Improving your stories!

First: use punctuation damnit!

Just as the title of this rant chapter says: Use punctuation!

Time and time again I can't understand if this character is speaking or is in internal monologue! And I'm pretty sure that most, if not all people hates this.

If you don't know about speech marks or is oblivious to what's they are used for, here's a quick rundown presented to you by Professor Google:

Quotation marks, also known as quotes, quote marks, quotemarks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks, are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase.

For example!

bruce slammed the door open with a big thud matt where the hell did you hide my tea set bruce growls at me oh god i knew that taking his tea set to impress my teddy bear was a bad idea i thought to myself inching away from my long time friend who was starring at me with a burning rage that only one who is trying to get their tea set back can process its in my room i quickly spill hoping mr teddy won't mind bruce taking his tea set back

Irritating right? Even reading back on it I can't make heads or tails on what the hell is going on! But with the magic of speech marks: we can start making this paragraph make sense!

bruce slammed the door open with a big thud "matt where the hell did you hide my tea set" bruce growls at me 'oh god i knew that taking his tea set to impress my teddy bear was a bad idea' i thought to myself inching away from my long time friend who was starring at me with a burning rage that only one who is trying to get their tea set back can process "its in my room" i quickly spill hoping mr teddy won't mind bruce taking his tea set back

But of course the paragraph needs a lot more work to correct for it to be in a story that I would read. Next on the agenda is something we call capital letters! An explanation for capital letters from Professor Google please!

Use capitals for proper nouns. In other words, capitalize the names of people, specific places, and things. For example: We don't capitalize the word "bridge" unless it starts a sentence, but we must capitalize Brooklyn Bridge because it is the name of a specific bridge.

So to use the capital of letters let's put it in our example shall we?

Bruce slammed the door open with a big thud "Matt where the hell did you hide my tea set" Bruce growls at me 'oh God I knew that taking his tea set to impress my teddy bear was a bad idea' I thought to myself inching away from my long time friend who was starring at me with a burning rage that only one who is trying to get their tea set back can process "Its in my room" I quickly spill hoping Mr Teddy won't mind Bruce taking his tea set back

Now we have capital letters down: we need full stops! Or periods if you use that term. We also need commas! Explain away Professor Google!

A full stop is the punctuation mark (.) which you use at the end of a sentence when it is not a question or exclamation. And a Comma (,) A comma marks a slight break between different parts of a sentence. Used properly, commas make the meaning of sentences clear by grouping and separating words, phrases, and clauses. To mark off certain parts of a sentence.

Speaking about punctuation marks there are more than just full stops and commas, there are {:}, {;}, {'}, {?}, And {!} which are called colon{:}, semi colon{;}, inverted commas{'}, question marks{?} and explanation marks{!}.

The colon has a number of functions: To introduce an idea. The colon has two main uses. Firstly it is used to introduce an idea that is an explanation or continuation of the one that comes before the colon.

A semicolon is made up of a comma with a dot above it. The most common use of the semicolon is to join together two clauses that could each be separate sentences — creating a longer sentence. The semicolon is often used to make the reader think about the relationship between the two clauses.

Inverted commas are punctuation marks that are used in writing to show where speech or a quotation begins and ends. They are usually written or printed as ' ' or " ". Inverted commas are also sometimes used around the titles of books, plays, or songs, or around a word or phrase that is being discussed. They are also used in abbreviations like 'didn't' which is a single word for 'did not' or 'it's' which is a single word for 'it is' 

The question mark [ ? ] (also known as interrogation point, query, or eroteme in journalism) is a punctuation mark that indicates an interrogative clause or phrase in many languages. The question mark is not used for indirect questions. The question mark glyph is also often used in place of missing or unknown data.

And last but not least! The exclamation mark, also sometimes referred to as the exclamation point in American English, is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or high volume (shouting), or to show emphasis, and often marks the end of a sentence, for example: "Watch out!"

Let's give our thanks to Professor Google for explaining this to us.

There's also using a question mark then a explanation mark and then another question mark to show that a question is being asked with an intense emotion or is just being shouted.

Now, let's apply this to our paragraph!

Bruce slammed the door open with a big thud. "Matt, where the hell did you hide my tea set?!?" Bruce growls at me. 'Oh God, I knew that taking his tea set to impress my teddy bear was a bad idea.' I thought to myself inching away from my long time friend who was starring at me with a burning rage that only one who is trying to get their tea set back can process. "It's in my room!" I quickly spill hoping Mr. Teddy won't mind Bruce taking his tea set back.

Now to make it the easier to read by separating the sentences. This helps the reader to go back to certain points in the story without having to search through endless paragraphs and to make your story look longer.

Bruce slammed the door open with a big thud. 

"Matt, where the hell did you hide my tea set?!?" Bruce growls at me. 

'Oh God, I knew that taking his tea set to impress my teddy bear was a bad idea.' I thought to myself inching away from my long time friend who was starring at me with a burning rage that only one who is trying to get their tea set back can process. 

"It's in my room!" I quickly spill hoping Mr. Teddy won't mind Bruce taking his tea set back.

Now this is done you can make your writing fancy by using bold, italics or underline but remember when using these, less is more... I suggest to only use italics for thoughts and flashbacks and bold with underlining for author notes.

Bruce slammed the door open with a big thud.

"Matt, where the hell did you hide my tea set?!?" Bruce growls at me.

'Oh God, I knew taking his tea set to impress my teddy bear was a bad idea' I thought to myself inching away from my long time friend who was starring at me with a burning rage that only one who is trying to get their tea set back can process.

"It's in my room!" I quickly spill hoping Mr. Teddy won't mind Bruce taking his tea set back

Now you know how to use grammar! Well done! You get a readable story!