The ability to write well depends on many things. We at RolePlay City believe that all our members are here because they enjoy the craft and are ready to move on from the simplicity of Neopets, AIM or MSN Messenger roleplays. We also realise that - for some of you - this is a difficult thing, at first.
To help everyone out from a more experienced perspective (but definitely NOT by claiming we are experts!) your admin team has a few pointers we would like to invite everyone to consider. Our ideas are original but adaptations of information from sites such a OWL: Online Writing Lab have proved very helpful. If you are looking for more technical information, we suggest you go there; otherwise sit back and enjoy the art of writing... the RolePlay City way! 
THE BASICS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE
A sentence should contain one theme throughout it. In full grammatical terms, there should be a subject, a verb and a complete thought expressed - this is called an independent clause. A dependent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and verb but does not express a complete thought. Working with the two is exactly where the skill of writing comes in... and where our humanness can be a downfall.
For instance, we all know what a thing of beauty a sentence can be and when we come upon the exact word of emphasis that we simply have to work into that sentence... well, many of us fall victim to the trap of saying too much. Too many adjectives, too many conjunctions, too many misguided additions, and suddenly we're writing in... demonic 
.
Writers struggling with the conventions of literary writing should not make things too complicated. A basic sentence should:
- contain only two connected thoughts
- not begin with a conjunction
- stay in the one tense and voice
- be punctuated correctly
The ability to construct sentences that deliver interesting
settings, characters, description and ideas is completely up to the creativity of the writer. We cannot teach you that, but it's not really necessary; you already have that stuff, otherwise you wouldn't be on this site!
What we need to help you with is pulling apart the rules and conventions so that they fit with accurate literary work (fluent readers have looked at it every time they've pored through a book, but they can't always copy what they've seen without further instruction). Of course, the rules governing these ideas get very complicated. The English language seems to have two exceptions for every rule that is stated, but we will ignore that notion for the sake of keeping it all as simple as possible
.
SOME PARTS OF SPEECH DEFINITIONS
Nouns
A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea. Whatever exists, we assume, can be named, and that naming word is a noun. There are four main types of noun: Common A common (sometimes called concrete) noun is the name of an object or a substance, including people and animals, that exists physically eg. dog, computer, aeroplane. Common nouns can be touched. Proper Proper nouns are the names of individual people, places, titles, calendar times, etc., eg. Nicole Kidman, Brisbane, May, ‘Stories to Eat With a Banana’. They are always written with a capital letter. Abstract An abstract noun refers to states, events, concepts, feelings, qualities, etc., that have no physical existence eg. freedom, happiness, idea, music. An abstract noun can’t be touched. Collective A collective noun is the name for a group of people, animals or objects. Even though the group is made of more than one individual person or items, the collective noun is a single word eg. family, company, team, class, herd, archipelago, congregation. Verbs Verbs are one of the major parts of speech, and all sentences must contain one. Verbs refer to an action (do, break, walk, etc.) or a state (be, like, own). The verb shows the time of the action or state by its tense (past, present, future). Adjectives An adjective modifies, or describes, a noun. It describes the quality, state or action that a noun refers to.
Adjectives can come before nouns (a new car), after verbs (that car looks fast), be changed by adverbs (a very expensive car) or be used as complements to a noun (the extras make the car expensive).
Even though we usually just call them describing words, there are many confusing rules about how we should order adjectives when we use them in a sentence; most people, luckily, learn these rules just by talking (we all know it is better to say ‘a little, brown house’, not ‘a brown, little house’.
Adverbs An adverb is a word that changes the meaning of a verb (she did the work carefully), an adjective (that’s really good), another adverb (she did it really well), a noun (the room upstairs), a numeral (almost everybody came), a pronoun (she’s about seven) or a prepositional phrase (he stood quietly in front of us).
Most adverbs in English are formed by adding -ly to an adjective and when you want to create an adverb it is handy to remember the adjective will change like this: i) Adjectives ending -l add -ly; careful - carefully ii) Adjectives ending -y change to -ily; lucky - luckily iii) Adjectives ending -ble change to -bly; responsible – responsibly Prepositions A preposition is a word that links a noun, pronoun or gerund (a verb that acts as a noun - studying - or a verb that has lost the e off the end and gets ‘ing’ added to it - coming) to other words.
They can have a variety of meanings: Direction - He's going to the shops Location - It's in the box Time - He left after the lesson had finished Possession - The Government of Australia
Some prepositional phrases can function like single word prepositions; next to, in front of, etc., called complex prepositions. The easiest way to remember what a preposition is, is to break the name up and think that it is the word in a sentence telling you theposition of something ( on, under, near). Pronouns A pronoun is a word that stands in for a noun or noun phrase. There are a number of different kinds of pronouns in English, here are the correct titles for them and some examples: 1. Demonstrative Pronoun - this, that, these, those
2. Personal Pronoun - I, you, he, she, etc..
3. Possessive Pronoun - mine, yours, his, etc..
4. Reflexive Pronoun - myself, yourself, etc..
5. Interrogative Pronoun - who, what, where, etc..
6. Negative Pronoun - nothing, no, nobody, etc..
7. Reciprocal pronoun - each other, etc..
8. Relative Clause - who, whose, which, that, etc..
9. Quantifier - some, any, something, much, many, little, etc. Conjunctions A conjunction is a word like and, but, when, or, because etc., which connects words, phrases or clauses. Articles Articles belong to a group of words that are known as Determiners. They restrict or specify a noun in some way. There are only three articles; a, an and the. The is called the Definite Article but a and an are both called Indefinite Articles because of how they work: "The boy" is a particular boy, so it is definite, but "A boy" is no particular boy, it could be any boy, so it is indefinite. Interjections An interjection is a form, typically brief, such as one syllable or word, which is used most often as an exclamation or part of an exclamation. Some examples are Oh!, Ugh!, Psst, Well, well.
