Children.
The response on the last chapter was breath-taking. Maybe it was because I was exercising while I was checking my email, but my inbox practically exploded with all ya'll.
And yes, I'm pushing back the Chaos story chapter again.
Heh.
Because we're gonna tackle something that's twice as much important! Yippee!
Grammar!
The Thing That You MUST USE. ALWAYS.
[Because without it, no one will understand what the heck you're trying to say]
A forewarning to all of you before I start the chapter: I am a stickler when it comes to grammar. I wouldn't place myself in the "Nazi" category just yet, but...I will apologize if I start ranting.
'Cause I might.
Okay.
Let's get cracking.
Spelling
Imagine this.
After taking my advice to stand in the shower for so long that it starts getting cold and your mom yells at you for wasting water, an idea falls from the heavens into your subconscious.
Praise the gods! It worked!
You leap out of the shower, hastily pulling on clothes, and storm down the stairs two at a time. Your laptop whirs to life and you open Word, typing as fast as you can. The words just seem to be flowing from your fingers! It's brilliant! The gods must have blessed you with this amazing idea! You gaze proudly at your twenty-three and a half page story (single-spaced, of course) and immediately post it on your account, just waiting for the hits and reviews to fly in.
But nothing happens.
"What is wrong with these people!" you cry to the heavens, shaking your fist for good measure. "Don't they see a good story sitting right under their nose?!"
Unfortunately, they actually don't see a good story. They see a jumbled mix of text type and random letters, promising rainbow zebra cookies if they review.
...
Okay, I know that the amount of sass above is suffocating, but I needed to set things up.
Kids, spelling is important. Incredibly important. More important the the President of these free United States and our sistah the Queen of England across the Pond.
They wouldn't be Queen nor President if they didn't have good spelling in all their speeches, laws, and whatever they do sitting in their offices.
It's a big deal.
Now, I can understand if you made a few spelling and grammatical errors because you were just so excited to share you story with other people, but I'm sorry.
I cannot excuse text talk. I just can't.
If you want readers, please type like a normal person, not a 13 year old girl that's obsessed with her new smartphone. (Sorry if you're a 13 year old girl obsessed with your new smartphone. I apologize)
Now, I'm going to take a guess here and assume that most of you use Word, OpenOffice, or some other word processor.
You see those little red squiggle lines under some of your words? That's Word's nice way of saying "Hey, there little buddy! I noticed that you may have misspelled something there. Would ya look at that! Now, if you could just do me the small favor of right-clicking the word, I'll give you a whole list of options of what you might be trying to say!"
Seriously, I love right-clicking words. It's incredibly helpful (minus the word relatable. It still hates me for that one, even if I spell it right) and it only takes .5 seconds. And if you're still not sure about the word, Google is your friend. Just search it. If you haven't spelled it too atrociously (I have done that), dear Google will tell you what it is you want. If it can't, see if you can use another word and still come across saying the same thing.
Punctuation
Spelling can sometimes annoy me, but punctuation can drive me up the wall if it isn't done correctly. Punctuation is the little dots and flecks in between words that help the writing sound as natural as possible. Imagine if we didn't have periods:
Percy looked toward me, eyes shining My heart started pounding in my chest Why was this happening to me I was acting ridiculous He came over and kissed me softly on the cheek He turned around and then walked into his cabin The door shut behind him I stared He was hot I was the luckiest girl in the world Oh my gosh I'm gonna die I actually did die I had a heart attack because of his attractiveness
The words just blend together and become extremely monotonous. I feel like a robot when I'm reading it. I was so annoyed that I didn't have any periods that I killed off my character at the end.
So please use your periods.
The next thing that I'm going to talk about in our punctuation section is commas. Now, I'll admit that sometimes I can get a little comma happy and fling them in somewhere unnecessary. But I'm working on it. See? Even your author makes mistakes in punctuation!
A comma is used to place a break in a sentence, and can help the little person inside your mind reading this take a breath. It is also used to connect a dependent clause to an independent clause, or for lists. It is not a period. It. Is. Not. A. Period.
If you are using a comma as a period, you are committing a terrible crime known as the comma splice, which is connecting two independent clauses. No! Don't do it!
I'm going to give some examples now:
BAD: Percy finally managed to hold Annabeth's hand without shaking, it was a momentous occasion.
