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Writing Tips and Tricks: Common Mistakes Goto Page: 1 2 3 [>] [»|]

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Violent Crow
Vice Captain

Feral Flatterer

PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 3:28 pm


This is something that I posted in another guild that I'm in and I was PM'd about how helpful it was. So, I decided to post my list here and I hope that this will actually be helpful for some people because these are all common mistakes that can be easily avoided. Heck, even I make these mistakes when I'm typing quickly! sweatdrop

Here we go:

You're/Your:
You're = You are. "You're a really weird person."
Your = Possession, it belongs to you. "I picked up your mail for you."

Its/It's:
Its = Indicates possession. "The bear is a hearty beast. Its thick pelt protects it from the elements."
It's = A contraction for "it is" or "it has". "Have you ever gone skydiving? I heard it's really fun!"

There/They're/Their:
There = A location or place. "I wish you wouldn't go there so late at night."
They're = They are. "They're pretty shady people."
Their = Possession, it belongs to them. "Did you know that their house is haunted?"

Alot:
Alot isn't a word. Just put a space and get the correct phrase of "a lot". Like, "After I drink water, I have to use the bathroom a lot."

Then/Than:
Then = A point in time. "First I went home, then I fell asleep."
Than = A comparison. "You're better than her."

Where/We're/Were:
Where = A place. "Where are you going? Are you going to school?"
We're = We are. "We're not happy with your decision to resort to cannibalism, Terminus."
Were = Past tense of "are". "You sound awful. What exactly were you doing yesterday at that party?"

Two/To/Too:
Two = The number two. "I'd gladly eat two cupcakes instead of one."
To = Motion, for example: "Going to the store, Giving the book to him"
Too = Also, or excessively. "Wow, I really did eat too much."

Breath/Breathe:
Breath = Air taken into or expelled from the lungs, a noun. "It was so cold out that she could see her breath."
Breathe = The act of inhaling and exhaling, a verb. "It was so humid out that he could hardly breathe."

Lose/Loose:
Lose = To fail, to misplace something, to be deprived of something. "I was so worried! I was about to lose my mind!"
Loose = Free from restraint. "You're so uptight. You really ought to learn how to let loose sometimes."

"Yea" instead of "Yeah"
Yea is an archaic form of an affirmative response and it is one of those things that bugs me when people put "yea" when they clearly mean the more contemporary "yeah".

Effect/Affect:
Effect is usually a noun while Affect tends to be a verb in common usage.
This one can be tricky.
To check if you used the correct word, replace it with a verb to see if the sentence still works. Here's one of my favorite examples:
"As a child, he was affected by his parents."
Replace "affected" with another verb, like "eaten".
"As a child, he was eaten by his parents."
Since the verb works (even though it's a bizarre sentence), the correct word to use is "affect". If it didn't work, you would need to use "effect".

Weather/Whether:
Weather = The climate outside (e.g. rain, sunshine, sleet, snow, etc.)
Whether = Expressing a choice between alternatives, for example: "I don't know whether or not I want to go to class today or stay home."

Should've/Should of :
Should've = A contraction of "should" and "have". "Should of" is not correct under any circumstances.

Also keep in mind that the correct spelling is "weird" and not wired, "definitely" and not defiantly. "She definitely failed that test, which was weird for a straight A student. He defiantly went to the party since he is a rebel at heart."

Now, I hope that someone else will add onto this with a more comprehensive guide of easily missed mistakes. This was a bit of a grammar and spelling lesson, but I hope it helped!
PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:28 pm


Here's one I caught myself doing earlier today:
Have/Half

gonk I didn't even realize I'd done it until I went to go type it.

DaniRhapsody

Questionable Poster


Violent Crow
Vice Captain

Feral Flatterer

PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:19 pm


DaniRhapsody
Here's one I caught myself doing earlier today:
Have/Half

gonk I didn't even realize I'd done it until I went to go type it.


