Write Better, Write Happier...

By HeyMysty

224K 21.2K 8K

Enjoy your writing! ☺ 2022. Help from a Watty Award-Winning Author, Wattpad Creator, and long-tenured Senior... More

Why Mysty's Book?
① ✍️ Writing Tip: How To Stay Inspired
② ✍️ Writing Tip: Notice "Was"
③ ✍️ Writing Tip: The Reader Isn't You
④ ✍️ Writing Tip: Finding the Middle Way
💚 Write Happier 💚
⑤ ✍️ Writing Tip: Show, Don't Tell
⑥ ✍️ Writing Tip: Using Descriptions as Space
⑦ ✍️Writing Tip: The Word:Idea Ratio
⑧ ✍️ Writing Tip: Double Justification
⑨ 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Gaining a Following
①⓪ 🧡 Wattpad Tip: The Truth About Feedback
①① 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Intro to Contests & The Wattys
#1 in Nonfiction - Thank You!
①② 🧡 Wattpad Tip: User Contests and Wattpad Genre Profiles
①③ 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Naver, Wattpad Stars, Studio, Etc.
①④ 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Appearances + Blurbs
①⑤ 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Cover + Title
💚 Positive Motivation - ☯︎ Yin 🌚
💚 Positive Motivation - ☯︎ Yang 🌞
①⑥ ✍️ Writing Tip: Where You Write Matters
①⑧ ✍️ Writing Tip: How to Begin a Book
①⑨ ✍️ Writing Tip: Outline Your Story
②⓪ ✍️ Writing Tip: "Said" Never Died
②① 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Chapter Length, Rankings, and Release Schedules
②② 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Keeping Up With Your Release Schedule
②③ 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Wattpad Burnout
②④ 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Your Happiness
❤️ More Help! ❤️
②⑤ 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Help Books and Advice
②⑥ ✍️ Writing Tip: Write Stronger Characters
②⑦ ✍️ Writing Tip: Write Stronger Characters ❷
②⑧ ✍️Writing Tip: Characters, A Big Entrance
②⑨ ✍️ Writing Tip: One Main Character
③⓪ ✍️ Writing Tip: POV and The Narrator
③① 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Avoid the Mature Rating
③② 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Multimedia
③③ 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Wattpad Friendships
③④ 🧡 Wattpad Tip: Dealing with People on Wattpad
💚 Meditation For Writing and Wattpad 💚
③⑤ ✍️ Writing Tip: Pacing
③⑥ ✍️ Writing Tip: Editing, and Giving Your Story Some Space
③⑦ ✍️ Writing Tip: The Art of a Paragraph
③⑧ ✍️ Writing Tip: The Semi-Colon
③⑨ ✍️ Writing Tip: The Ellipsis
④⓪ ✍️ Writing Tip: The Dash, and Read a Book!
💚 You Get Out What You Put In 💚
④① 🧡 Wattpad Help: Getting Others Involved
④② 🧡 Wattpad Help: Getting Others Involved ➋
④③ 🧡 Wattpad Help: Disclaimers, Front Matter, Warnings, etc.
④④ 🧡 Wattpad Help: Copyright
④⑤ 🧡 Wattpad Help: Mirror Sites
④⑥ 🧡 Wattpad Help: Translations
💚 It's Never the End 💚
𝘾 𝙖 𝙡 𝙢 🌼 A Pocket Guide To Breathe Easy
➊ 🌱 Bonus Seminar: Writing Poetry
➋ 🌱 Bonus Seminar: The Thesaurus
➌ 🌱 Bonus Seminar: Is It Too Big?
➍ 🌱 Bonus Seminar: The Perfect Story
➎ 🌱 Bonus Seminar: Asking For Follows
➏ 🌱 Bonus Seminar: Trying to Surprise the Reader
➐ 🌱 Bonus Seminar: The Problem with Flashbacks
🧩 Bonus Advisory - You MUST Do This 🧩
➑ 🌱 Bonus Seminar: Rich Fictional Settings
➒ 🌱 Bonus Seminar: No Really, When Do I Get Readers?
➊⓿ 🌱 Bonus Seminar: Planning Your Story Saves Lives
➊➊ 🌱 Bonus Seminar: Writing Drama
💌 Mysty's Mailbox (#1-3)
...

