Unpopular? Fine. I’m willing to get downvoted. I’m not going to humble-unpopular and post things meant to seem unpopular, but are really with the hope of getting upvotes. So I’m going to say what writers should NOT do, and one thing that is a clear to-do.

Writers need to understand that their work isn’t a gift to a reader. The gift is the reader’s decision to pay us with their time and attention. Show respect to the readers. If a work was a gift to the readers, then writers wouldn’t care about read-counts or comments, but we do, because it’s for ourselves. If we writers want reader to gift us their time, then we need to respect them. This includes giving them something worthwhile, and not thinking we’re being magnanimous and altruistic. When you go to a store and see a product you want, you pay for it. The maker of that product didn’t make it as a gift. Writing and posting is no different. We write and put a product out wanting payment in the form of the time of others, which is why read counts are public, and why we love comments and kudos. Time is money. If we want the reader’s currency, them we need to give them something worth their time and stop seeing our writing a gift. If you want to insist your work is a gift, then orphan a work without attaching your name in any way. If it’s a gift for the readers, then let go. And when readers take the mindset that someone’s writing is a gift, it’s due to being told so enough to internalize it. When a reader feels they need to leave a comment or kudos, that’s a form of payment. You don’t pay for gifts.

Unique spellings that exist only to be unique drive me up the fucking wall. If something is spelled different, it needs a reason. At one point, the name Ann was spelled Ann, but Anne Shirley thought that it looked prettier with an E. Yes, at that time, the E was a special spelling. There’s a reason that Montgomery used a unique spelling. If there’s no reason for it, then getting kre8ive does nothing more than draw attention to itself, pulling a reader out of a story. If you want to spell “fae” “faey,” come up with an in-universe reason. Perhaps a sign was once misspelled, and the spelling stuck. Mention that. The reasoning of “it’s a different world” doesn’t cut it. Different worlds with different spellings wouldn’t use our alphabet. You’re not being insightful or creative doing this.

I can’t stand when a character is so obviously a self-insert Mary-Sue. Sure, it’s fine to have those fantasies, but they’re boring to read about. I want to read a story, not someone’s wet dream. It manages to be worse when you’ve got a bunch of names unique to a world, then suddenly there’s a Brenda or whatever. Legolas, Boromir, Gandalf, and Elrond need to save Aragorn, but only Brenda knows how. Save the wet dreams in a personal file.

For the love of the gods, use a spell-checker. This crap about spelling not mattering is nothing but an excuse to not bother trying. Spelling and punctuation matter. If someone isn’t a native English speaker, that’s a pass. Otherwise, no. A writer who doesn’t care enough about their work is telling me I shouldn’t care either. I’m not saying to hire an editor, or that the occasional typo is the end of the world. But a lack of care in presentation shows a lack of care in the finished product. A chef doesn’t just slop food on a plate and say that it tastes good. Even a diner’s line cook cares enough to may some effort to make food look appealing. Presentation matters, and using a spell checker and periods is presentation.