Thanks for the support, guys! And special shout-out to Princess of Flames for the "Notes" part. Since both of these subjects were too long for a short message but too short for their own chapter, I put them together into one chapter. Enjoy!
I wish PJO was mine. Its not. It should be my Christmas present or something. Except that i'm an atheist. But who says you can't still get presents?
"Say hello to the pink poodle! ," Grover said.
" But I don't wanna say hi to the pink poodle" (A/N. I really didn't wanna say hi to the pink poodle. It growled at me.)
"say hi" Annabeth ordered. "i said hi to the poodle."
"Oh my gods, Percy! You made like five mistakes in four sentences!
Percy threw his hands up in exasperation. "What did I do now?"
"Let me explain..."
4.1. Quotes and Notes Part 1: Quotes
Percy made pretty much every quote mistake you can make. Well, there are a few others, but they'll be addressed too. Here are the mistakes per quote.
1. "Say hello to the pink poodle! ," Grover said.
In this quote, there is a space right before the comma at the end of the quote. There should be no space. It should be, "Say hello to the pink poodle!"
2. " But I don't wanna say hi to the pink poodle"
Here, Percy put a space in front of the quote and he didn't have a period or comma. "But I don't wanna say hi to the pink poodle."
3. "say hi" Annabeth ordered. "i said hi to the poodle."
Annabeth's quote is separated into two different parts. When this happens, there should be a comma after the first quote right in front of the quotation mark. Also, he didn't capitalize the first letter of her quote. If it was done correctly it should have been,
"Say hi," Annabeth ordered. "I said hi to the poodle."
Better!
Now here are some things that were not in my example but are important nonetheless.
When you make a quote inside a quote, you should use the apostrophe signs. For example,
Piper said, "Jason was like, 'yeah, she's kinda pretty.' Can you believe it?"
Also, notice that there's a space between the quote. Piper said,(space)"Jason was like,..."
After each quote there should be a punctuation mark. If you continue after a quote with something like:
"It was so awesome," Grover said.
There should be, and in this example has, a comma between the quotation mark and the last word.
"It was so awesome," Grover said.
"It was," Percy agreed, "Remember when you ate our hacky sack apple?"
"I was hungry!"
"It was hilarious."
You see? A punctuation mark in front of each quotation mark.
I shouldn't have to write this, I learned this in first grade. But for all those writers out there who struggle with this, I hope you understand it a little better after reading this.
4.2. Quotes and Notes Part 2: Notes.
If you were wondering, this is about authors' notes. Authors notes are helpful in finding out what the author is thinking, but most times I honestly don't care what the author is thinking.
This is the type of author's note that really bothers me the most:
" But I don't wanna say hi to the pink poodle" (A/N. I really didn't wanna say hi to the pink poodle. It growled at me.)
Though I sometimes couldn't care less what the author is thinking, it is helpful sometimes. Maybe a little background on the story, a little clarification. But seriously, when I'm reading I don't want to be interrupted by something saying, (A/N Sorry if this offends anyone) worse, (A/N Hahahahahahaha, sorry inside joke.), or even worse, (Read the note at the top!)
So if I do have something to say, where should I write it? There are several places. At the bottom, in the end, at the top. This is the perfect place to write your own thoughts where it doesn't bother or mess the reader up.
What if you REALLY need to put it there? Worried that your reader won't get the joke? Or specific to that part of the story? Put a footnote.
A footnote is a real author's way of writing ANs. Like, An Abundance of Katherines. One characteristic of that story is that there are footnotes everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. And its a great story. You know why? Because he doesn't interrupt your reading with a diagram of a graph in the middle of a room that he actually put in the author's note.
Footnotes are little symbols at the top right corner of words or sentences. It symbolizes that the author wants to say something about this word or sentence. Then, put the author's note at the bottom of the page with a matching symbol.
In An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, the type of footnote he uses is the one that looks like an exponential sign. You know, those little floating number twos** in math? I'm not sure how to type that on the computer, so an equally good way to write footnotes is using an asterisk*. When you have more than one footnote, most books use another number, like the first footnote is [1] and the second footnote is [2]. You could write your footnotes like that too. If you don't want to, you can just use multiple asterisks[1].
When you use an asterisk as a symbol, make sure you aren't going to have so many footnotes it looks like************. If you find you have more than three footnotes, I suggest using [1], [2], [3]. The asterisk is Control 8 on the keyboard and the brackets([]) are just above the enter sign and a little to the left on normal keyboards.
Then there are the other typed of ANs. The ones that take an entire chapter and make the rader depressed because you know a hiatus is coming. Or an excuse.
These ANs aren't allowed, I believe, but I appreciate them. To me, its better than just a fanfic dropping without any warning at all. At least there was a short note. But honestly, your readers in the past aren't your only readers. There will be a day when new people start reading your fanfics, engrossed in the story, and then they stumble upon a chapter with only an AN. Its annoying. So if you go on hiatus, a break for those who don't know, or you write an excuse, please at least take down the chapter after you decide to restart again, thanks!
*Like this. The little star sign is an asterisk.
**Who knows what that's from?
[1] Using another type of footnote symbol is okay I guess, but it doesn't look as good.
Ummm...so...hope you enjoyed. This time I want feedback on my story in general. Such as, is this a good story, a good idea, did you like it, what can I improve, is it accurate, etc. Thanks!