Welcome to Gaia! ::

Yo, I'm Shun, and I'll be invading your vital regions today. Not /that/, you silly little person. Your brain- the most important tool when roleplaying.

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.

Lesson I: Locating Problems with Word Choice

The best words are the ones that add to the meaning, tone, and sound of your writing. Here are some things you should look for when creating your posts.

+Redundancy; Avoid any words or phrases that are used together but mean the same thing, or close to the same thing.

SPACING]repeat againSPACINGred in colorSPACINGrefer back

+Repetition; Watch for words that are unnecessarily repeated in a series of sentences.

SPACINGThe man looked as if he were going to give in. The man was dressed in a torn yukata. I soon realized the man was homeless..Or a stalker.

+Usage Errors; Check for words used incorrectly.

SPACINGyou're / yourSPACINGthere / theirSPACINGeffect / affect

For a full list of these, visit this thread.

+Vague Modifiers; Watch for the overuse of vague words.

Vague Modifiers: nice, neat, good, great, funny, big
Colorful Modifiers: sympathetic, intricate, sleek

Lesson III: Understanding the Basics

This session, we are going to discuss the basics of sentence structure.

Subject- The subject has the grammatical function in a sentence of relating its constituent (a noun phrase) by means of the verb to any other elements present in the sentence, i.e. objects, complements and adverbials. Example: Pandora hit his fraccion. In this sentence, Pandora is the subject.

Predicate- A predicate is an expression that can be true of something- it is one of the two main parts of a sentence (the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies). Example: "Sanzo is crabby" Sanzo acts as the subject, and is crabby acts as the predicate, a subsequent description of the subject headed with a verb.

Verb- A verb conveys action or a state of being.
SPACEERSIntransitive Verb- the verb only has a subject. For example: "he runs", "it falls".
SPACEERSTransitive Verb- the verb has a subject and a direct object. For example: "she eats sushi", "we hunt nothing".
SPACEERSAdverb- Typically answer questions such as how?, in what way?, when?, where?, and to what extent?. In English, they often end in -ly.

Object- Objects fall into three classes: direct objects, adpositional objects, and non-prepositional indirect objects.
SPACEERSDirect Object- A direct object answers the question "What?" or "Who".
SPACEERSIndirect Object- An indirect object answers the question "To whom?" or "For whom?". An indirect object is the recipient of the direct object, or an otherwise affected participant in the event. There must be a direct object for an indirect object to be placed in a sentence.
SPACEERSObject Complement- Renames or describes the direct object. Example: The shinigami named Suzuran 'that crazy b***h'. In this sentence, the shinigami are the subject, the verb is named, the direct object is Suzuran, and the object complement is 'that crazy b***h'.

Noun- A noun is a person, place, or thing.
SPACEERSProper Noun- Nouns representing unique entities (such as Mikoto, Rukongai, Sai or Taichou.)
SPACEER)Common Noun- A noun that can be preceded by an indefinite article, and denotes any member, or all members of a class; an ordinary noun such as "dog" or "city."

Adjective- An adjective is a describing word which tells more about the noun.

Lesson V: Connecting Your Details

Once you've arranged all the details in your writing, you need to tie them together so that they read smoothly.

Words to SHOW LOCATION:

above
across
against
along
among
around
away from
behind
below
beneath
beside
between
beyond
by
down
in back of
in front of
inside
into
near
off
on top of
onto
outside
over
throughout
to the right
under



Words to COMPARE THINGS:

also
as
likewise
similarly
in the same way
like



Words to CONCLUDE or SUMMARIZE:

all in all
as a result
finally
last
therefore
to sum up
in summary
in conclusion