I'm giving the basics here. I'm focusing on stories and stuff here. So though I may mention it, I'm not going into super detail on things that are proper vs improper forms of writing. I'm focusing on grammar and words that get confused.
Some of the sections require quite a bit of explanation. For some of these cases, I have instead chosen to provide a condensed link. If I didn't find a single website that contained all the information I believe necessary, then you will instead be stuck with a long section, lol.
THINGS IN THE FIRST SECTION THAT ARE MARKED "IMPORTANT" IN BOLD AND ALL ARE RULES I THINK ARE IMPORTANT TO KNOW.
Let it be known that I am not following the rules of writing and grammar in this "chapter" because I'm using colloquial. I will briefly get into colloquial in section 3 of part one. I also will probably be making mistakes when I'm writing. While the sections themselves are accurate, that's after putting a lot of thought into how to word things. I'm still learning with some of these things. Especially commas. My teachers tell me I overuse commas.
Here is a tip if you are someone who REALLY wants to know and get more into detail with proper "writing things" (e.g. like proper use of punctuation). Here are some things you might want to look up: hyphen vs. en-dash vs. em-dash; colons vs. semicolons vs. periods; then the evil pasts tenses: bit.ly/2HK6HoY, bit.ly/2sZbMzx (and I'm sure there are a more types; the English language is evil)
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School lessons you can ignore
Note: Some of these apply to your own writing. If you're writing something for a school assignment (especially for a writing class), you might not get away with some of this rule breaking. The same goes for your jobs; some employers might not end up caring, but it's better to be safe than sorry. ESPECIALLY if you're in the fields of journalism or PR. If you see someone else hand in a report that breaks these rules and they're okayed, then you're probably safe. You PR and journalist majors are almost never safe though. Stick to the rules; even the ones that are misconceptions.
There are two "types" of rules you can ignore here: real rules and misconceived rules.
Don't start a sentence with a conjunction: THIS IS NOT A REAL RULE
Conjunctions: "and", "but", "so", "yet", etc.
You may have been taught this in school, but the truth is, it's not an actual thing. Despite this, many people think it is, so some teachers and whatnot might not like seeing it in essays and stuff. There is one exception, though. This exception is when you are using a dependent clauses.
When you can't: "I got down on my knees and prayed." This cannot be rewritten as, "I got down on my knees. And prayed."
When you can: "I got down on my knees, and I prayed." This can be written as, "I got down on my knees. And I prayed."
The difference between whether or not you need it is whether or not the sentence can be understood by itself. "Prayed" is not a sentence. I haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about. What's going on here? If you put "I prayed" on a page with nothing else written on it, I know what you're saying. I may be missing some context, but I know what you're saying.
Now, usually, you're probably not gonna use such short sentences. Maybe you'll do it to emphasize for comedic or dramatic effect. Avoid it in essays, though. I say this from experience. The way I wrote it up there kind of suggests it's a serious situation, but I just wanted to show you when the exception is. Because of the suggested emphasis, you might want to hold back on how often you start short sentences with conjunctions or even making short sentences in general. Also, don't put a comma before the conjunction in the first example. We get more into that in the comma section.
Here's an example of when you would use it without intending to emphasize or shift the mood: "Having suffered so much in the past, it wasn't a shock that Jeff had such a harsh opinion. But Carol just couldn't sit back and listen to him insult her friends, who were completely innocent."
Another example is in dialogue. If someone is talking, and we have a response, we might start a word with a conjunction.
"Because" is a subordinating conjunction, so we will get into when it can be used to start a sentence in the comma section
Never end a sentence with a preposition
You're not supposed to do it. Blah, blah, blah. But come on; almost no one talks like that! So who cares? If you're doing third-person in a "professional" way, then a general exception to this rule is when a character is talking.
I'm writing the way I talk; in colloquial. Though you can be grammatically correct all the time if you would rather. It might end up kind of influencing how the readers perceive your character personality, though.
Stick with periods when narrating
Honestly, I'm going to have to agree with this one. But there are a few exceptions.