SPELLING
The simplest method of fixing your spelling is proofreading! Most people have a vocabulary that is more extensive in reading than it is in writing, so if you take the time to re-read what you've written before hitting the submit button (and choose the Preview Post button instead), you will pick up many of your mistakes before they go to print. Of course, bad spellers know their weaknesses and we expect them to use a dictionary - we don't accept your excuse that you realise you're a bad speller on a literary roleplay site if you choose to do nothing about it. Get proactive and look up all words you're not sure of!
Another tip is to copy and paste your reply into Word and see what it throws up as incorrect. This doesn't take much time and makes your work much easier to digest.
PUNCTUATION
Good punctuaters know exactly how to get the most from their wording, by subtly arranging their words just so... in a manner that mimics real speech and brings the text to life. Whether you are a writer who claims a distinct lack of control over punctuation, or feel yourself skilled at wielding more than a semi colon every now and then, it can be said that all writers need a little help with their punctuation from time to time.
Full stops/periods
The
Commas
The
Ellipsis
The
Semi colon
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon
Parentheses
The
Hyphens
The
Apostrophes
http://apostrophe.me/
Probably the biggest confusion seen in modern writing arises over the use of apostrophes. They have three uses:
1) to form possessives of nouns
2) to show the omission of letters
3) to indicate certain plurals of lowercase letters (a practise we do
not necessarily endorse here, so we'll just ignor ethat one
)
Let's think of it in terms of the important two;
possession and
contractions.
Of course, don't forget:
A plural will just get an 's' or an 'es' added (depending on what it ends with) - it does not need an apostrophe just because there's an 's' there!
ContractionsIn formal writing, it has been observed that contractions don't get used very much at all - authors tend to use the full words. A contraction is where two words have been joined together and one or two letters have dropped out from where they were joined.
eg. was + not = wasn't, she + had = she'd, you + are = you're
PossessionWhen a noun is owned - whether it be a common noun such as a car to an abstract noun such as love - the object that possesses it needs to get an apostrophe to demonstrate this. Now, if the owner ends in any letter other than 's', you'll need to add 's to their name. If the owner ends in an 's', you need to simply pt he apostrophe
after the 's' (it's saves doubling up on 's's!) Another general rule of thumb is that an inanimate object won't need possession.
eg. Tom's toy, Cass' dog
Such rules get a little blurry when it come sto collective nouns.
COMMON CONFUSIONS
Your and you're
Your refers to possession eg. Your sister is here to take you home.
You're is a contraction, short for you are. It is usually ignored but is needed in more than half the cases where your is used! The easiest way to decide which you want is to try your sentence out with you are in it.
eg. Your the best friend I've ever had.
(Would you say, 'you are the best friend I've ever had'? Yes, you would!)
eg. I will arrive at your house at four o'clock.
(Would you say, 'I will arrive at you are house at four o'clock'? No, you wouldn't!)
Affect and effect
Affect is the verb. Effect is the noun. The effect of the earthquake affected the entire village for generations.
Then and than
Then is used when you are talking about things happening in order eg. We went inside then to bed.
Than is when two things are being compared eg. I was taller than she was.
Accept and except
If you accept something, you take it eg. I didn't want to accept her decision to stay.
Except is used when everything but one thing is included - eg. We all sat down, except for Sarah - or something unusual would occur - eg. He wanted desperately to take her, except he knew the Oligarchy's consequences would be terrible.
Me and I
Contrary to popular belief it is okay to use me in sentences where everyone safely uses I. To be certain, drop the extra noun/pronoun and you'll see which one you want.
eg. Bob and me travel a good deal.
(Would you say, 'me travel a good deal'?)
eg. He gave the flowers to Jane and I.
(Would you say, 'he gave the flowers to I'?)
Have and of This one shouldn't be as difficult as some people find it to be; the misconception comes from contraction confusions.
could've, for instance, is the shortened form of
could have but many believe it to be
could of. This is never the case;
've is always short for have!
Breath and breathe
Just think; 'magic e makes the vowels say their own name...'
You hold your breath (e) and forget to breathe (ee).
Loose and lose Oddly, the sounds of these two are reversed; the one that has the longest
sound has the fewest 'o's and vice versa. Saying them aloud, people know which is which, but on paper they get confused. The shorter one also has the 'z' sounding 's', whereas the other flops about all loosely (
hopefully a helpful mnemonic).
The bound man got loose when his bonds loosened. His captor was upset to lose his prize.
TIPS FOR THE MORE EXPERIENCED
For those of you who feel you've mastered the basics and are are ready to dabble a little, there are always new things to try.
- Explore the use of active and passive voice. Active voice is generally thought to be more forceful eg. The vampire sank his fangs into the pulsing vein of the mortal. Passive voice is not eg. The mortal's pulsing vein was pierced by the vampire's fangs.
- Cut out your nominalisations, for the sake of clarity (using the noun form of a verb) eg. He accepted the advance openly, not The acceptance of the advance was open.
- Ensure subordinate clauses come before or after the main clause, not in the middle eg. She stumbled and almost fell because the loss of blood had effected her so strongly, not She stumbled because the loss of blood had effected her so strongly, and nearly fell.
- Employ semi colons, hyphens, ellipsis and parentheses - with discretion!
