I'm giving the basics here. I'm focusing on stories and stuff here. So though I may mention it, I'm not going into super detail on things that are proper vs improper forms of writing. I'm focusing on grammar and words that get confused.
Some of the sections require quite a bit of explanation. For some of these cases, I have instead chosen to provide a condensed link. If I didn't find a single website that contained all the information I believe necessary, then you will instead be stuck with a long section, lol.
THINGS IN THE FIRST SECTION THAT ARE MARKED "IMPORTANT" IN BOLD AND ALL ARE RULES I THINK ARE IMPORTANT TO KNOW.
Let it be known that I am not following the rules of writing and grammar in this "chapter" because I'm using colloquial. I will briefly get into colloquial in section 3 of part one. I also will probably be making mistakes when I'm writing. While the sections themselves are accurate, that's after putting a lot of thought into how to word things. I'm still learning with some of these things. Especially commas. My teachers tell me I overuse commas.
Here is a tip if you are someone who REALLY wants to know and get more into detail with proper "writing things" (e.g. like proper use of punctuation). Here are some things you might want to look up: hyphen vs. en-dash vs. em-dash; colons vs. semicolons vs. periods; then the evil pasts tenses: bit.ly/2HK6HoY, bit.ly/2sZbMzx (and I'm sure there are a more types; the English language is evil)
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School lessons you can ignore
Note: Some of these apply to your own writing. If you're writing something for a school assignment (especially for a writing class), you might not get away with some of this rule breaking. The same goes for your jobs; some employers might not end up caring, but it's better to be safe than sorry. ESPECIALLY if you're in the fields of journalism or PR. If you see someone else hand in a report that breaks these rules and they're okayed, then you're probably safe. You PR and journalist majors are almost never safe though. Stick to the rules; even the ones that are misconceptions.
There are two "types" of rules you can ignore here: real rules and misconceived rules.
Don't start a sentence with a conjunction: THIS IS NOT A REAL RULE
Conjunctions: "and", "but", "so", "yet", etc.
You may have been taught this in school, but the truth is, it's not an actual thing. Despite this, many people think it is, so some teachers and whatnot might not like seeing it in essays and stuff. There is one exception, though. This exception is when you are using a dependent clauses.
When you can't: "I got down on my knees and prayed." This cannot be rewritten as, "I got down on my knees. And prayed."
When you can: "I got down on my knees, and I prayed." This can be written as, "I got down on my knees. And I prayed."
The difference between whether or not you need it is whether or not the sentence can be understood by itself. "Prayed" is not a sentence. I haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about. What's going on here? If you put "I prayed" on a page with nothing else written on it, I know what you're saying. I may be missing some context, but I know what you're saying.
Now, usually, you're probably not gonna use such short sentences. Maybe you'll do it to emphasize for comedic or dramatic effect. Avoid it in essays, though. I say this from experience. The way I wrote it up there kind of suggests it's a serious situation, but I just wanted to show you when the exception is. Because of the suggested emphasis, you might want to hold back on how often you start short sentences with conjunctions or even making short sentences in general. Also, don't put a comma before the conjunction in the first example. We get more into that in the comma section.
