. Or you're doing futa. Then you just need to be shot.

10. Formatting. Sticking random bold, italics, and underlines in your story is so goddamn annoying. You use italics to emphasize certain words and portray thoughts, memories, and flashbacks. You can also use bold to emphasize words, but it's not suggested. It's better to use italics for that. Bold is primarily used for titles. You can also use it to differentiate your author's note from your story. I actually prefer it when you do it that way, so I don't suddenly go from some intense scene to you rambling about reviews to the voices in your head. Then there's underlining. This is good only for titles. NOTHING ELSE. Also, spacing. Both keeping the entire story in one paragraph or creating a new paragraph after every sentence are wrong on so many levels. Just don't do it.

Honorable mentions: Using Japanese words in your stories. Unless the entire sentence is in Japanese, you have no business using the language. I don't mean just a one-word sentence, either. There will be no calling anyone baka, hentai, or kawaii. You just sound retarded. Nor should you use honorifics. I don't want to see any "Sakura-chaaaan!" or "Kaiba-sama" anywhere. The only time it's really acceptable is when it's already a part of the English version of the anime/manga you are writing about. For example, Chio-chan from Azumanga Daioh. Since they always call her Chio-chan, it's okay to do that. When you write in English, write it all in English.

Basing a fanfiction off of a fanfiction. This includes not only other fanfiction stories, but also animated fan creations, such as abridged series. I'm tired of reading Yu-Gi-Oh fanfics and seeing nothing but "screw the rules!" or Marik calling Bakura "fluffy" all the time. Have you no originality? It's just not funny. I love YGOTAS, but that doesn't mean I want to read shitty fanfiction that rips it off. Just stop. It's even worse when people write fanfiction from other series using the jokes from YGOTAS. It just...doesn't apply. What is wrong with you people?

I really, really wish people would read through their stories before they post them. It bugs me when I go to read a story and the grammar and spelling is so bad that I can't even make out what is being said or what is supposed to be happening. I can't not focus on all of them. I think stories should be reread at least two times by the writter, and then once by someone else. This is why we have beta readers people. I mean, while writting this and reading it over I found mistakes and fixed them. Granted I know I'm not the best at spelling and everything, but at least I try!

I agree with pretty much everything you said. All of those things annoy me, I mean if you don't know what your doing while writing a fanfic why even bother, if your writing you always need to research just like you said, and the random character adding is what I find one of the most annoying things, I think you need to write on the basics of what people already now and progress from that but not making crazy jumps and writing things that make no sense in a fanfic. Also the spelling and grammar I've read some fanfics where I can barely understand what I'm reading because of people not checking over their work. But that's just my opinion on some things 4laugh