Style

And now we get into the subjective part of my little guide – the part where I’m going to tell you a bit about how I write, what I like to read in the writing of others, and what little affectations I absolutely hate to see in any writing ever. It’s all opinions from here on in, but I like to think that I’ve substantiated most of them.

See how I started that first sentence with an “and”? While your schoolteachers may have drummed the incorrectness of doing so into your little heads, there is actually no language rule that says you aren’t allowed to start a sentence with the word “and” (or the word “but”, for that matter). However, this doesn’t mean that your teachers were completely insane, or that they made up rules to torment you with.

But I don’t think that they should have been quite so harsh on you. And anyway, doesn’t English already have enough rules? And starting sentences with “and” works nicely sometimes; there are cases – mostly in dialogue – where it feels natural. But it only works if it isn’t overused.

This little debate highlights the difference between grammar and style. Being a good little writer and following the rules of grammar, punctuation, and spelling doesn’t get you a gold star – it should be something writers do automatically, before even considering letting others look at their work. And even if your work is entirely grammatically correct, it may still be confusing or irritating to read.

Developing a good style is about learning how to manipulate the way you write to convey the ideas, feelings and worlds that you want to in a way that is clear and makes the reader want to read more. Unlike with grammar, there are no specific rules and systems that will guarantee you do things right every time, but there are a number of hints that can get you started.

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Being laconic

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”

—William Shakespeare

When I began to write this guide, it seemed to be rather difficult to know what to put into it, due to the fact that there’s just so very much to say about language usage and story writing, and most of it is subjective and open to interpretation. In the end, I decided to just write my opinions on writing, and explain them as best I could.

My first set of opinions has to do with a few words and phrases I used in the above paragraph.

“began to verb” — This is something that I see a lot of in amateur writing, and it really irritates me. Wounds begin to bleed, opponents begin to fight, and barrels start rolling down hills. It’s stilted and usually meaningless – why not just say that the wound bled, or the opponents fought, or the barrel rolled down the hill? Saying “started to” or “began” doesn’t add any depth to your description of the event, so you may as well leave it out. There are, however, some cases where this is appropriate. “seemed to be rather” — Spineless language use. This is your story – you’re telling us that something happened; you’re MAKING this HAPPEN, bro. Don’t be so wish-washy about it – say that something was something else, not that it was “rather something else”. Dispense with “seemed to”, “appeared to”, “managed to”, and all other wobbly constructs if they add nothing to your sentences. Use metaphors instead of similes. “the fact that” — This phrase is the common man’s “like”. It adds nothing, and should you find yourself using it, get to reordering your sentence. It’s not the only perpetrator either – consider the meaning of every word you use, and strike meaningless words from your sentences.

”…prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of meaning , and more and more of phrasaes tacked together like the sections of a pre-fabricated henhouse.” –George Orwell

There are many, many more meaningless phrases and writing ticks than just these, but I hope they gave you some idea of what to look out for. Think carefully about the meaning of the words you’re using and avoid words that don’t have any meaning.

Omitting needless words doesn’t mean saying less, it means speaking more clearly.

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Ending sentences with a preposition

“Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.”

—Winston Churchill

Much like starting a sentence with “and” or “but”, ending a sentence with a preposition is not technically wrong, despite what your English teacher may have told you. It is sometimes bad form, yes, but only when there are more elegant alternatives. When there are none, as is the case with Mr Churchill’s quote, it’s okay to end with a preposition.

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Lavender Unicorn Syndrome

The syndrome

When writing, it’s important to keep things interesting and avoid word repetition. However, some writers, being a little overeager to do the latter, like to substitute the names of their characters with little descriptive phrases whenever they feel like they’re repeating character names too much.

It’s not a good idea. Here’s an example of what to avoid:

Walking along the road one day, Twilight came across her friend Pinkie Pie. The lavender unicorn smiled and complimented Ponyville’s premiere party pony on the success of her most recent party. “Thanks, Twilight!” said the pink earth pony. “I’m just glad everypony enjoyed themselves!” “We sure did!” exclaimed Princess Celestia’s personal protégé.

That may strike you as a little exaggerated, but it’s been done. I’ve seen cases where writers have referred to a single character by a different narratively-irrelevant descriptive phrase in her every mention. It gets a little disorientating and is very annoying.

