6. grammar

This is my NUMBER ONE PET PEEVE when reading fanfictions.  Like it makes me so so upset because it's the EASIEST most UNIVERSAL problem to get past.  Like hello? Didn't you go to 5th grade??? You know where the periods and commas go, don't you???

^ me seeing no paragraph breaks in the dialogue

Please be for real.

Like does this make sense at all?

DONT:

Anakin walked up towards Karina. "You look beautiful," he said. "Thanks," she replied. "You're not so bad yourself." He replied, "Please, you're much more beautiful than I am." Anakin laughed. "I like your hair long," Karina told him. "You think so? Should I keep it?" "Absolutely." They came closer together, and Anakin's hands slowly reached around Karina's waist. "Do you think the mission is going to go okay tomorrow?" he asked her. "I think so," she said. "I have hope. I know I'm going to see you again soon." "I promise you, Senator," he said playfully, "you won't even get a chance to miss me." "I know." "You love me?" he said. "Always," she replied. They both smiled, then Karina kissed him.

That bothered me to write so so bad. It was so difficult. I had to make the grammar good because the paragraph breaks were so bad.

Trust me, guys, the enter button is your best friend when writing dialogue. (We don't want the choppiest two sentence paragraphs known to man, but in dialogue, even a one word paragraph is okay!)

DO:

Anakin walked up towards Karina. "You look beautiful," he said.

"Thanks," she replied. "You're not so bad yourself."

He replied, "Please, you're much more beautiful than I am." Anakin laughed.

"I like your hair long," Karina told him.

"You think so? Should I keep it?"

"Absolutely." They came closer together, and Anakin's hands slowly reached around Karina's waist.

"Do you think the mission is going to go okay tomorrow?" he asked her.

"I think so," she said. "I have hope. I know I'm going to see you again soon."

"I promise you, Senator," he said playfully, "you won't even get a chance to miss me."

"I know."

"You love me?" he said.

"Always," she replied. They both smiled, then Karina kissed him.

Ahhh. What a breath of fresh air. Isn't that nice? So so much easier to understand and read. 

Now there's so much I could teach you guys about writing dialogue.  It's my favorite part of writing fanfics, as I like to portray a lot of my story and character development through dialogue. I get it, it can be confusing— where does the comma go? When do I use it? What if I need an exclamation point or question mark?

Well, there's no one better to tell you that than me. (There definitely is someone better to tell you than me. I'm not a certified grammar teacher. I just write a lot. Anyways.)

"I just love speaking," she said.

Here, the sentence ends with a comma because there was a dialogue tag after the sentence.

What if the sentence ends in an exclamation?

"I just love speaking!" she said.

Technically, the she said. is still part of the first sentence, hence the reason why she is not capitalized. Same thing with a question mark.

She said, "I just love speaking."

This sentence ends with a period because the dialogue tag comes before it.

"This," she said, "is a slight pause, but still the same sentence."

Here, there was commas used before the dialogue tag, and after it, because the sentence she was speaking still continues after she said.

"I love speaking," she said. "It's fun to say words."

Here, I used a comma before the dialogue tag, but a period at the end of it, because our speaker had finished her sentence, and was moving onto a new one.

"I just don't know what to do." He sat down. "I wish there was some other way."

Every sentence here ends with a period. There is no dialogue tag— he didn't speak by sitting down, so it's a separate sentence from the dialogue.

"But Molly, isn't said overused? What are some other words I should use?" Alright, I gotchu. Yes, said is an insanely used word in dialogue. But it's necessary. You also don't have to be using dialogue tags, like I did a couple times in the dialogue between Anakin and Karina above— it was easy to know whose turn it was to speak, since there was only two people. With dual conversations, dialogue tags aren't always needed.

If your character is just saying something, just use "said." Said is a good word. Use it. I don't need it described every time how your character said a word. Use said more often than you use every other dialogue tag word, because that way, when you use a word other than "said" such as "whispered" or "shouted," it makes the action more stand out.

Don't do it every time, of course, but you can also use the "said adverb-ly" format. "he said quietly" or "she said slowly" can be good too, but again, don't overuse these things. "Said" loves you, and you should love "said" too.

Incorrect dialogue punctuation and paragraph breaks are the things that bother me the most— other stuff, I can usually withstand. But here are some images I took from Pinterest that I think are also suuuuper useful. Plus, this is just a glimpse into my writing Pinterest board (which I use every time I am writing a fic.)

Link to writing Pinterest board in comments! >

^ This one's a big one guys

Tumblr is also one of my personal favorite resources when it comes to writing. There's prompts, how tos, even grammar help like this. If you just search up the writing tips tag (I think you may have to have an account, but you can sign in with Google. It's no biggie) there is so much gold there. So many amazing writers live on Tumblr, though usually on Tumblr it's one-shot stories instead of long form fics.

Tumblr.com link >

Tumblr #writing tips search link >

POINT OF VIEW

The point of view of your story is basically whose voice all the writing is being told in. There are three main options: 1st person, 2nd person, and 3rd person. I know. Really self explanatory, right?

1st person: Uses "I", "we," and "me." This is told from the perspective of one character in your story, who can only record their own feelings and opinions internally, and reports only on everything else that is fact.

2nd person: Uses "you." This is from the perspective of a person telling you what you are doing. This is personally my least favorite POV to both write for and read— it gets the most complicated when writing, especially long form fics. This POV is mostly used for one shots or very short books. I do have to admit, I started out using this POV for my first ever fanfic when I was 13.

3rd person: Uses "he," "she," and "they." This is from the perspective of a person who is not in the story. It's my personal favorite to write because I feel like it's the easiest and I can portray the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters without having to specify a POV change, since there technically isn't one. There are three kinds of 3rd person POV:

    Limited: Tells the thoughts and feelings of one character— all other actions from other characters are fact.

    Omniscient: Tells the thoughts and feelings of all characters.

    Objective: Shares no thoughts and feelings. All that is happening is fact— narrator feels like an outside observer inside the story.

Here's a handy little chart that I basically learned all of this from when i was 14.

For the majority of my stories, overall, I use a 3rd person omniscient POV. But chapter by chapter, I use a limited POV, because I find sharing the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters in a chapter can get confusing. I change the "POV" chapter by chapter— in one you might be learning about Anakin's thoughts, in another, the main character's. I do this without saying, because in 3rd person, it's easy enough to understand who's thinking bc the author basically tells you.

CHANGING POV

As a fan of 3rd person POV, changing POV tends to be a little easier. I tend to use the Star Wars Brotherhood book as an example: Each chapter doesn't have a name, but instead, the name of the character whose 3rd person POV it is written in is used as the title. It is a 3rd person omniscient book, but each chapter has a Limited POV.

An example of a book with an overall 3rd person limited POV would be the Percy Jackson series— even though it is 3rd person, we hear only about Percy's thoughts and feelings and how he perceives the world around him. The POV does not change.

If you are writing in 2nd person, DO NOT change the POV. The main character (usually y/n) is the only character the reader should be taking the position of. It is so so confusing if you change the POV. I've never seen it, but I'm sure it's out there somewhere. "You're Anakin now, and you go to the courtyard to practice some lightsaber moves." Hold on. What?

For the 1st person POV, I must beg you not to change the POV within chapters. It's honestly choppy and doesn't keep the story moving all that well. If you're going to change POVs, I think you should also change chapters, and then name every chapter for whoever's POV it is so that you don't have to put "Bobby's POV" at the beginning of every chapter. Putting it in the title is honestly the cleanest, and I love to see that.

The easiest part of writing is being able to use good grammar, and it honestly improves your story's readability so much, and makes people actually understand what's going on better.