While I could do it like Ezn and say, "Learn the rules before you break then.", I decide to write them down here. Mainly for me, because I'm not a native speaker. I have the feeling I do something wrong.
Full Stop/Period:
It ends a full sentence. Place a space after it, not before.
Periods can be used in for Abbreviations.
Examples being: i.e. , etc. or e.g..
Ones like Mr, Mrs or Dr can be written with or without Periods.
The British do without, i.e. Mr Mrs Dr, and the Americans with, i.e. Mr., Mrs. or Dr.
Which is new for me. I actually wasn't sure until researching what is correct. Both is.
You see, I try to write the type of English matching my Fics. Harry Potter fics in British English and Spider-Man in American English.
Also:
British English: a.m./p.m.
American English: AM/PM
a.m. feels wrong. It looks so "naked"?
Comma:
Like the Period, put a space after it. Not before it.
The Comma has three functions:
It is used to separate Items on a List, but use the 'and' for the last two. You can put a Comma in front of the 'and', both styles are fine.
Use Commas with certain conjunctions. Examples being 'and', 'but', 'so' and 'or'.
This is now the more complicated use. Use two commas to add non-essential information to a sentence.
Non-essential means you can ditch the information and the sentence would still make sense.
But let's not forget that they can change the meaning of a sentence.
Let's eat, Mama!
Let's eat Mama!
They create a slight separation.
Colons:
They introduce examples, explanations or details.
You mentioned something in general before the colon and get more specific after it.
Semicolon(;)
They are similar to a Period. They are set at the end of a full sentence. There has to be a difference, have you ever seen somebody end a sentence on a semicolon?
The idea before and after are connected. Here is an example:
I don't understand why he is sad; she kicked him out, kept him intentionally poor and gave his money to his bully.
You could separate this into two sentences, but they talk about the same thing.
A semicolon does not need conjunctions.
Apostrophes:
The first use is ti replace missing letters. Like in 'isn't.
Another use would be the showcase of possession.
Examples:
Delia's Pokémon
James' Genius
Like you see, it is used differently. The name James ends on an S already. It makes no sense to add another one.
Well, you could write James's, if you pronounce both S, but who does that? It just sounds weird and is not needed.
You can nouns that way.
His father's friend's crush was more of an obsession.
I have to admit, this is a very clunky method, but it is a possiblity.
It can be used to make something plural. But only in the niche situation that you need to plural letters.
How many f's are in the German word Schifffahrt?
That's the most niche use I have ever seen!
Hyphen:
They are used to make compound words, more specifically adjectives.
Like 'six-hour flight'.
Compound words with numbers are always written with hyphens. The same goes for some prefixes. Ex-, Self- and Non- need hyphens.
They are also required for prefixes with proper nouns or numbers.
anti-European
post-1950 politics
The same goes for compound numbers and fractions.
three-quarters of the population
Twenty-three
If you are unsure with the numbers, just write the numbers.
Dash:
Until writing this, I had no idea what they are for. My teachers never bothered. While they look like hyphens, they are not the same.
There are two types.
En Dash: a space on either side
Em Dash: no space, they touch.
They have the same function. Just pick one and stick to it.
Said function is to add information to a sentence. They act like a Comma. Dashes are preferred if the information doesn't flow with the sentence. If it flows or not is your choice.
I recommend using dashes whenever you can. Unlike Commas, they have only one job.
Quotation Marks:
This is what I still struggle with. My native language works differently and learning Spanish doesn't help my confusion regarding them.
There are two speech marks, singles and doubles.
They do the same thing, it doesn't matter what you use. But it is recommended to use the doubles, if you quote something someone says.
It can be separated from the speech tag by colons, commas or whatever, or by nothing. Just stay consistent.
Something else that doesn't matter is if the end punctuation is in the marks or not. Again, just stay consistent.
Speech Marks can be used in different ways.
This 'tea' you drink, smells suspiciously like coffee.
They can be used to express irony, sarcasm or scepticism. I tend to use the singles for this, compared to the doubles I use for speech.
This can also be used to refer to words as words.
'Chatoyancy' is a pain to spell, but is fun to say.
This way you refer to the word specifically and not the idea they normally convey.
Parentheses:
Once again, something my teachers never bothered with!
Once again, these can be used to inject non-essential information. In most cases, they are used to add figures, statistics and names.
Or you use it to give your readers options.
Leave a comment (or comments)!
Question Marks:
If a sentence asks something, end it with a Question Mark.
Exclamation Marks:
They are used to add emotions to a sentence.
Try to not overuse them. Overuse can make them meaningless.
Square Brackets:
They are used by an editor to endicate extra information.
Slash:
It is, besides to refer to gay porn fics, used to indicate the word 'or'. It can also be used to separate the day, month and year of a day.
Ellipsis Points:
They have two uses. To omit words [they are left out] or to create pauses for effect.
Like Exclamation Marks, these can be overused. And the Fanfiction community likes to overuse them hard.
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Absolute Fanfiction Writing Advice
FanfictionI wrote and read Fanfiction for five years. In these five years, I learned many things. But these is still a lot to learn for me. To celebrate my five year anniversary, I want to collect said knowledge. While not all is stuff I learned over the last...