Agh, no! Even though a comma is there trying to do what's right, it can't. It is still bleeding the two sentences together because it isn't strong enough to hold the two together. Comma splice!
GOOD: Percy finally managed to hold Annabeth's hand without shaking. It was a momentous occasion.
A period separates the two independent clauses and I now can breathe again.
But! This can carry over!
Good friends, we are now diving into the fancy world of the semicolon! Wow!
Semicolons are used to connect two similar independent clauses, as they are talking about the same thing.
Pour example:
Percy finally managed to hold Annabeth's hand without shaking; it was a momentous occasion.
Both sections of the sentence are talking about Percy holding Annabeth's hand, so they can be meshed together into one sentence. But don't use a comma. English teachers will burn their eyes out if you do.
I haven't really explained these in depth, so if you want to know more about commas and semicolons, just Google it, my friends. You're on the internet anyway.
Homophones
Good heavens! What is that monstrosity of a word, Jenkins?!
That, my dear readers, is the word that refers to words that sound the same. This is also the part where I dip my toes into the pet peeves that I know many readers have, so I'm going to just breeze by this and try to remain calm, while also saving your skin from an onslaught of angry reviews.
So let's start with the homophone that nearly everyone has a bone to pick with:
Your/You're
[even I have a bone to pick with on this one]
Your is the word you use when signifying possession. "Your OTP." "Your original character." "Your ridiculous habit for not paying attention when they taught this in grade school."
You're is a contraction, combining the words YOU and ARE. "You're so funny!" "You're awesome, littlebitclever!" "You're still not getting these two words right!"
Moving on.
There/Their/They're
There is the word referring to a place or idea. "I'm gonna hide over there from littlebitclever. She's on a rampage." It can also be used abstractly. "There are many reasons why I should learn to get these words right."
Their is referring to someone's possession. "Their OTP is ridiculous! Who ships Chiron and Juniper?!"
They're is a contraction, combining the words THEY and ARE. Wouldja look at that! It's just like you're! Easy. "I love Percy and Annabeth! They're the cutest couple!"
To/Too/Two
To is a preposition or infinitive verb. "I wish I could go to Camp Half-Blood."
Too means 'also' or 'very'. If you need help with this word, substitute also or very for the word too, and if your sentence makes sense, you're the bees knees. "There are too many people making these mistakes." "Can I come too?"
Two is the number 2. "I wish I had a two dollar bill. They're cool."
Last one.
Its/It's
Its is referring to possession. "I'm not touching that hippocampus! Its fur is all slimy!"
It's is a contraction of IT and IS. "It's way too hot outside. I think I'll swim in the lake with the naiads."
There are many more, so if you want to get cleared up on others, Google the Oatmeal's '10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling.' He knows what he's talking about.
Other Little Tips
This chapter has gone on long enough, so I'm just gonna clear up a few more things.
You know those dots that people use to signify trailing off? … Those things. They're called ellipses. And you only use three. Not five. Not seven. Just three. But, if you're ending a sentence with an ellipses, you use four because one of those dots is a period.
If you start with a quotation mark or a parenthesis, close it with a quotation mark or a parenthesis. I know, sometimes you just forget, but try to read over and catch the little mistakes. It can get incredibly confusing to the reader.
"I can't believe you did this, Percy! Annabeth said, smiling. Percy had just surprised her with a stuffed owl.)
Gah.
I know above that I said that you need to agree with Word on the red squiggles under words, but if you know you're right, just go with it.
Pour example:
Relateable and relatable. Word is getting mad at me for both of them. However, Natsucrush106 assured me that relatable was correct, even though Word doesn't think so.
I know I didn't cover everything, because the English language is confusing and has so many rules and exceptions to rules that if I tried, this chapter would be twenty pages long. However, these things are still helpful! Also, I'm sorry if this chapter dragged a bit. But this stuff is important! It will help you on your journey to become a better writer.
Good luck, and happy writing!
P.S. My name isn't Jenkins. It's Lizzy.
P.P.S. I'm terribly sorry if I just completely failed at explaining this chapter. I'm not an English teacher. It's hard for me to explain because I already know all this myself.
P.P.P.S. I'm also sorry if I got something wrong.