If a character has a name, call them by it as often as possible.

By referring to characters with descriptors, you take the reader away from them. There’s a leap of logic that needs to be made from “Princess Celestia’s personal protégé” to “Twilight Sparkle”, and although it’s a very small, almost unnoticeable leap for most readers, it’s still big enough to distract them from the character interaction taking place. Therefore, the worst place to succumb to LUS is in dialogue.

Here’s that passage again, this time just with names and pronouns:

Walking along the road one day, Twilight came across her friend Pinkie Pie. Twilight smiled and complimented her on the success of her most recent party. “Thanks, Twilight!” said Pinkie. “I’m just glad everypony enjoyed themselves!” “We sure did!” exclaimed Twilight.

Much clearer, and much less annoying.

Names are pretty invisible in prose, but you can overuse them.

Pinkie Pie bounced down the street on her carefree way. The ponies of Ponyville smiled and waved at Pinkie, and Pinkie smiled back at them. “Hello, Pinkie Pie!” said Twilight Sparkle. “Hi, Twilight!” Pinkie replied. “Isn’t today just the most wonderifical, splendidtastic day ever?” “Well, it’s certainly… um… sunny, Pinkie,” Twilight replied.

If you find yourself doing that, the answer is not to start replacing names with descriptions. Instead, try to replace as many names as possible with pronouns.

Pinkie Pie bounced down the street on her carefree way. The ponies of Ponyville smiled and waved at her, and she smiled back at them. “Hello, Pinkie Pie!” said Twilight Sparkle. “Hi, Twilight!” Pinkie replied. “Isn’t today just the most wonderifical, splendidtastic day ever?” “Well, it’s certainly… um… sunny, Pinkie,” Twilight replied.

If the problem persists, rearrange and reword your sentences until it goes away. You can often deal name repetition a killing blow by removing obvious speaker attributions and addresses.

Pinkie Pie bounced down the street on her carefree way. The ponies of Ponyville smiled and waved at her, and she smiled back at them. “Hello, Pinkie Pie!” said Twilight Sparkle. “Hi, Twilight!” Pinkie replied. “Isn’t today just the most wonderifical, splendidtastic day ever?” “Well, it’s certainly… um… sunny.”

A lot of the time, a problem that appears to be one of name overuse actually ends up being one of repetitive sentence structure, and the practice of slapping descriptors into your writing in place of names only addresses a symptom of that. It’s a lot like cleaning your bedroom by chucking all the junk on your floor into your closet and locking it.

Not the syndrome

Not every word or phrase that isn’t a “Twilight” or a “she” is an example of LUS – it’s all about context. In some circumstances, little things like “her friend” or “the other mare” can be an appropriate way to refer to a character, but again, context. The big problem with calling Twilight a lavender unicorn every time you get tired of using her name is that her being lavender or a unicorn is usually quite irrelevant to the passage in which you’re reminding us of that, so the descriptor comes off as flowery, distracting and completely unnecessary.

You’ll recall that earlier on I mentioned that “by referring to characters with descriptors, you take the reader away from them”. Sometimes, this can be what you want to do. Substituting names from descriptors is a good way to zoom the reader out from their more intimate engagement with the story, and have them look at the big picture for a moment.

And then there’s the case where a character isn’t named (yet). So if, say, you have a story from Trixie’s viewpoint and she runs into Fluttershy, it would make sense to call Fluttershy “a yellow pegasus” when she first appears, and then just “a pegasus” until she introduces herself. Or if you have a nameless background character, it makes sense to call her “the grey pegasus” or “the green unicorn” the sole time you refer to her. As the rule above states, named characters should be referred to by names.

LUS can have specific applications in writing (where it stops being a syndrome and becomes… something nice?), but I feel that a lot of the time authors just slap arbitrary descriptors on their prose when they feel like they’re overusing names… and should actually take that opportunity to improve their skills with pronouns and/or sentence structure.

Further reading

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Active and passive voice

“The boy kicked the ball” is an example of active voice: the subject of the sentence (the boy) verb-ed (kicking) the object (the ball).

“The ball was kicked by the boy” is an example of passive voice: the object of the sentence (the ball) was verb-ed by (was kicked by) the subject of the sentence (the boy).

