okay vs ok

It's all about personal preference, but overall, "okay" is easier on the eyes than its aggressive cousin, Ok.

nouns

There are two types of nouns: Proper, and common.

Proper nouns would be:

Names, brands, countries, cities, the names of places, events, days of the week, months

Example:

Name: Candice
Brand: Philippine Airlines, Pringles
Country: America
City: New York City
A name of a place: Central Park
Event: Christmas
Day of the week: Friday
Month: February

Proper nouns ALWAYS have their first letter capitalized.

And these are common nouns:

professions, places, things

Profession: nurse
Places: café
Things: chair

However, in the 'professions' part, there is an exception to the rule.

If the profession is a title of a person (Ex. Doctor Stanly), then capitalize it.

sentences

Part 1: The Basics
Whenever you start a sentence, ALWAYS capitalize the first letter of the first word in the sentence.

Example:

She is happy.

When you have two sentences, always put a space in between.

Example:

She is happy. I am sad.
                       ^
There is a space.

Part 2: Punctuation

Always remember to add punctuation, or else your sentences will become a running sentence.

Example:

She is so happy she likes food I like food she says I love you then we go to the shop and then we eat

This becomes hardly understandable. People tend to like to understand stories.

Also remember there is a function for every punctuation mark.

! - to show exlamation
? - indicates a question
. - ends a statement
, - connects two clauses/phrases together
; - also connects two clauses together
" - used for dialogue
' - used to show possession

Bonus Part: Clauses

A clause is a group of sentences that have a subject and a predicate.

An independent clause can stand alone.

Example: She is pretty.

A dependent clause can't stand alone.
Example: When she goes to the super market,

It can't stand alone because it doesn't make any sense.

1) A simple sentence consists of a single independent clause.
Example:
They learned a dance with variety of steps.
Both my uncle and aunt enjoy camping.

2) A compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses. They are connected by a comma and a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) or by a semi colon.

Example:
Alice skimmed the leaves from the pool, but she forgot to add chlorine.
Stan read the book last Friday; he wrote his essay yesterday.

3) A complex sentence consists of one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. They are connected by a subordinating conjunction (before, after, when, while, unless, until, although, even though, though, even if, if, because, and since)

Example:

No one answered the phone when she called us.
When it started to rain, the game was cancelled.

breathe vs breath

A little something I've been noticing all around wattpad was the use of breath and breathe.

Many people switch up the way they use it, either that or that might've been a typo. But I still see it frequently so I'd like to tell you what's the difference between the two.

'Breath' is like bad breath. It means your breath, something you exhale/inhale. It's a noun. (A word other than a pronoun used to identify a class of people, place, events, animals, things)

'Breathe' is to breathe. An example would be "I breathed in the the fresh air." Breathe, with an e, is a verb. (A verb is a word expressing an action)

capitalization

Who On Earth Writes Like This?? dont write like this either. it's not correct and although i don't see this often, it still happens. (unless it's intended, like in a poem book.)

Now I understand that of course, typing is difficult. Especially when you just want to vomit all your ideas onto the screen so your story can write itself. But afterwards, go over it and edit all of those mistakes.

The rules are: capitalize I and I'm/I am (basically in first person, capitalize "I" like "I ran to him"). After finishing a sentence, make a space and capitalize the first letter of the first word.

See, something else I notice is when they type sentences like this:

I ran to him.he hugged me. Or alternatively, I ran to him.He hugged me.

Applying the rule above, put a space between the period (.) and the next sentence and capitalize the first letter of the first word. So it should become I ran to him. He hugged me.

Also capitalize proper nouns (ex: names) and titles (ex: King Henry, The Blood of Olympus).

*in titles, don't capitalize prepositions

Another thing: when there is dailogue ending with a question mark or an exclamation point, don't capitalize the tag (she said/he said).

Ex: "I don't know!" she cried, throwing her hands up in frustration.

"Is it even possible?" he asked.

come vs go

I noticed that people mistake 'come and go.'

So when using it, remember going there and coming here.

So "I'm going to your house." Or "You're going to the mall, right?"

And "You are coming here tomorrow." Or "I'm coming to this spot later."

numbers

If you need to write a specific amount/you need to write in numbers (ex. "on the count of three") you should actually type the number out. Instead of writing 2 or 5 write two or five. Unless it's a number that's really high (say... 30,000,000) typing out the numbers would look a lot more pleasing to the eye.

There is an exception for years and dates, such as January 1, 2019, March 22, 2019, or the 90's.

then vs than

I've noticed that in a lot of books, people confuse then and than.

Then is to indicate time, or a sequence of events.

Example:

Then she decided that is was best if she left the room.

Or...

Then maybe you should go eat.

Than is used for comparing, paired with an adjective (in the comparative form, i.e. more, less, thinner, thicker, softer, bigger, smaller, shorter, taller, etc)

Example:

She's taller than me.

I'm thinner than a stick.

a vs an

I've noticed that some books make this mistake often:

A apple
A elephant

And it isn't as common of a mistake as others, but I'll address it anyway.

You use an when the word following it starts with a vowel sound.

An apple
An elephant

You use a when the following word starts with a consonant sound.

A car
A dog
A unicycle

(u sounding like "yu")

thru/tho vs through/though

You know, several people might not want to follow this specific tip but I'll give it anyway-only because it looks better in general.

Like the whole "okay, ok" thing, we also have "tho, though," and "thru, through."

I know it's probably very hard to type in three extra letters after tho, but please, when you edit, try considering changing the spelling.

I'm not trying to be condescending... *glances at previous paragraph*...maybe... and I'm not saying it's wrong, it's just (for me) easier to read.

And, if you want to become a published author, or not, whatever-all editors would say the same thing.

Maybe in the future, when English has evolved yet again and it's acceptable to use tho and thru in formal English writing, then maybe.

could have vs could of

GUYS.

It's could have. As in, "she could've done this instead of that." Not "she could of done this instead of that."