Writers' Hotline

The Big G of Grammar

One of the must in writing is grammar. It can draw readers to your story, or chase away anyone who is interested in your story.

What does grammar include? We're talking about capitalisation, paragraphing, punctuation, dialogue grammar, tenses and sentence structure. 

So, it does have a broad spectrum and lacking any aspect of it can chase readers away. I can personally to being one of the readers who cannot read unless the grammar is good. 

Even for native English speakers, grammar can be difficult to fully grasp, so here we've laid out all the basic points of grammar you should be aware of when writing a story. 

1. Capitalisation

You only capitalise a word if it is:

- At the beginning of the sentence.
- Proper nouns like the names of cities, countries, companies, religions, language and political parties.
- Words like 'mum' and 'dad' when they are used as address. 
- First word of a quote, usually. 
- First word of a dialogue, usually.
- Days, months and holidays. Not seasons.
- Most words in a title e.g. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
- Time periods and historical events e.g. World War II.

Do not capitalise when:

- The word is not a proper noun.
- After a semi-colon, unless the word is a proper noun.
- Mentioning seasons.
- Numbers e.g. sixteenth, second, first etc. 

Strictly speaking, even if someone makes a mistake in this regard, it's not that bad or distracting. So don't stress too much over it. 

2. Punctuation

This is slightly easier. You don't need to use complicated punctuations, but knows the basics properly. 

A. Full-stop — at the end of the sentence. No space before it, and there must be space after it. 

B. Comma — has multiple uses:
- to list things.
- to separate phrases. 

A way to know where to put the comma is to read the sentence aloud and wherever you stop to take a breather is where you put a comma.

This is actually not very reliable. The best way is look at the content of the phrases. If the phrase cannot be a full sentence, place a comma. If the phrase can stand alone, place a full-stop. Read this paragraph for example. 

There must be no space before it, but there needs to be a space after it. Read this sentence again. 

C. Question marks — self-explanatory. 

Sometimes, to express sarcasm, deadpan, or rhetoric, it can be replaced with a full-stop. E.g. Can you not. It's phrased as a question, but to express emotion, the question mark has been replaced with a full-stop. 

D. Exclamation Mark — self-explanatory.

A mistake some writers make is overusing the ! 

Understand that usually when a person is reading, the inner voice is very calm. The ! can interrupt the flow of the story. Plus, if it's overused, then when shock, surprise etc need to be conveyed, it won't be conveyed properly.

E.g. "Hello!"
"How are you?!"
"I'm good!"
"That's great!"

E. Colon — you don't necessarily need to use this. But this is usually followed by a list, or an explanation/elaboration. 

E.g. Her shopping list was rather short: milk, bread, chocolate and banana.

E.g. This is how it went: she went into the shop and the cashier began to harass her. 

F. Semi-colon

This is like in between the full-stop and comma. If there are two sentences which can stand alone but very connected to each other, you would use a semi colon.

E.g. She wore a red woollen hat; her late grandmother had knit it for her. 

G. Quotation Marks

- When adding in quotes, use single quotation marks. 
- Same if you are emphasising or bringing attention to something. E.g. It was a 'surprise'.
- Sometimes authors can use this to show that it's a character's thought. 

For dialogue, always use double quotation marks. All the grammar rules pertaining to dialogue will be in another chapter InShaAllah.

H. Dashes 

To add information in between, similar to a comma. 

E.g. She — and her cat — were always welcome. 

To show interruption in dialogue. 

E.g. "Liste—"

"No, be quiet."

Don't overuse dashes. If overused, they can interrupt the flow of the story. 

These are the most basic punctuation you will need while writing a story. Punctuation is very common, therefore mistakes in them can be very irritating to the eyes, and turn away readers. They are very easy fix and can make the presentation of your writing a whole load better. 

3. Paragraphing

Firstly, avoid chunks of writing. It can cause the reader to lose attention and interest. Personally, when I come across loooong paragraphs of writing, I skim them. This is even more so considering people on Wattpad read on the app. 

Always section them into paragraphs. How to do so? Keep the following in mind.

- When the scene changes.
- When the time changes.
- When a new incident occurs.
- When the thoughts of the character (whose POV is being followed) changes
- To bring attention to something.
- When different characters are speaking, there needs to be a new paragraph for each. 

Paragraphing is also part of the presentation of your story. Short, long and varied paragraphs can keep the reader's attention gripped to the story. Especially when you become proficient is using varied length of paragraphs to draw attention to the important aspects of your story. 

Compiled by -ScatteredPearlz-