it ' s considered good practice to not use contractions in 3 rd person limited unless you ' re writing dialogue . Hmm . Maybe it depends on the style of the 3 rd person limited ? Or the specific instance ? Because sometimes my 3 plimited is almost directly conveying the character ' s thoughts and changing didn ' t to did not disrupts the flow . But in all , it is good to be a ' snob . ' If we ' re working on growing and improving as writers , it ' s not necessarily easy , nor should it be , to just switch off our standards for other less skilled writers . We don ' t owe them our eyes if they won ' t bother looking good . Don ' t worry , a lot of us care . We want the better writing to rise to the top and we don ' t always have patience for poor work . TLDR There is no good reason to hate yourself for having standards . Don ' t be silly .