Writing Tips

Part 1 (Dialogue, Paragraphs, Their There and They're)

A/N: Enjoy my kittens and random jams!

Hello my lovelies! If you followed my old account, XxDarkSuccubsxX, you may know that I had a story on there dedicated to writing tips. When I deleted that account, that story was lost with it. I don't know if it just didn't save on my laptop or what happened. So, let's start over, shall we?

I'm just going to touch on some grammatical things that I've noticed when skimming through stories on here. Before, a lot of people had commented on specific things they wanted me to go over. So if there is something that you would like me to touch on, let me know and I shall see what I can do. ^-^

General Grammar and Punctuation

Dialogue:

One thing I have noticed when reading on here, that drives me insane, is there are a lot of people that will have multiple characters talking in the same paragraph. (HOT MESS EXPRESS!) You should be starting a new paragraph, every time somebody new is speaking.

Example of how it should look:

"I heard there was a sick party over the weekend." Bobby commented.

"It wasn't that great." Natasha replied.

Example of how it should NOT look:

"I heard there was a sick party over the weekend." Bobby commented. "It wasn't that great." Natasha replied.

If you have several people talking in the same paragraph, you'll probably lose readers, especially if they're anything like me. It can confuse your reader, no one will know who is talking and aint nobody got time for that. (insert meme) For everyone's sanity, please start a new paragraph when somebody else starts speaking.

Paragraphs:

Paragraphs are your friends. I have seen stories, where it is just a huge chunk of text, in one paragraph. I'm sorry, if I open a story and see that the text is not split up into paragraphs, I'm not even going to read it. It is so much easier for people to lose their spot when reading if there aren't paragraphs. (Quick Note: Remember that the beginning of a paragraph should be indented, but wattpad seems to structure that out of it, but for school stuff keep that in mind for your grades sake haha)

Paragraphs vary in length but are typically more than three sentences. Obviously if there is dialogue they'll probably be smaller. If you're writing in a word document and your paragraph is an entire page in length, maybe consider adjusting it. Read through it see if there is a break in the idea, concept or action that you can branch off another paragraph for. (Did that make sense? I feel like I'm not making sense...I need more coffee!!!)

Here's a good link for structuring paragraphs that can help with any type of writing, not just for fun but could even be useful for writing prompts for school.

Link: http://theeditorsblog.net/2011/03/15/writing-basics-the-paragraph/ 

 Their, There, and They're:

The struggle is real with this one. I don't know what is going on in schools, is the education system failing everyone? This is a huge problem (not just on wattpad...funny enough I see it on my facebook all the time....like from adults....with like adult jobs that kind of depend on having good writing skills...hahaha.. not to be mean I know it happens to us all at some point or other, I get it, I've struggled before too and I'm sure if I reread all of my stories I'd find at least one misused somewhere... haha) I'm going to include a handy link from dictionary.com if anyone would like to reference it.

Link: http://www.dictionary.com/e/their-there-theyre/

Their- possessive case of the pronoun they

Example: Their lunchbox has kittens on it.

They're- is a contraction of they and are

Example: They're going to be late to class again. (could also be written as: They are going to be late to class again.... See... same sentence ^-^)

There- is an adverb and essentially means "in or at that place" also used as a pronoun introducing a clause or sentence

Example: There appears to be a dog running loose in the school. 

I don't want to make these too horribly long (then it might feel like a lecture). I think I'll try to stick to 3 or so topics per chapter. Please let me know what specifically you would like me to go over. Before, I know a lot of people had requested more story building type stuff, like characters and all that. But I can't remember the specific topics. So comment anything you'd like me to talk about or if you would prefer, feel free to message me. 

Have a magical day!

Video- "Closure" By Chevelle

Picture: My kittens!!!