Oh my gosh... I've done stuff like that before. Or I'll type so fast that I write the wrong word and I'm so not even close to the word I was looking for. Once I wrote "hair" instead of "air" when describing the aromas of a movie theater. So close! xp
PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:24 pm


Violent Crow
DaniRhapsody
Here's one I caught myself doing earlier today:
Have/Half

gonk I didn't even realize I'd done it until I went to go type it.


Oh my gosh... I've done stuff like that before. Or I'll type so fast that I write the wrong word and I'm so not even close to the word I was looking for. Once I wrote "hair" instead of "air" when describing the aromas of a movie theater. So close! xp

lol

Oh man...it happens so often that most of the time I don't notice until I feel like going back to check for errors. That's when I'm like "Oh god...I hope they understood what I actually mean to say." gonk emotion_facepalm xp

DaniRhapsody

Questionable Poster


Violent Crow
Vice Captain

Feral Flatterer

PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 8:43 pm


DaniRhapsody
Violent Crow
DaniRhapsody
Here's one I caught myself doing earlier today:
Have/Half

gonk I didn't even realize I'd done it until I went to go type it.


Oh my gosh... I've done stuff like that before. Or I'll type so fast that I write the wrong word and I'm so not even close to the word I was looking for. Once I wrote "hair" instead of "air" when describing the aromas of a movie theater. So close! xp

lol

Oh man...it happens so often that most of the time I don't notice until I feel like going back to check for errors. That's when I'm like "Oh god...I hope they understood what I actually mean to say." gonk emotion_facepalm xp


Yeah and I hate myself for not noticing such a glaring error the first couple of times around and I'm like "Why did no one tell me?!" crying
PostPosted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 10:17 am


I remembered another common mistake; one that I need to go and correct in my own writing because I just know it has slipped my mind on many occasions because I was never taught this in all my years of high school and college. However, you do tend to pick these things up from fellow helpful writers.

Do:
"Hey, there! The droids you're looking for are that way," the dirty traitor said.

Don't:
"Hey, there! The droids you're looking for are that way!" The dirty traitor said.

If you're wondering what the issue is, "the dirty traitor" is considered to be part of the sentence of dialogue, so you need a comma to include it.

Another trick for dialogue is to keep your dialogue out of massive paragraphs. What I mean by that, is that when you're setting up a scene it's always best to start another paragraph for when someone starts talking. Also, another helpful tip regarding dialogue within a story is to start another paragraph when you have different characters speaking. This helps to get rid of any confusion as to who is speaking.

So, instead of this:

"He said." "She said." "They all said."

You do this:

"He said."

"She said."

"They all said."

You should also add some descriptors for when characters are speaking. It gets a little boring when dialogue is simply, well, standing dialogue like the example above. It's also better to add variety, so that means you need to stray away from "said" as often as you can.

"You can't leave me," he stated defiantly.

She regarded him coolly before she sneered, "I can do whatever I want. We aren't married, Daniel. You made sure to keep it that way."

Daniel paled and looked away, "You know that's not all on me," he whispered, "we both decided it was better that way."

Violent Crow
Vice Captain

Feral Flatterer


Violent Crow
Vice Captain

Feral Flatterer

PostPosted: Tue Jul 15, 2014 9:23 pm


This is hilarious! Check out the Weird Al video Word Crimes.
PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 9:24 am


I was perusing the old fanfiction vault (the array of fics that I flag in the dead of night so that I can read them later and determine if I'm going to follow them or not) and I came across a rather obvious error that seems to be common with newer writers. I know that this must be common sense for you all, but here's another writing tip:

Do not write in chatspeak.

If a character is looking at a text message or reading from a blog/forum of some sort then that's okay; that's an instance where chatspeak is the norm and most people won't have a problem seeing it in writing because of that fact. However, using chatspeak or any shorthand for the English language in story writing as some bizarre stylistic choice or whatever it is, is not okay. It comes across as lazy at best and makes the author look like a blithering moron at worst.

Violent Crow
Vice Captain

Feral Flatterer


Violent Crow
Vice Captain

Feral Flatterer

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 7:42 pm


I thought that this was both relevant to this thread and rather humorous on its own. xd

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