Good day everyone. I'm an avid reader of books and novels in general, but also fan fiction of any kind, so I've been noticing this really irking mistake when I compare professional writers to amateurs. As a sidenote, I'm not a native english speaker.
I am in complete shock about this particular mistake that I keep seeing over and over. Remember, the stories that I'm reading, while written by amateurs, are things with 200.000 words where there is a consistent and coherent plot with appropriate grammar and orthography, with really good descriptions, vocabulary and all kinds of cute writing techniques. But then, they go and commit this mistake: confusing "you're" and "your".
They don't know the difference between "your" and "you're", nor the difference between "they're" and "there". There are a few variations on this type of mistake that I'm not remembering at the moment, but it comes from the fact that, since the pronunciation is the same in both cases, the writer gets confused and uses the wrong option. In the most egregious cases, they will actually make two mistakes in the same sentence writing aberrations such as "you're hair is pretty and your beautiful".
When I read a sentence that contains this particular mistake, it makes me irrationally angry and have the urge to drop that particular read. It's like I've been immersing myself in this great story with great characters and then... it's ruined.
I know this is irrational, but when I see this mistake, it feels like I lose all respect I had towards the author and it sours the entire reading experience.
This topic is about writing in fanfiction or amateur writing, but also applies to reddit. It's just my irrational hate of this mistake talking, but I can say that I see this mistake in every single thread in this entire website.
Thank you for bearing with me and letting me vent my frustrations. I'll go back to reading and try to ignore these mistakes.
Edit: I've read all your responses. I can see that there is not a consensus about this topic, but at the very least I was able to share my point of view and read about what other people think.
Thanks a lot everyone, after all reddit is not such a bad place.
