Fanfiction Editor Hell

So I'm sure not many people know this about me, but I'm a Beta Reader (Editor) for Fanfiction.net.  It's not really a big deal as pretty much anyone qualifies to be an editor.  Most of the people I edit for seem to be pretty satisfied though, and my client list keeps growing larger with every week.  That being the case, I feel slightly qualified to tell you that you should believe me when I say that not everyone is meant to be a writer.  I've had the privilege of beta reading for at least two or three truly excellent authors.  They purely use my help to get feedback and smooth out some basic grammatical errors.  I've got no problem with that.  That's what I'm here for.

What truly irritates me is when I'm correcting every other word or every second sentence.  Worse still is when the author asks me about how they should make a character, or to describe what kind of skills someone has.  I am not the author.  Don't hand me a basic idea and then ask me to make it for you, that's not what I do.  Another great policy to keep is that if you reread your fic and it doesn't make any sense, it won't make any sense to me either.  If you just want to write something and hand it off to someone else to make it magically beautiful, when you get it back it's going to look something like this:

Pretty scary right?  All of the red is stuff that I wrote or edited.  The black is what made it from the original.  Unfortunately, this writer is only one of many that has had editing issues.

Another massive beef that I have is when fanfiction writers try to incorporate youtube videos or music.

I know from experience that everyone at some point wants everyone to know what they're listening to when they write. Don't burden your audience.  If you like the music, describe how it makes you feel in your fanfiction.  Make your characters act to it.  To make us listen to stuff or watch stuff is the easy way out.  Not to mention, very few people actually like the same kinds of music.  No one is inspired by the same stuff.  Get over it.

Trust me, you'll thank me when it's all over...