Cenonn's How to Holofic and Writing in General

Rules make things clear so grammar is important

Ah... Grammar... I've seen far too many Holofics that have pretty bad grammar to the point that I had to dedicate an entire chapter of this guide just to discuss it

I know. I know. English is not your first language so you'll make mistakes. Heck. Even people who have English as their first language would make mistakes. What do you expect from a non native speaker?

But as much as possible, try to have passable grammar. You don't want to confuse your readers because of a wrong grammar, right? I mean... A dramatic scene would be ruined if your grammar is bad. Strive to have good grammar and your writing will be easier to understand and more enjoyable to your readers.

So what is grammar? Grammar explains the forms or structure of the words and how they are arranged in a sentence. It is like the rules for a language to make sure that we deliver the correct message and not confuse each other.

There are eight building blocks in grammar and these are the verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions.

Verbs express actions, events, or statuses like "cook", "watch", and "stream."

Nouns are the names of a person, animal, place, thing, or abstract idea like "streamer", "idol agency", and "Suisei Hoshimachi."

Pronouns take the place of nouns or other pronouns like "I", "him", "your", and etc.

Adjectives modify nouns or pronouns by describing, identifying, or quantifying them like "modest", "funny", and "dangerous."

Adverbs modify a verb, adjective, another adverb, a phrase, or a clause by indicating manner, time, place, clause, or degree like "quietly", "tomorrow", "there", and "almost."

Prepositions link nouns, pronouns, and phrases to other words in a sentence and indicate a relationship of time, space, or logic. Examples are "before", "in front of", and "because of."

Conjunctions link words, phrases, and clauses like "and", "but", "or", and "so."

Learning how those eight things work are important if you want to properly convey your message. So I suggest you research them. Now let's talk about the two main parts of a sentence which are the subject and predicate.

The subject is who or what the sentence is talking about and most of the time, it is a noun or a pronoun. To find the subject, ask "who" or "what." The answer to those questions are the subject.

The predicate is what the subject is doing. A verb is the predicate most of the time but it can also be an adjective. Ask a "what is the sentence trying to tell about the subject" and you can find the predicate.

Always have a subject and a predicate in your sentences so you won't have fragmented sentences. Always check your sentences to make sure they aren't fragments. This is a common pitfall for authors.

Modifiers, phrases, and clauses add information about the sentence and the predicate. These three things make the writing more interesting and clear. A single word acting as an adjective or an adverb is called a modifier. Two or more words without a subject or a predicate and acting as an adjective or an adverb is a phrase. Two or more words that have a subject and a predicate and act like an adjective or an adverb is a clause.

Examples:

"fast" (Modifier) Complete sentence: "The fast dog ran away."

"the route to success" (Phrase) Complete sentence: "He's on a journey across the route to success"

"Because I was busy" (Clause) Complete sentence: "I cannot join tomorrow because I was busy"

Clauses are the basic building blocks of a sentence. If there's only one clause, it's a simple sentence.

Example: Suisei is cute.

However, using only simple sentences will make your writing sound childish. Even if you add modifiers, it'll still look like it was written by a six year old.

That's why we can make compound sentences. These sentences are two or more clauses joined by a conjunction that creates balance or contrast between the information presented.

Example: Suisei is cute but she's a psychopath.

Another type of sentence we can create is the complex sentence. A complex sentence contains an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. It develops a central idea, provides background information, and identifies the most important thought.

Example: Even if she is a psychopath, Suisei is still cute.

Your writing should have a mixture of simple, compound, and complex sentences to entertain your reader. Simple sentences are used to grab attention, compound sentences balance thoughts, and complex sentences show relationships between different information.

One important detail in writing is spelling. Luckily, most word processors nowadays have a built-in spell checker. But spell checkers are useless if you would misuse a word.

Learn the difference between words. "Affect" is different from "effect." "You're" is not "your." You're a writer so it's your responsibility to make sure that the words you use are correct. (See what I did there?) The Internet is always there to help you out. Don't be lazy to go to Google whenever you are unsure.

Another important thing you should take note of is the punctuation. Punctuation helps in trying to tell the exact meaning of a sentence and I am not joking if I say that wrongly using it will have drastic changes.

Let's look at two sentences as an example.

A woman, without her man, is nothing.

A woman: without her, man is nothing.

The first one is a sexist sentence while the second one talked about feminism. The difference is like heaven and hell.

I'll quickly go over how some punctuation is used.

A comma (,) is used when a reader has to pause. They are also used to separate the items in a series.

A semi-colon (;) is used to link independent clauses that are related to each other.

A colon (:) is used to introduce a list or summation. It is also used to link an idea that has been introduced as an independent clause.

A period (.) is used to end a sentence while speaking in a regular volume.

An exclamation mark (!) is used to end a sentence while implying that the speaker is shouting.

A question mark (?) is used to end a sentence that acts as a question.

A parenthesis ( () ) is used to enclose words that are not directly related to the main thought of the sentence but provide important detail or examples.

A quotation mark (") is used to indicate speech.

An apostrophe (') is used to indicate that letters are missing to form a contraction or shows possession. An example of a contraction is "it's", a shortened form of "it is." An example of possession is "dog's" which means that the dog owns it.

Of course, capitalization is also a good thing to know about. It's a rule that the first word of every sentence is always capitalized. Proper nouns are also always capitalized.

These are the bare minimum things you should know about grammar when writing a story. Having a good grasp of the concepts I talked to you in this chapter and your Holofic will already be better than the Wattpad average.

I'll now proceed to the next chapter and teach you about writing styles.