Things In Fanfiction That Melt My Brain Cells ☐

A/N

Oh. My. Gosh.

AUTHOR'S NOTES!!! The bane of my existence. Now I'm guilty of a lot of things, even some in this book like accidentally having lowercase I's, not hitting the enter button enough, and I am guilty of authors notes (a/n's). But the thing that separates me from the worse is that I actually delete them.

So I like to put authors notes in categories one isn't really more annoying than they other because they are both equally annoying. The first category is 'In Story Authors Notes'. These authors notes are inside of a chapter in a story for example:

A/n: I'm gonna be hiatus guys!

Stacy walked towards the fridge and when she opened it she noticed that someone ate all of her Feta cheese.

I am guilty of this authors note, while I don't mind them, the deal breaker for these is where you put them in your story. I usually say something funny, asking the readers a question. or alert people that I would be going on hiatus. These types of authors notes are ones I delete when I edit a book, so if the chapter or book hasn't been edited I leave them there.

So if one chapter would say that I am on hiatus the next one I publish would be telling the readers that I am off hiatus.

A tip for when you do these types of authors notes is italicize the text to people can differentiate your note to the actual story because not everyone is gonna read it and if it has the same look as the normal story it can be confusing to the readers.

1) Italicize your text or make it bold
a) you can also use symbols (which it do in addition to italics) to separate your note from the actual story.

Example:

Hey guys! What's your favorite color? Sorry the updates have been late! School has been rough for me but I hope to update more often!
••••••••

Margaret slapped Thomas right across the face. "Take that and think about it you cheater!"

••••

My rule with in story authors notes is to keep them at the start of the story or at the end of it. Try not to make them too wordy because if it were me I would definitely NOT read an authors note if it's too long.

Now one thing that I HATE (not really but it's annoying) are authors notes in the middle of a story. There is nothing more disruptive than that especially if they're pointless and make me disinterested in the story.

Example:

Thomas gently touch the side of his face and hissed at the stinging sensation. He started to cry a bit realizing his mistake of cheating on Margaret. (Omg y'all ever been to the circus and accidentally made eye contact with one of the clowns? 😳😬😰)

He decided to give Margaret some space and while he did he would try to come up with a plan to make it up to her.

•••

Do you see how disruptive that it? The emojis don't make it any better either. It takes away from an emotional part of the story and rips your right out of the moment. Any remorse I had for Thomas is gone now!

Another big issue with these types of authors notes is that you need to watch what you say in them. Not everyone will read them but some do! So don't spoil stuff in your story. What's the point of reading it then if you're just going to tell me in one paragraph?

Another version of this kind of thing is when something happens to a character or an event occurs and the authors note ruins it. It's the same thing but different.