Both styles of sentence have their places in writing, but a really dull way to write fiction is to use passive voice too much. What it does is that it makes everything overlong and makes it so that all urgency or immediacy is stripped from the story. All of these extra words cause the reader to become bored and also the pacing is killed by them (the extra words).

What I am saying is not that you should always avoid passive voice, but that you should say as much as you can in as few words as you can.

Case in point, the above paragraphs: hideous passive voice. Newbie authors often make the mistake of writing too much of their work in passive voice out of a misguided desire to make their sentences sound more sophisticated.

But here’s the thing: “The ball was kicked by the boy” is longer than “The boy kicked the ball”, without necessarily imparting more meaning (although it could do that in some contexts). There’s little use in writing complicated sentences when you can say the same stuff with simple ones.

As with Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, passive voice has its specific uses, and the important thing is to think about how you’re going to write something because presentation is as important as content. Sometimes, passive voice can help to create a specific atmosphere, but usually, as with LUS , it’s just something that creates unwanted distance between the reader and the story.

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Purple prose

Florid prose is very difficult to pull off. Any writer who wishes to write beautiful descriptive paragraphs and clever metaphors needs to have a large, nuanced vocabulary and the ability to visualise things very clearly. If you find yourself reaching for a thesaurus more than once, using words like “limpid” or “gossamer” for the way they sound alone, or wondering if your passage just broke the laws of physics, stay well away.

And here’s why. Yeah, just try to read that whole thing. I promise you won’t be able to. It’s far too painful for any mortal to stand.

Being a good writer isn’t about using big words or writing long-winded descriptions of scenery. If you’ve read some Charles Dickens or Jane Austen, good for you, but remember, the former got paid per word. That style of writing is just that: a specific style, not the Holy Grail of wordsmithery that all authors should seek to emulate.

Personally speaking, my eyes tend to skim long descriptive passages anyway. In most circumstances, it’s best to give the reader just enough description to help them visualise the important stuff, and/or to evoke a specific atmosphere. Excessive description is just boring.

Start out by writing like you speak – it’s what I do. Writing like you speak is the best way to avoid using unfamiliar words you may not fully understand, or making complex sentences with more clauses than you can handle. Obviously, that doesn’t mean you should use obscure slang or um and ah in text as you might in conversation, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that big words and flowery sentences are necessary for writing.

Don’t dismiss florid prose, though. Being able to put a vivid picture in your reader’s mind is an amazing skill that you can use to create all kinds of atmospheric effects, and leave a lasting impression. The key thing is just to visualise what you’re describing clearly, make sure there’s a good reason for the reader to care, and use words you’re familiar with.

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A note on thesaurus use

Thesauruses group words together by similarity of meaning, so it’s not a good idea to just pick a random alternative for whatever word you feel you’re overusing. If you’re going to use an unfamiliar word from a thesaurus, chances are you’re not going to use it right – the beauty of the English language is the very subtle differences between many of its words.

That isn’t to say you shouldn’t use thesauruses, though – you just shouldn’t use unfamiliar words. You might like to consider using a dictionary program with a thesaurus feature such as the excellent WordWeb (or a physical dictionary and a thesaurus, if you like dead trees). This will allow you to familiarise yourself with whatever words catch your fancy before using them. Pay close attention to the “use in a sentence” examples, and do a bit of Google research on the word if it sounds particularly strange to you.

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Show versus tell

As a new writer in search of criticism, I’ll wager you’ve already heard the old adage “show; don’t tell” many, many times. It’s a vitally important concept for anyone who wants to write well, but it’s not the easiest concept to actually understand. The best way to describe it is with examples.

Tell: Princess Celestia looked down at Twilight Sparkle’s dead form, lying in the bed. She remembered doing the same with her previous students. Show: Princess Celestia looked down at Twilight Sparkle, an age-worn face on a pillow. Her eyes were wet with tears. Twilight’s face appeared to change before her eyes – to green, to brown, to yellow. All old, all smiling… all with permanently closed eyelids. Tell: Pinkie turned on her chainsaw and menacingly walked over to Rainbow Dash, preparing to cut her in half. Dash was horrified. Show: Pinkie revved her chainsaw and skulked across the room. Dash started crying.

