Writing Pet Peeves

Okay so I just kind of want to get this off my chest a little, I'm not trying to be rude I just want to express myself: I hate misused punctuation/text speak/spelling mistakes/colour for unneeded colour.

Ever since I had a whole lesson before an incredibly important English exam it's come to my attention how many times people (and myself) has misused punctuation. For example the dash (-) people use it to put unneed information between, like an Author's Note or just like (and I shall quote myself here "it's come to my attention how many times people - and myself - has misued punctuation" a dash is for a longer pause, a place to put the comma when the comma shouldn't be used. Dashes make an awesome (just not as awesome as ellipsis) cliff hanger for the middle of a sentence. "The door opened with a loud shuddering creek - it was all over." Now the best way to end that sentence would be with an ellipsis (I don't know if spelling it right). "The door opened with a shuddering creek - it was all over..." When I type out an ellipsis every dot I make I go "DUN! DUN! DUN!" and I think this is a really clever way for people to remember that it's - ..., not - ...................................... (now this really aggravates me).

Have you ever saw a novel/story with text speak? No? so uve nvr saw smthin a bit lyk this thn? uve neva saw sm1 rite lyk this? uve neva red a story lyk this? r u sure? Positive (it hurts my brain thinking of all the text speak)? If the answer is yes then there is only one way the author should have used it - in an informal electronical mail device thingymabob! Whether this be a mobile phone or electronic mail, 'text speak' should only appear in writing then (or making a point like I did).

Spellnig misstakes. Everyone makes them. I admit that I do. Hell half the time I get my words the wrong way round in a sentence. This is why I use Microsoft Word, and then after read over the document just to proof (I just spelt proof like prrof) read and then I use Spell Checker (F7) then proof read again incase I accidently changed something I didn't mean too.

Another thing is colour in unneeded places. I once read a story on Mibba where there were a bunch of people that wrote notes to each other and each person had a different coloured pen but eventually everyone's pen colour ran into the same colour, and it got really confusing because you had to have a guide the author made, up next to the story. If you're going to have note passing for more than two people say something like "It was Brian's messy scrawl 'Hey r u's goin to DQ after skl?' Shannon's was underneath 'COURSE!'"

My top tips:
1 when typing out an elipsis think DUN DUN DUN!
2 colons (:) never use after 'is' or 'are'
3 (stupid I know) capital letters for 'I', place names 'England' and names of people 'Erin McKnight' and at the beginning of a sentence 'It was a dark dreary night'
4 spelling - USE MICROSOFT WORD! You can get it for free on the internet (just the older versions) or if you can't get that use a spell checker an add your whole chapter in their once you're finished writing it (or just write it in there) but I think that investing your money in Microsoft is worth it
5 brackets are for information that doesn't have to be there (not dashes)