1) First-person
If a person shouts, you use exclamation points. You/your character are/is the person it's happening to, so it makes sense, right? I suppose, but if I were you (as a writer, I mean), I'd only use exclamation points if you're writing in the present tense. This is your narration, yes, but if it's past tense, then you've been there, done that. You know how this plays out. Sure, you might tell us what you were thinking in the time without actually writing down your literal thoughts, but I'd still avoid exclamation points. I mainly include what you were thinking at the time if it's in the form of a question. "He wanted me to do that? Was this really happening?" Maybe you were too shocked to actually be thinking those specific words at the time, but it was in the back of your head. So you're just explaining it to your readers; question marks make sense. Exclamation points? Not so much.
When you're narrating in the first person, it's not just a narration. It's your reactions and thoughts while it's all happening. Unlike with past tense, you don't have to write your literal thoughts. Your narration includes your literal thoughts, along with the narration. Feel free to add those exclamation points when you need to express an emotion, or go heavier on the question marks, because instead of saying, "I was wondering what's going on", you can just say, "What's going on?"
2) Third-person "character"
This can be literal—your narrator is a character narrating the main character's story (it's rare, but happens)—or you can give your narrator, who isn't an actual character, a personality. Almost as if they're their own character. This is usually done in writing where the narrator is more connected with the main character's feelings. This is another case where I'd use question marks more than exclamation points.
Gonna, wanna, kinda, etc.
Do it just with narration, do it just with dialogue of certain characters. Do it for "gonna" and "wanna", do it only for one. Up to you, but keep it with first-person stories for narration.
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Quotations
Dialogue & Quotes (IMPORTANT)
1) If you're writing dialogue for a little, don't be afraid to get some grammar wrong or even words or pronunciation. Same goes for broken speech or searching for words for a character who isn't a native speaker.
2) If you're writing a dialogue between two people, it's fine to skip "said" and whatnot. Make sure you specified at least once who the first person is, so we can differentiate who said what; unless it's insignificant characters having a really short and/or insignificant chat or if you don't want us to know. To specify, if you don't want to use "said" because it doesn't look good then, first of all, be sure it's a short chat. If it's not, then add a name being mentioned when one person is talking to the other.
3) Regarding "said" and the like:
I AM TALKING ABOUT FORMS THAT ARE ACCEPTABLE TO USE IN AMERICAN ENGLISH WRITING. AMERICAN ENGLISH–WRITERS CAN GET AWAY WITH BRITISH ENGLISH PUNCTUATION AND QUOTATION, WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS. Maybe British and Canadian English–writers can, too. idk, I'm not from any country that uses that.
INCORRECT: "I don't know." He said with a shrug.
CORRECT: "I don't know," he said with a shrug.
ALSO CORRECT: This is also acceptable: He shrugged. "I don't know."
You probably want to keep that last one to a minimum, and be sure to specify who the speaker is—or in the second case, the person who shrugged, I guess—if you haven't already.
Here are cases where "said" or whatever replacement word you're using comes first —
INCORRECT: She said: "That's weird." / She said - "That's weird."
CORRECT: She said, "That's weird.
CORRECT: She said "That's weird.
I have never written the second style a day in my life, but apparently it's acceptable. Some teachers or bosses or whatever may not be okay with it, or maybe everyone's okay with it. I have no clue; I've never seen anyone write it like that before. I just know it exists, so it must be acceptable somewhere...
Internal dialogue
Thinking, texting, chatting online. There are two ways you can do this. Italicize or regular quotes. However, you don't need to do both.
Meaning you can do it the traditional way, as if the person is speaking out loud: "This is scary," Sam thought/texted/typed.
Or you can italicize the thoughts: This is scary, Sam thought/texted/typed.
You DON'T need to do this: "This is scary," Sam thought/texted/typed.
Quote within quotes
PLEASE DON'T SKIP OVER THIS IF YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THIS SECTION: When it comes to this kind of thing, it's okay to not follow what your writing language does. If you feel more comfortable doing things the British way, do it the British way. If you feel comfortable doing it the American way, do it the American way. If you're in some circumstances British and American in other, use both. Remember that this is when it comes to your writing. Teachers and bosses might not like this. If you have your own style that you really want to use, ask your teacher. I'd especially ask literature/writing teachers; I told one of mine I prefer the British way, and she actually told me that was the "right" way (which is wrong; maybe that's how it is with the writing format we were using in class? idk).