①⑦ ✍️ Writing Tip: Editing with Basic Tips

4.1K 450 453
By HeyMysty

If you're writing about BTS, which will get you reads anyway, you can forego it. You're not going to get much better at writing this way, but you can forego it.

"It"? Oh, I mean editing of course.

And not to rag on them. I simply mean that if you write about something really popular with Wattpad's user base, then quality might not be as important.

But if you want to reach a more mature or varied audience, and if you want to be an influential author, and a good author, you'll want to have good grammar and punctuation.

You do want to be good, right?

Right.

Now, here are some very basic grammar tips that will aid you in your journey—tips that I've chosen based on what I see WRONG the most, what looks OBVIOUSLY wrong and is therefore important to fix, and what is EASY TO FIX.

📝

One, dialogue looks like this:

"Mysty hasn't had a Pokemon gif in a while," said Jill.

And not like this:

"Don't provoke him." Replied Phill.

I could explain to you why, but the rule is easy enough to understand just by looking at it. Don't put a period before your dialogue verb, your verb like "said". Use a comma, followed by a lowercase letter.

📝

However, for sentences without a dialogue verb, do not use a comma. So, in a paragraph like this, this is correct:

"Hello. I'm John." John sat down.

Notice that there's no dialogue verb here. Thus a period is fine. If the sentence had been like this, use a comma:

"Hello. I'm John," said John as he sat down. It scared his cat who jumped six feet in the air.

📝

For exclamation marks, question marks, and interrobangs, they can function as both periods and commas. These are both correct:

"You're a cat, too!" screamed Bob at John.

"You're smart, meow!" Obviously amused, John licked the back of his hand. Then he napped for twenty hours.

📝

Don't put together two complete sentences with a comma. You know what a complete sentence looks like: "John likes to run." ... "He is strong." Therefore, don't say, "John likes to run, he is strong." You need a period or a semi-colon between those two sentences, like this:

"Bob likes to play. He is a dog."

or...

"Bob likes to play; he is a dog."

What a plot twist.

📝

Capitalize the first word in a sentence. Just do it.

📝

it's = it is. Contraction. "It's [it is] raining outside."

its = possessive determiner. "Its branches fell off." Notice that you can't expand "its" to "it is", or else the sentence doesn't make sense.

📝

their = possessive determiner. "It's their house." It tells us that the house belongs to them.

they're = they are. Contraction. "They're [they are] crazy."

there = everything else. "Go over there!"

📝

Don't leave out apostrophes. Don't write "dont" or "theyre" or "thats". It's "don't", "they're", and "that's".

📝

Ellipses have 3 periods. It is "...", not ".....".

Use one exclamation point, never two or more. The same goes for question marks.

Interrobangs are formed like this: "?!" and not like this: "!?".

📝

Use a spell check. No excuses.

📝

Only one person can speak per paragraph. New speaker, new paragraph. Always.

📝

Don't bold anything that isn't dialogue, and only do that occasionally for comic or intense dramatic effect.

📝

Use your narrator to narrate. I go into this elsewhere, but don't use ***~TIME SKIP~*** to move forward the action, or *Later at the bar*. You have a narrator for a reason. Don't add any strange symbols into the body of your text, or speak to the audience directly as the writer (unless it is an author's note, and those should be minimized). On Wattpad, this is extends to...

📝

Don't use the dinkus. What is that, you ask? The dinkus is a mark, often three ***, which denotes a break within a chapter. It's like a time skip or scene skip without any words. On Wattpad, our dinkus is the "new chapter." Wattpad chapters should be small anyway, so if you are tempted to use a dinkus, start a new chapter!

📝

Use a published book as a guide. Make your story look like something published in a bookstore. If you want to be improve or be noticed as a writer, you have to learn to the fundamentals. There's no better way than to use a great novel as a guide.

Continue Reading

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