And finally, a few examples of when an author both shows and tells (errors easily fixable with the backspace key):

The squirrel twitched for the last time. Fluttershy sniffled as she pulled a cloth over it, heartbroken by the passing of one of her animal friends. “The sky is purple.” Applejack winced, having told a lie. Rarity hummed a tune as she passed a long strip of red cloth through her sewing machine, revelling in the joy of creation.

Now, showing is often a good deal harder than telling. Instead of just saying that Rainbow Dash was happier than she’d ever been before in her life, you need to put some thought into how she would act if she were happier than she’d ever been before in her life, and then write about her acting in that way.

The enormous benefit to that extra thought is that is much, much more engaging for the reader. Instead of just passively accepting that Rainbow Dash was really happy, the reader has to imagine her zipping around the room, or hugging her friends, or just smiling really wide, and then use their understanding of body language to interpret those actions as meaning “Rainbow Dash was really happy”. And if your reader is actively imagining and interpreting your story (even in cases where the interpretations are instantaneous), that means they’re under your spell.

So don’t just tell us, in dull, Wikipedia summary–esque that Spike was crushed when Rarity rejected him. Imagine what Spike would do in that situation, and tell us that.

That said, you mustn’t feel the need to abandon telling entirely. Every story will have content better told than shown, such as periods of travel between story-relevant locations, characters’ routines, and characters’ tedious exchanges of pleasantries upon meeting each other. Showing is a powerful tool for engaging your readers, but if you show the wrong things you’ll just end up with a story full of boring filler.

You can also make a case for telling here and there if you’re writing in an engaging, interesting voice, like Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams. The “show; don’t tell” adage is popular because for most people showing is easier to make interesting than telling, and it’s the best way to write most stories, but in the end the most important thing your story needs to do is not be boring.

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Colours, styles, and fonts

I love colours, and bold and italic text are both great ways to emphasise things. And who doesn’t love fonts (apart from that “love” one, at least)? Non-linked underlines, on the other hand, belong in the 20th century.

As fun as these little flourishes are, fiction-writing has some specific conventions regarding which ones can be used, and what they should be used for. Keep in mind that most people read fiction as a form of escapism, and that strangely-formatted text can be a real immersion-killer.

In fiction, using italics for thoughts (formatted in the same way as speech, but without the quotation marks: I really like her mane, thought Sweetie Belle) and emphasised words is generally accepted, although some say that even this is bad practice. Caps lock is sometimes used for shouting and onomatopoeia (which should also receive italics: Snap! Crash! Bang!)

A trend I’ve seen in ponyfic is the use of bold text for loud dialogue. It’s not technically a correct use of boldface, but it’s probably easier to read than long passages of cruise control for cool. Of course, both all caps and bold can become crutches for weak writing, and they’re best avoided in more serious works.

Colours don’t have any conventional uses in fiction because hey, coloured ink’s expensive. Seeing as we’re not constrained by that kind of physical limitation on the internet, it’s something an experimental author can play around with.

I’ve seen coloured text used for character dialogue. (Screw said tags and their complicated punctuation, amirite?)

“Don’t you muddy the issue with your fancy mathematics!” “and then I said ‘Oatmeal, are you crazy?’ ”

It can also differentiate between narrators.

As a young filly growing up in Canterlot… The only thing I liked more than going fast… was WINNING!

And then there’s all the bizarre stuff that House of Leaves did with it.

My advice for using colours in narrative is this: most of you won’t need to do it. For those who do, use non-saturated colours, and either make them as unobtrusive as possible, or go completely insane.

As for fonts, well, the Internet has largely saved us from suffering through fanfiction written in elaborate, impossible-to-read cursive text, because there just aren’t that many fonts you’re generally allowed to use on most websites. Thank heaven for small mercies.

Using different fonts in the same story for effect can work nicely when handled with care. The most common use I’ve seen is the occasional shift into a fixed-width font to show in-universe text.

This sort of thing is optionally accompanied by a shift into center-align, something I personally like to use (coupled with italics) instead of a font change.

I’ve also seen different fonts used to visually represent different ways of speaking.

”For example, a robot may speak like this.”

Lastly, I’ve seen people use smaller font sizes to indicate whispering and bigger font sizes to indicate shouting.

