BSV Forum - Support - How and where?
Links to punctuation, grammar and vocabulary help
Moderator
http://www.bloodshedverse.com/forum.php?go=sub&no=17 -- General Tips section - this is where you will find all of the below links, as well as many more threads dealing with writing tips and problems. It's the place to go for help with something.
http://www.bloodshedverse.com/forum.php?go=read&no=19929 -- Original submissions entry - An older entry for authors new to the BSV, it still has some good information for authors planning to post their first story. Some of it will be new, some of it will be similar to other recent posts about submitting to the BSV.
http://www.bloodshedverse.com/forum.php?go=read&no=2510 -- Common mistakes and random advice tips for authors new to the verse, covering some very common errors that we find in submissions. A good place to find out if you are submitting something that is likely to be rejected.
http://www.bloodshedverse.com/forum.php?go=read&no=19939 -- A and An --pretty much what it says, deals with the proper use of "a" and "an" before words.
http://www.bloodshedverse.com/forum.php?go=read&no=2579
Commas (some uses) An entry on some important uses of commas. Not comprehensive, by any means, but covers some of the more common mistakes made with them.
http://www.bloodshedverse.com/forum.php?go=read&no=2837 -- Clauses - a written explanation of what clauses are and how to use them correctly. Probably one of the most common sources of problems in sentence structure and clarity.
http://www.bloodshedverse.com/forum.php?go=read&no=2599 -- Why it Matters deals with why we are so picky about the mechanics of our fics. You may be surprised to find out how many readers stop reading stories if the mechanics are too bad.
http://www.bloodshedverse.com/forum.php?go=read&no=2476 -- Speech tags - this entry deals with those pesky speech (dialogue) tags and how to write them correctly. It's fairly comprehensive and should help with anything but the most complicated situations.
The following links are to entries at the Live Journal community 
riters_r_us which is a resource for authors and betas. In addition to the below links, there are many shorter entries in the tags and memories and there are semi-regular updates which always include a "Daily Doozy" which is usually a commonly confused set of words. (Think your, you're, yore). If you have a Live Journal account, I highly recommend joining this community. Members include many English teachers, college professors and otherwise knowledgeable and brilliant people. You can get almost any question answered.
http://community.livejournal.com/riters_r_us/600.html -- Essays - these are the first three posts I made (on my own LJ at first) that were the impetus behind setting up RRU. They include common mistakes that I was finding at the time (as a reader, not a mod) as well as some useful information about how to avoid them. They were so well-received that they led to the community's founding.
http://community.livejournal.com/riters_r_us/10307.html -- Word list - This is a fairly comprehensive, but by no means complete, list of homophones and other commonly confused words. A good place to look if you aren't sure which word to use.
http://community.livejournal.com/riters_r_us/103469.html -- Capitalization - just what it says; an entry covering some important rules for capitalizing words (and not capitalizing them).
http://community.livejournal.com/riters_r_us/45523.html -- Comma stuff -- Some important rules about using commas correctly. Where, when, how and why they are important.
http://community.livejournal.com/riters_r_us/16260.html -- Misrelated participles - some common problems that can turn an otherwise perfectly acceptable sentence into unintentional hilarity by placing participles in the wrong places.
http://community.livejournal.com/riters_r_us/41628.html -- Object pronouns - a fairly short entry dealing with the common mistakes made with subject and object pronouns.
I am upper management.
Thanks so much for organizing this!
Moderator
I remember how many things I had forgotten when I started writing - we can all use the reminders. I am upper management.
Michael Tomasello is co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Moderator
I am upper management.
Moderator
Serious answer? Some people are all about the story and to them, a summary of a good plot sounds like a story. Truly. And some do have good ideas and some knack for telling a story, but haven't had enough writing experience (or reading of really good works) to know that how the story is told plays a big role in whether or not readers are going to enjoy hearing it.
Interestingly enough, though, very rarely is a grammatically incorrect story also a good story. Along with lack of writing and grammar skills, seems to go a lack of logic and and plotting as well as no knack for dialogue or characterization. Not always, but often enough for us to be grateful that those things are usually accompanied by mechanical issues.
I am upper management.
Can someone explain why I see the word sneaked rather than snuck? I also notice here it doesn't like the word, it underlines it...I checked though...seems it can be used but still largely frowned upon, yet I hear it all the time. When I come across it in a sentence--to me sneaked sounds incorrect or wrong. Or maybe that was my mothers upbringing with me...I used to say sneaked until she kept correcting me. Had to listen to the Speech therapist, lol. Or was that because she stubbornly refused to see it as sneaked...lol guess so...
I know there are other words like this, but for the life of me, I can't remember. But here is what I checked on sneaked using snuck.
