**Originally posted elsewhere by a friend of mine.**
Hi there, Stasi here! As any of you who've ever spoken with me for more than about five minutes may know, I'm a bit a**l about my grammar and spelling and I claim my keyboard hates me when I make typos repeatedly. Seriously, sometimes I go over things about fifty million times when I write them. I'm guilty of occasionally going back to posts or stories months old and editing my phrasing or sentence structure that nobody else will notice because it bugs me. I haven't really called anyone on it, but be forewarned.
Anywho, now that we've established I'm picky about spelling and grammar, this was written up because I've noticed silly little mistakes we all make while writing coming up and wanted a place where we could get a quick primer. This won't be a comprehensive class (mostly because if it were I'd like a paycheck!) -- just something to make your writing in a forum roleplay setting a little stronger. Most of these tips are little things, really, but they pay off big-time in the long run look and feel of your post.
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First, a quick review of some terms I'm going to be using throughout this:
A noun is a person, place, or thing. Like ball, or girl, or house.
A pronoun can be used in place of a noun or a proper noun if you want to vary your writing. Words like she, he, it, and they are all pronouns.
A proper noun is the given name used for a person, place, or thing; Amanda, or London, or Paris, or Eiffel Tower.
An adjective is a describing word, used to tell us a little bit more about a noun -- the big girl, the old house, the scary dog.
A verb is an action word! Like jump, run, say, sigh -- anything that describes an action.
An adverb is like an adjective for a verb -- it's used to describe a verb. Quietly walked, joyfully said, powerfully hit...you get the idea.
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When writing dialogue, unless you have a specific sentence attached to the dialogue, make the dialogue it's own paragraph.
Joe, who had been watching Kara stretch instead of the sidewalk in front of him, ran into the streetlight with a hollow 'thunk'.
"Ow!!!"
Now, to clarify what I meant about "attachments": attachments are short little sentences that tell us exactly what the speaker is doing in the very moment they're speaking. Usually these are things like "she sighed" or "he laughed" or "she rolled her eyes" or something like that.
Harriet shook her head. "No, you can't put that knife away just yet, it's still covered in blood."
Also make a new paragraph if you're changing point of view or if another character is speaking.
"Is that it?" Gary whispered in awe.
"Yeah..." Veronica replied, voice hushed.
With that said, here's an example of all three of these "rules" in action:
"Seriously, Matt, it's our two-month anniversary! You could have scheduled the Halo tournament for another night!" Tina looked furious. "You promised me we'd go out tonight."
"Babe, don't be mad..." Matt began, but Tina cut him off.
"Don't you "babe" me!"
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The only things that get capitalized are the first word of a sentence and any proper nouns. Proper nouns are the names of people, places, or things, like the Eiffel Tower, or Kristen, or London.
Evan grew up in London, England; understandably, he was a little amused by Ashley's awe when he said he had been to Big Ben multiple times before.
