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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Capitalize the first word in a sentence. Just do it.
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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.
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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!"
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Don't leave out apostrophes. Don't write "dont" or "theyre" or "thats". It's "don't", "they're", and "that's".
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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: "!?".
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Use a spell check. No excuses.
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Only one person can speak per paragraph. New speaker, new paragraph. Always.
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Don't bold anything that isn't dialogue, and only do that occasionally for comic or intense dramatic effect.
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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...
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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!
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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.
