The Writer's Guide to a Good Story

Spelling and Grammar Tips

Whenever you are writing a story, whether it be a humorous one, a murder mystery, or a romance, you've got to make sure that your grammar and spelling is decent.

Why am I telling you this?

Because as annoying and irrelevant as grammar and spelling may seem (and sometimes is), it has the power to change the meaning of entire sentences. 

My best friend, who also uses this website, was editing one of my stories. Whenever she read one of my chapters, the first thing she would notice was a grammar or spelling error.

Granted, she's a grammar and spelling nazi, but that's another story.

I know grammar isn't always easy. There are words that are spelled the same but sound different, there are words that spell different but sound the same, there are silent letters, and conjunctions, it's enough to drive some people insane. One chapter is not enough to write down every rule of grammar (and frankly I don't want to) but for anyone that would like to improve their grammar or were wondering what some of the rules are (because surely you sit around during your free time contemplating the rules of grammar), here is some advice. 

Here are some of the common errors that I see.

1) "its' and "it's" 

The latter is a commonly used contraction for the words "it is", and the former is usually used for describing a characteristic or belonging of a particular object. For example, "It's the first day of school." Here we can see that a contraction is being used. What the sentence here is basically saying is "It is the first day of school."

Another example is "Its head was too purple." Here there is no contraction, because we see no apostrophe. lf you get confused while writing sentences like these out, just take the word apart. If you write "It's head was too purple." Take the sentence apart. "It is head was too purple." That makes no sense, right? Which means that the apostrophe has to be taken out.

2) "Your" and "You're" This one I've seen too many times to count. Again, "You're" is another contraction used for the words "You are", as in "You are being attacked by a rabid squirrel."

"Your" is used for sentences like "Your phone exploded." Do you see the difference?

Again, if you're not sure, take the sentence apart like I mentioned before. If the word has an apostrophe in it, that usually means it's a contraction for two words.

3) Spelling. Okay, I get it. Some of you don't have spell check. Nobody is going to have a heart attack if one or two insanely long words in your story are misspelled. Spelling comes naturally to some people (lucky), and for others it is frustrating.  If you don't know how to spell a really long word, you can ask a friend or family member to help edit, or type the word into google

(For you slackers that don't want to look it up in a dictionary, it's okay, I don't either.)

Please don't misspell words to try to make them sound cool. Unless your character is part of a band (Diary of a a Wimpy kid, anyone?) or actually is a character with problems spelling words, it really isn't cool.

4) Punctuation and capitalization. Now I know that most of you are not going to capitalize your letters while instant messaging or texting friends, and that's okay. Unless your friend is a grammar nazi like mine, they aren't going to expect you to. In a story, though, it's important to make sure that you know where to place your capital letters and exclamation marks.

By the way, those little dots that you place at the end of a sentence? They're called an ellipsis. An ellipsis is made up of three dots. No more, no less. You are not free to press down on your keyboard until your finger turns purple to indicate a pause or hesitation in your story.

("But baby, I love you.................")

Don't use more than one exclamation mark. Come on, guys, I know you're excited about meeting the Jonas Brothers, but you don't need to make us dizzy with this:

"Oh my god, I'm meeting the most famous people on the planet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Don't forget the apostrophes and commas.

I cannot tell you how many times I've seen "Don't" spelled as "Dont".

I know it may not seem like a big deal, but apostrophes and commas can change the meaning of your sentence. For example, "it's behind" is not the same thing as "its behind".

Remember, "txt tlk" is rarely acceptable while writing a story unless you are writing about a text message or instant message that your character sends within the story. If I see a story with text talk used throughout an entire post, I'm going to hunt you down.

Another thing, n3v3r t4lk like th1s. I've never seen it before, thank god. But I swear if I ever see you use leet speak in a story, I'm going to flip over a table intimidatingly after I hunt you down.

Another thing to remember is that while you should always have capitalization and proper spelling, it is okay to have grammar errors within the dialogue of a story.

For example, if your character is six years old or someone from another country who can't speak English, it's okay for them to say things like "Look at the gooses." However, keep those grammar errors out of your narration.

Another thing, and this is a little embarrassing for me. Someone was kind enough to point out a grammatical error I had been making in my stories.

With dialogue, if you're writing about something someone said, this is important to remember.

You MUST put a comma at the end of a sentence that goes like this. "Hi," Billy said.

If it's an action that deals with speaking, there should be a comma at the end of the sentence, unless it's a sentence ending with a question or exclamation mark. However, the rules do change.

Let's say your sentence goes like this:

"You're the worst." Billy slapped her across the face.

In that case, you do not need a comma where the period would go, because you're talking about something Billy did, not something he said.

I hope that made sense.

And hey, I know I'm not perfect. People would probably love to point out that I myself have had grammar mistakes in stories before, and I probably do. But I try to make my grammar and spelling good, or at the very least, decent. The takeaway from this is that the story should be readable.

I don't think anyone's first story draft is free of grammar errors, and it definitely doesn't have to be. Nobody's going to notice if your grammar isn't perfect. And let's face it, there are so many obscure grammar rules out there (besides the ones I mentioned) that if you tried to make your grammar perfect, it would be incredibly frustrating and your narration would probably be stiff. 

You shouldn't be overly cautious of every grammar or spelling mistake while you are writing a story, because I can tell from experience that doing that really does ruin your flow.

But when you go back later and edit, be sure to correct as many things as you can find.

While your story itself should be your own, it's perfectly fine to ask for help when it comes to grammar or spelling. Just remember, your story doesn't have to be grammar perfect, but it should be readable. And it goes without saying that what you write is more important than how you write it. In other words, the content of your story is more important than whether or not every word is spelled correctly.