I can give the same general advice for messing around with fonts and font sizes: it’s a game best left for more comedic pieces, as it can be very distracting and will almost always ruin the mood of anything meant to be taken seriously. Even in comedy stories, the author should take care not to make whisper text too tiny to read because, well, I just showed you why, didn’t I?

Strikethroughs are basically amazing and will make every fic 20% cooler. Strikethoughs should only be used in comedy trollfics.

Footnotes and links

I daresay I love footnotes even more than I love colours. I’ve even tried using them in fiction before. Spoiler: it didn’t work. Using a footnote to do an exposition dump isn’t a clever way of doing an exposition dump – it’s taking the reader out of the story to bombard them with boring facts. They’re especially bad in online fiction because of the scrolling one generally has to do to reach them.

Links are even more troublesome than footnotes, and sadly more widely used. Don’t link to music in your story – many readers listen to their own music while reading, and have no interest in pausing it. Also, using music to make up for the emotional shortcomings of your writing is a cheap tactic that probably won’t even work most of the time, because different people read at different speeds.

As for explanatory wiki or other website links, well, I don’t think we’re quite ready for those just yet. Keep those for when human minds have become so accustomed to soaking in tonnes of information every second that wiki links become mandatory features of stories. Right now, most readers don’t appreciate breaking their immersion to check out some webpage.

If you’re really set on putting links in your work, and I absolutely cannot convince you otherwise, then go completely overboard. Use multiple documents, have as many links as possible, make weird mazes, and tell some kind of weird interactive avant-garde hypertext story or something. I’m sure someone will appreciate it.

Same with footnotes, actually. The occasional link or footnote is the death of immersion, but barrages of them create a new kind of immersion.

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Overused expressions

If I read about another character “going bright red” or “going beet red”, I swear I am going to pop a blood vessel and go bright red myself. If your character must blush, say that they blushed, or find another way of saying it figuratively. Better yet, find your character another nervous/embarrassed affectation.

“Scootaloo’s cheeks flamed from within.”

—shortskirtsandexplosions, showing us how it’s done

Ponyfic-specific example: Celestia’s sun and Luna’s moon. I’m sure both of those expressions were delightfully clever ways to remind the reader what property your fic was based on the first time they were ever used. Between then and now, they became hoary old clichés that will only ever elicit groans. Do not use these expressions as replacements of “the sun” and “the moon”.

Eyes are eyes. They are not “orbs”. No one who has read the Orb Eye of Aragon will be able to take you seriously if you use this expression. Even people who haven’t will likely laugh at you behind your back (more than they usually do).

I don’t know what it is about the phrase, but far too many authors have a love affair with “going about [their/her/his/its] daily routine”. It’s cliche and empty. Try saying what the character(s) in question are/is actually doing instead.

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Your personal style and creative voice

Developing a unique voice is essential to good writing, and all the rules of grammar and style in the world can take a backseat when they become a hindrance to creativity (or even to readability). However, it takes a lot longer to develop a real creative voice than you may think, and I cannot overstress the importance of learning the rules before you break them.

Picasso knew how to paint realistically, but he chose not to because of the nature of what he was trying to convey with his art. Without having mastered all the techniques he required for traditional painting, he would never have been able to break out of that mold and create a meaningful new style.

The rules of grammar, spelling, typography, and all the rest of that sort of thing were invented by smart, knowledgeable people, and they generally have good reasons for being the way they are. Endeavour to learn these reasons so that you can make more informed decisions about when to go against them.

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Formatting

Proper formatting is literally the difference between having an indecipherable mishmash of symbols and having something that looks like a readable piece of writing.

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Sentence spacing

Generally speaking, the modern convention is to use a single, standard space between sentences. The use of double spaces is preferred by some others, and it’s really a touchy issue in some circles. Personally, I’m a one-spacer, but the more I learn about this issue, the less I want to come down on saying that one side is wrong and the other is right. So take a look at how the different options make text look and make up your own mind.

Yet another choice, if you’re unsatisfied with both double and single spacing, is typing with double spaces and then replacing them with single en spaces (“ ”). I personally consider this the best of both worlds, as it avoids the rare occasions where having two spaces in a row will ruin your margin.

