Heck, it's been a long time since I updated this. Welcome to the profile, you who happened to stumble upon it! Cobalt Demoness here, aka Elata, aka Latte. I've not written much in a long, long time, mostly I've been playing on LJ roleplays. But maybe I'll get back into this. We'll see.

Links:

HPFF

Website

Live Journal

Okay, wrote this because of the appalling amount of fanfics with awful punctuation and grammar. I can't stand it. Sue me if you want, like I give a damn. But if you want to improve your writing, why not have a look, eh?

(By the way, link here to a properly formatted guide...)

Proper Writing For the Masses
This isn't meant to upset anyone. It's just to help people write better. When I say that, I mean in terms of punctuation. I can't stand reading things with terrible punctuation and txt tlk evrywere. I do notice it though, compared to other people, and it does annoy me more than others. And I notice spelling mistakes but there's very little I can do about that, and sometimes it's just plain old typos. But whatever, let's get to it.

(Before I do anything, I apologise for my crappy examples.)

You, You're
This seriously bugs me. Now, please, get this learned.
Your an idiot = WRONG
You're an idiot = RIGHT

Because what you're trying to say is 'you are an idiot'. "You're" is a CONTRACTION, which means you have stuck YOU and ARE together, creating you're. Got it?

You're dog = WRONG
Your dog = RIGHT

What you're saying here is that 'the dog belongs to you' basically. 'Your' shows possession. Not that hard, please believe me.

Contractions In General
Have - becomes 've e.g. I have got = I've got
Are - becomes 're e.g. They are smart = They're smart
Is - becomes 's e.g. He is handsome = He's handsome
Am - become 'm e.g. I am amazing = I'm amazing
Will - becomes 'll e.g. She will run away = She'll run away

Can't think of any more which are nice'n'easy. Let's move on to 'not'. (By the way: "let's" is "let us" contracted, okay?) "Not" is pretty simple anyway but I'm just trying to make sure you get it... anyways:

Have not = haven't
Did not = didn't
Are not = aren't
Is not = isn't
Will not = won't
Shall not = shan't

I'll assume you can do the rest okay. It isn't even that hard.

It's, Its
Similar to the You're, Your thing.
It's teeth = WRONG
Its teeth = RIGHT

And this is so because It's is another contraction! It means "it is". Now, wouldn't it be crazy to say "It is teeth", hm? Yeah, I thought so.

"Its" is like "your" and shows possession. "Its teeth" means that the teeth belong to it. Therefore:

Its a dog = WRONG
It's a dog = RIGHT

Again, NOT HARD.

They're, There, Their
Another thing that winds me up (because I'm easy to wind up really) is when people get these three words mixed up. I will outline for you here WHERE and WHEN you use them.

Right, you must know by know that "they're" actually means "they are". Good.

"There" is used when indicating something. Like when you're saying "Hey, look over THERE!" It'd be a little strange to say "Hey, look over THEY'RE!", don't you agree?

"Their" is used to show possession and means that something belongs to more than one person. For example, say you're talking about a group of boys who own a dog. You say "Their dog." You do NOT EVER say "There dog." Or, "They're dog." Understand??

So, we have:

They're insane.

Look over there.

Their dog.

And yes, they all sound exactly the same when spoken which is why people get so confused. I understand, it's okay... but it's basic English. (And yeah, I know there's plenty of people who don't have English as their first language. This should help them too.)

And you can stick contractions onto 'there'. Like, "there's a dog" = there is a dog. Can it BE any simpler?

Where, Were
Another pair of words that sound the same but have different meanings.

"Where" is a word indicating place. For example, "Where is the chocolate?" You do not say: "Were is the chocolate?"

"Were" indicates the past tense. Used with 'you' and 'they' and also used in other sentence patterns. Used in sentences like "They were chatting" or "You were chatting." You would also use this when saying something like "If I were a dog, I'd be a labrador." (That probably makes more sense to you if you learn French. But yeah, whatever.)

So:

Where are you going?

Were they chatting?

Or: Where were you going?

That's just the basic punctuation stuff. I'm going to quickly look at writing speech.

Speech

This is sort of hard to explain, so bear with me. Or, if you prefer, fuck off and do ya own thing.

Let's do this by example. First of all, what not to do.

"Elata owns my soul." Said Lithium.

We're not going to analyse the truth of that statement, but we'll look at the grammatical incorrectness. There are two things wrong here.

1) You don't need a full stop after the "soul" bit.

2) "Said" does not need a capital.

So what it should actually say is:

"Elata owns my soul," said Lithium.

What's changed?

1) You have a COMMA, NOT a full stop.

2) "Said" has a small letter.

Trust me on this. I know what I'm talking about and THAT IS the correct way.

However, you can use full stops (or periods, that's American isn't it?) in other instances. Like here:

"Get lost." With that, Dante walked off."

The difference is that there's no word like "said". It's a little difficult to explain. But one way is to say that the "With that" bit had no direct relation to the speech, therefore you do not need a comma.

If the sentence being spoken sort of carries on, you'll do this:

"So then," Dante explained, "he kicked me in the face."

And I hope you see that it's a comma after the "explained" because the speech carries on right afterwards in the same sentence. Also, no capital letter in the next bit. BUT it can also do this:

"Yeah," said Dante. "So now what?"

"So now what" is another sentence in this case, separate from "Yeah", so you have a full stop AND a capital letter.

Capitalism
'I' needs to be capital. ALWAYS. Got it? (Shadow Song reminded me to put it in XD)

Revenge of the Apostrophe
Now, I know people LOVE putting apostrophes in everywhere. And sometimes, you're right to do so! HOWEVER, when making something plural, this apostrophe is NOT NECESSARY. (Like my caps today...)

So, we write:
A bunch of kids.

NOT
A bunch of kid's.

Thank you.

Revenge of the Apostrophe: Part II
When writing that something belongs to someone... for example...

Veira's sexypants make you dance.

Note that the apostrophe comes after the 's'. Possession and all that, yeah? But if the possessor is plural, or ends in 's', the apostrophe will come after. Observe:

Legolas' beautiful flowing hair.

Yes, it sickens me too. But see the apostrophe? Some people also like to stick another 's' when it's the name causing the complication. If it's just plural, then:

The boys' textbooks.

Suckish example. But yes, you understand? Good-oh.

Who and Whose and Who's?
To clarify something. Who's is a contraction of who is. Whose shows possession. OKAY?! See:

Whose pen is this?

NOT:
Who's pen is this?
Because that says, really: "Who is pen is this?"

The Phantom 'Of'
This one really annoys me. Listen up. Now, people often contract "Should have" or "Would have". Unfortunately, they often contract it to:

I would of left then but...

WRONG WRONG WRONG! What the hell is up with this phantom 'of'? (I'm feeling very agressive right now, forgot me pills.) Please, if you are any sort of writer, remember that you turn it into:

I would've left then but...

It's far more logical than having 'of' in there. Makes no sense otherwise. I know why people do that though. When you say it out loud, it does sound like an 'of'. But sadly there are a lot of things that sound plausible out loud and when written down, are complete nonsense...

Cute Without the 'E'
Quick heads-up. The word 'blond'. Or 'blonde'. Now, if you are describing a girl (or anything female I guess), you have the 'e', like in French. And if it's a boy, then no 'e'.

Jack's blond hair.

Jill's blonde hair.

Get it? Great.

...That's all I can think of for now, though there's probably a hell of a lot of other stuff I could mention. So...

Any questions/suggestions? I'm constantly editing this.