Usage Note: Snuck is an Americanism first introduced in the 19th century as a nonstandard regional variant of sneaked. Widespread use of snuck has become more common with every generation. It is now used by educated speakers in all regions. Formal written English is more conservative than other varieties, of course, and here snuck still meets with much resistance. Many writers and editors have a lingering unease about the form, particularly if they recall its nonstandard origins. And 67 percent of the Usage Panel disapproved of snuck in our 1988 survey. Nevertheless, an examination of recent sources shows that snuck is sneaking up on sneaked. Snuck was almost 20 percent more common in newspaper articles published in 1995 than it was in 1985. Snuck also appears in the work of many respected columnists and authors: "He ran up huge hotel bills and then snuck out without paying" (George Stade). "He had snuck away from camp with a cabinmate" (Anne Tyler). "I ducked down behind the paperbacks and snuck out" (Garrison Keillor).
Moderator
I am upper management.
Guest
Does that make sense? Growing up with my Speech Therapist mother was tough enough, so certain words always had me doing the tongue twist thing.
Moderator
And some things are appropriate in dialogue (assuming that the character actually did speak that way), but not appropriate to use in the narrative portion of a fic. An example of that would be Scooby-speak, which is appropriate when one of them is speaking (if it's not over done) but not appropriate for the author's "voice" during exposition and narration.I am upper management.
Guest
The problem is that we have misused these verbs so much, that after hearing them used incorrectly for so many years, they now sound normal to our ears. In fact, if we hear someone say that she hanged up the phone it sounds odd. We say that she hung up the phone although technically it should be she had/has hung up the phone.
My opinion is that it is fine to write something informal such as fanfiction the way people speak because otherwise it sounds stilted and jolts the reader out of the story (and who wants to stop and ponder grammar when Spike is just about to be staked and the action is tense?!). I will never, however, accept someone writing or saying the phrase "me and my friend" as the subject of a sentence!!!!! It is "my friend and I". It is just wrong, wrong, wrong on so many levels!!!!!
Moderator
Everyone has his or her own pet peeves and own selection of things that they can let slide. The only one of the above words that I can recall hearing so much that it sound correct is "hung". The others would all scream "wrong!" to me. As someone who is not young *cough, cough* there are often things that make me shudder (and would no doubt do so to your mother), but when I research them, I sometimes discover that modern usage is changing and things that were considered wrong fifty years ago have moved into the language and are now acceptable. Different style manuals also sometimes disagree on punctuation and even grammar issues, so that adds another level of confusion. If I can get submissions by authors to stick to the basics, I'm happy!
I would disagree, though, that fanfiction should be written the way people speak. Good fanfiction is no more informal than any other writing. It is fiction, and therefore not as formal as an essay, business letter or other formal document, but it shouldn't be terribly informal. That is one the biggest problems we have with new/younger authors - that their stories are written the way they speak. Not fun to read. Trust me. The narrative part of a story doesn't need to be formal, but it does need to be literate and grammatically correct in most ways. Anything else would throw me out of the story in a heartbeat. Dialogue is a different story - as long as the language is within character for that person, it can be very informal because that is how most people speak and to ignore that would be to have very stilted dialogue and a boring story.
I am upper management.
Moderator
Actually, sometimes it IS me and my friend, it depends on the sentence. You have to ask yourself if it was just 'you', would it be correct to say 'me or 'I' in the sentence, whichever it is for just one of you is also correct for two or more. So it would be: My friend and I went to the shops. and... Mum gave me and my friend and icecream each.
Some will love and some will curse you, baby
You can go to war
But only if you have to
Fanfic ~*~ Artwork ~*~ Live Journal
Moderator
No, you wouldn't, you'd say 'I gave Mum some ice cream', so you would say 'My friend and I gave Mum some ice cream' . As I said, it doesn't change just because you add extra people, what is correct for 'you' is correct for 'you' plus others.
Some will love and some will curse you, baby
You can go to war
But only if you have to
Fanfic ~*~ Artwork ~*~ Live Journal
Moderator
Ah, I see what the problem is... I didn't actually notice that she'd qualified with 'the subject' and thought she was objecting to people ever using the phrase 'me and my friend'.
Some will love and some will curse you, baby
You can go to war
But only if you have to
Fanfic ~*~ Artwork ~*~ Live Journal
I do know, however, that when I would teach my students to put the other person first, they would automatically use I as the subject. They'd say, "Billy and I both have to go to the bathroom at the same time." Yeah, right--I'd never fall for that line, but at least I could appreciate the correct grammar!!!! LOL
Most likely, it's because "...me have to go to the bathroom" just doesn't sound right. That's usually how I teach people to figure out whether to use me or I- they're not always clear on what a subject or object is, but they know when me doesn't fit.
Not so with I. My pet peeve? When people write things like "She gave the cookies to Billy and I" in an attempt to sound more educated. Epic fail.