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Paragraph spacing

Paragraph spacing is necessary to allow readers to unambiguously identify where one paragraph ends and another begins. There are two primary methods for spacing paragraphs:

Indentation is used most commonly in media where space is limited. Almost all books, magazines, newspapers – anything intended to be viewed on print – use indents, as they separate paragraphs without wasting space space. Since the purpose of indenting is to separate paragraphs, the first paragraph of any section need not be indented.

The sun hovered a short distance above the lonely dirt road, making the trees that rose up on its eastern side cast long shadows over its surface. The morning atmosphere was fuzzy with the light mist that arose from the grass beneath the trees. Birds sang, leaves rustled in the gentle breeze, and the world was otherwise silent. Then came the soft padding of hooves – not so much a disruption of the silence as a carefully-measured, respectful step around it. The two ponies and zebra had not been walking for very long, but they felt that they were already quite far removed from the hustle and bustle of their city lives. Fillydelphia was no Manehattan, but the contrast between it and their current surroundings was jarring nonetheless.

It’s good practice (and ultimately requires less effort) to make use of Google Docs’s ruler or your word processor’s paragraph formatting features to indent, rather than just pressing tab at the start of each paragraph – even the Fimfiction text editor has an auto-indentation button. Your tab ing finger will thank you!

Double spacing between paragraphs is more common in electronic media where the amount of space is much less finite. In a typical typesetting environment, double spacing is achieved by telling the typesetting software the amount of desired space between paragraphs. However, since most people will be submitting works through Fimfiction, the alternative is to insert a blank line between each paragraph.

The sun hovered a short distance above the lonely dirt road, making the trees that rose up on its eastern side cast long shadows over its surface. The morning atmosphere was fuzzy with the light mist that arose from the grass beneath the trees. Birds sang, leaves rustled in the gentle breeze, and the world was otherwise silent. Then came the soft padding of hooves – not so much a disruption of the silence as a carefully-measured, respectful step around it. The two ponies and zebra had not been walking for very long, but they felt that they were already quite far removed from the hustle and bustle of their city lives. Fillydelphia was no Manehattan, but the contrast between it and their current surroundings was jarring nonetheless.

Since the purpose of paragraph spacing is to identify paragraph separation, simultaneous use of both formats is redundant.

Which format you choose is a matter of taste, but you must choose one and stick with it. If readers can’t distinguish between paragraphs, they won’t be able to distinguish whether or not your story is any good, and they will banish it from their sight.

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Section spacing

It’s often necessary to switch character perspective, skip ahead in time, or otherwise change the scene being focused on. In some cases this can be worked into the prose, but it’s often better to do with little dohickeys called scene breaks. Scene breaks come in all shapes and sizes:

An HTML horizontal line

A lightweight centred image (for example, in The Glass Blower)

Centre-aligned asterisks

Centre-aligned hyphens

Some thematic symbol in its own paragraph (for example, Black and White uses a centre-aligned double quaver)

As always, be consistent.

For changes in scene not drastic enough to require a full-on scene break, you can use a weak scene break:

When using indented paragraphs , weak scene breaks can be indicated by inserting a blank line and then resetting the indent.

, weak scene breaks can be indicated by inserting a blank line and then resetting the indent. When using double spaced paragraphs, weak scene breaks may be indicated by inserting a blank paragraph.

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Quotation marks

There are two kinds of quotation marks:

Single quotes: ‘’

Double quotes: “”

They are used mainly for dialogue (“Oh, um, hello,” said Fluttershy) and direct quotations (Sources describe the phenomenon as “totally rad”), but can also be used to indicate irony or sarcasm (You’re my “best friend”!).

Opinions are divided as to when single and double quotation marks should be used. In America, it’s common practice to only use single quotation marks when the text you’re enclosing them with is already inside double quotation marks (“You’re my ‘best friend’!” I said). Other authorities in Britain and Australia like to do the exact opposite (‘You’re my “best friend”!’ I said).

Still, others prefer to reserve double quotes for dialogue and quotations and use single quotes for everything else. And then there’s the fanfiction convention of using single quotation marks for direct thoughts (which I’ve found is a great way to confuse your reader horribly and personally discourage).

Choose a style, and use it consistently. The use of quotation marks is not as region-specific as “colour/color” or “spaced en dash/unspaced en dash”, so feel free to use the American style if, like me, you think that single quotes look too much like apostrophes.

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