Hey! Happy New Year!
It's been a long time since the last time I updated but anyway, I thank you for your patience. ^-^

So I did mention dedicating a chapter for technicalities. Punctuation, spelling, words that are often used by mistake and their difference, and paragraph.

Punctuation

Now the period, comma and even questions marks and exclamation points are often either forgotten, misplaced, or used unnecessarily.

For those who had English and basic grammar, we have to practice what we learned. And if some of you had forgotten somehow, you can always try to go back to the lesson or read other published books for examples. Hard back or paper back, because they have been edited to their best before being published.

For those who are struggling, that's okay, let's learn. ^-^

Just remember, use period at the end of a declarative sentence. A complete sentence with at least one complete clause with a subject and a verb.

Question marks (?)  for questions.

Exclamation (!) for sentences expressing strong emotion or when a character is shouting/ yelling/ raising her or his voice.

Use commas to separate sentences and indicate a pause. Don't overuse them that you end up forgeting to use a period to start another sentence. How?

Example:

I watched him, his eyes glued on mine, he walked to my direction and never blinked once, no matter how hard I try to keep my gaze, fixated on his figure, I couldn't help but stare at the floor.

Now what's wrong with that paragraph? It's frustrating to read because of using only commas and not having the help of periods. And writing like this will lead to confusing the reader if you are trying to put ideas in one paragraph without separating them with periods as well. It's better that the paragraph went like this with a little editing of words:

I watched him while his eyes glued on mine. He walked to my direction and never blinked once. No matter how hard I try to keep my gaze, I couldn't help but stare at the floor.

Now besides fixing the paragraph with placement of commas and period, I removed a phrase. When we write with ideas popping out of our heads, we tend to write unnecessary phrases and that may lead us to putting more commas than necessary. So re read your paragraphs as well and see if it makes sense and look for what should be edited out or rephrased if needed.

Spelling

Nothing much to say but please have a dictionary or use google for spell check.

The words your/you're, were/we're, their/there/they're.

I want to rant on how people can possibly be confusing these words but okay, everybody has their own pace in learning I guess.......

Nah, that's just an excuse.

Anyway, 'your' is a possessive noun, used to tell someone that they own something:

"This is your bag"

"It's your cellpone"

'You're' is a contraction of 'you are':

"You're so beautiful!"

"You're going to have to stop, lad"

So instead of "I'm not you're baby", it's "I'm not your baby".... well, you get the point.

Now, 'were' is used for plural objects and is the past tense of 'are'. Example:

Present tense: "we are friends for life"
Past tense: "we were friends"

Then 'we're' is another contraction of 'we are'. Example:

"We're friends"

And lastly, 'their' is a possessive noun. 'There' is an adverb used to tell the person a direction or where something is placed. 'They're' is a contraction of 'they are'.

I'm not trying to insult people of their level of knowledge but if I'm not going to call out the mistakes I'm seeing in many fanfics and original stories with these mistakes, people are going to keep doing them.

Lastly, Paragraphs

What I meant here is that, you have to know where to cut your paragraph so that it's not too long or too short.

According to what I've read and understood from a google search, while there are those who recommend to have your paragraphs not more than five sentences, the ideas of your paragraphs are what can determine whether you should stop and then continue in another paragraph.

After all, when it's a story you're writing, it depends on how you break your paragraphs. Discuss closely related ideas in one paragraph and when the topic shifts, you can continue in another paragraph so that you won't have to end up writing a long paragraph that will bore your readers.

Another one is writing conversations...

Imagine reading something like this:

"Hi!" I exclaimed and she jumped at my sudden appearance. "Oh my goodness! You scared me!" She cried and I burst out laughing at her face. She should've seen her priceless expression that it would've suited for another meme! She pouted "that's not funny!" I stopped laughing and looked at her "it was a joke, geez. Why so jumpy?" I grinned. "Non of your business! What are you doing here?" "Oh! Yeah, I just happened to find you and decided to scare you!" "you're going to give people a heart attack!"

People, this is frustrating, eye-burning, tiring, lazy, and improper.

If stories are supposed to be published like this then I'd rather not read them to save myself the torture.

Wouldn't it be better if it's like:

"Hey!"

"Oh! Hey, how are you?" the two women greeted each other and embraced.

"I'm so glad that you're here"

Now that's better, clear, and proper.

Don't compress conversations in a paragraph, you're not supposed to. There are some examples where there's at least two statements in one paragraph but only when the same person speaks the lines.

Example:

"What? Are you serious?" My mouth fell agape, "how did that happen?" I couldn't believe my sister would do that.

So far that's what I encounter in novels and other well-written stories here if I check the books.

And that's all for the technicalities, there's more but I'll save it for another chapter.

Bye!
~Zula