Link: bit.ly/2sWB8OF
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Punctuation
After "etc."
If you are writing "etc.", you may or may not use punctuation after it. If there should be a comma, then use it; I just gave an example in that sentence up there. If there should be a period/full stop or ellipsis after it, then you don't need to add it.
Example: There are different dishes from all over the world. There's schnitzel, alu gobi, couscous, sukiyaki, etc. Do you have any favorite dishes?
See? You didn't even need a period/full stop at the end of that sentence. If it really doesn't look aesthetically pleasing to you, you could always write "etc." out as "et cetera". You also might want to do this if you're writing dialogue and would prefer writing it phonetically since no one says "etk", or however the heck you'd pronounce that. However, if you decide to do this, then keep it consistent and use "et cetera" outside of dialogue in situations where you use the word.
After parenthesis and brackets
Punctuation goes outside whether you're using parenthesis or brackets. End of section.
Semicolons
This falls a bit into the later two categories as well.
Link: bit.ly/2kwoTFC
NOTE: Though #4 is technically correct, you don't have to do it. It's one of those rules people are really lax with.
Periods/Full stops
You're a big kid; you know how these work. However, there are some cases where you shouldn't use periods/full stops, or maybe you're the kind of person who overuses periods/full stops. There's also one other:
1) Emphasizing
Example: I looked at him lying on the floor. Unbreathing. Dead.
We might add periods/full stops after brief (sometimes even one word) sentences or even incomplete sentences, because we want to (a) make it more dramatic (b) emphasize how serious the situation is (c) add comedic effect (d) emphasize a word (e) make it seem like you're processing the situation (f) something else; there's probably other reasons that I'm not even thinking of off the top of my head.
That's totally fine, bruh. However, you're technically not supposed to do that. If you're writing a story or something, then you can get away with that, especially if you're writing in the first person. If I wanna emphasize, then I will not hesitate to break a grammar rule for the sake of using that period/full stop, like putting one after "and". That's with writing stories, though, or maybe even if you're writing real casually and just don't care. I can assure you that I will be doing that a lot throughout chapters, lol.
2) Using periods where you shouldn't
This goes into various other rules I mentioned earlier, semicolons, as well as commas. Clauses, people. Clauses.
Commas (IMPORTANT)
Link: bit.ly/1SoDawX
NOTE: Comma Rule #5 applies to names, too, but only if you are talking TO the person.
"Let's eat Grandpa" vs. "Let's eat, Grandpa". It makes a difference.
Words like "too", "also", "suddenly", etc. all count as interrupters, as well. If you can say the sentence without the word, then Comma Rule #5 applies. Most exceptions to this rule should be obvious; there are also some that vary, depending on the situation.
In addition...
1) Because... sometimes
This depends on whether or not you are talking about a main effect. For example: "I knew the concert was canceled, because my friend told me." The concert wasn't canceled because your friend told you, but you knew because your friend told you. If the sentence was, "I knew the concert was canceled because the stadium caught fire," then you wouldn't need a comma. Going back to the "ignoring rules" thing where I mentioned starting sentences with, the times you can start a sentence with "because" is using the comma or answering a question.
2) Lists; this was mentioned in the link, but there are exceptions. See the website linked in the semicolon section; it's rule #3.
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Writing out numbers
One thru (or through, if writing more formally; See that? I added another tip in there.) nine should be written out. 10+ should be written in numbers. That's the official rule for essays and stuff. Do whatever you want with your own writing. (For me personally, I only start using numbers if we get above ninety-nine, with the exception of big numbers ending only in zeros (e.g. one thousand); when we're talking about something math-related, I follow the rules, and when we're talking about time, I use numbers, which I recommend you do, too. ...I've got a weirdly specific system.) Hyphens only go between numbers like "ninety-nine". Other big numbers shouldn't. It should be "one hundred" or "one hundred ninety-nine".
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"More" followed by a verb (IMPORTANT)
It can be hard to remember this, especially when it sounds better that way, but don't use "more" followed by a verb. It's not "more hard" it's "harder" (while "hard" is not a verb, it is preceded by a form of the verb "to be"). Not "more quiet", but "quieter".