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Lesson 1: Pre-Flight Check—Grammar and formatting 101.
I'm starting with this because it's rare to get someone who can get this down in the fanfiction world.
PART OR PRAT?
Mind your spelling, since it can cause huge changes in the way your story will go. For example, you wouldn't say that beatles were a common household pest, as they are actually a rock group.
English words have other words that sound the same but mean different things and are spelled differently, For a mostly comprehensive list, I'd suggest reading the TV Tropes article Rouge Angles of Satin. But tbe most common ones are:
its/it's—it's is a shortened version of it is, what you would say when you want to describe something, and its is the possessive, someone has something. For example, the locomotive could not move, its coupling rods weren't in place yet, but it's ready.
your/you're—you're is shorthand for you are. You're reading this sentence. Your is possessive, like its. Your warm drink gets cold as you're browsing the internet.
they're/there/their—They're is they are, there is a place, and their is possessive.
TELL ME WHEN TO STOP.
Another error I've seen is in regards to full stops in dialogue. When you write dialogue, punctuation becomes more complex. For most instances, you don't follow the quotation mark with a capital letter, as in "'Help me!' He asked", unless the following word is a proper noun, since that is very awkward, and reads as a quote followed by an action, rather than a dialogue tag, a way to indicate who said what usually in the form of [character] [tone of voice or vocal action], like for instance he said or Jane inquired.
However, if there is a full stop in the sentence, as in "'I've been shot.' He wasn't lying", do capitalise the next word.
The accepted form to ending a statement in dialogue when you're planning to continue is the comma, since full stops are just that—the complete end of a single thought. Commas are simply indications of pause, so put one where your character pauses or you want to separate something.
Don't use ellipses, also known as "dot dot dot", unless you want to portray extreme pauses, such as the pauses in the G-Man's speeches in Half-Life. Like this:
"Well, it seems we won't be working together. No. . .regrets, Mister Freeman. Although, there are a few. . .survivors of your. . .personal holocaust, who would like the chance to meet the man responsible for the total annihilation of their race."For the most part, ellipses are used not for dramatic tension, but as an extended comma.
When using dialogue tags, in order to cut out a large amount of writing, you can omit the dialogue tags after the characters are first introduced in the paragraph. This works best with scenes using only two characters or ones where it is made clear who is talking through other means—speech mannerisms, being addressed, using their own name, etc.
Also, don't use adverbs for most of the story, since they are best used subtly.
ADJECTIVE HELL.
Adjectives are words that are used to describe nouns. It's best to avoid them for the most part, we'll come back to those in due time.
PARAGRAPHS—TL;DR OR SHORTER THAN CHANDRA DANGI?
Paragraphs should not be too long, the recommended length for one is between three and ten sentences. However, if you have a thought you can't fit in with the paragraph you're on, you can put it in a new paragraph. This is the standard for dialogue, you generally want to have characters speaking in new lines for each of them.
Paragraphs are used to break up a work, so use them to your advantage.
CAPITALS, BIG LETTERS, AND OTHER ASSORTED LARGE THINGS.
Capitals are used to mark proper nouns, starts in sentences, showing a change in tone, and ear-deafening sound. The gun went BANG! and the cyclops was HUGE.
Another thing used for these is large letters. This can be used for great effect in particularly tense scenes.
The final use of capitals or big letters is for titling something. This is because the eye is naturally drawn to large symbols, and it is effective as a text break when lines aren't available.
(BONUS!) AUTHOR'S NOTES AND "I DON'T OWN THIS PROPERTY" DISCLAIMERS.
Author's notes are used as a way to quickly convey behind-the-scenes notes and as a way to generally augment a text. However, they are most often abused. The first type of abuse I want to talk about is inline author's notes, where the author inserts a note after the sentence of interest. This kills the flow of a story and bogs your readers down with unnecessary information. There is another type, the ones who use the notes as a sort of pre- or post-show sketch. As these are usually done in script form with blatant mischaracterisation, it's best to avoid these as they often aren't funny. Notes aren't a place to write down miniature comedic breaks in a story, and all they do is deflate the reader's suspension of disbelief, the exact opposite of what an author's end goal is.
The I don't own [property] dsclaimer is a legal disclaimer stating the author doesn't intend copyright infringement, and that the original property is not theirs. I hate to break it to you, but this is the worst possible thing to do. Not only are you posting this on a fanfiction website, a flimsy admittance of guilt will do nothing in courts, and in fact you lose the ignorance plea. Not that you had one in the first place, though.
Don't worry, because unless you get mega godly popular, no rightsholder would waste their time suing you. Even if you did, most rightsholders are not hostile toward fanfiction authors. And even worse is when these are turned into mini skits. They weren't funny before, and now you add in the obnoxious and cliché line, and you have a recipe for disaster. A better course of action is being cease and desist compliant.
Class dismissed.
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