Spinpasta Wiki:Site Rules/Spinpasta's Guide to Writing

Alrighty, Spinpasta friends of mine! It's become relatively apparent to me that certain people on this wiki (I'm not going to name names, because I don't mean offense but there are A LOT of names.) either don't know how to write with good grammar/spelling, or think they are allowed to write with bad grammar/spelling. As my Adminship was granted to me for Quality Control reasons, I’ve taken it upon myself to write this guide.

This a wiki for spin-off creepypastas. Scary stories! That means people are going to stop by and read these things. Do you want it to look generally bad, or do you want it to be readable? If you want it to look generally bad, there’s an entire wiki full of pastas like that. Ironically, they’re intentionally bad for humor reasons.

If you want it to be readable, that's the reason I've written this guide. SO PLEASE, READ IT. This is meant to HELP you.

Titles:

 * Should be capitalized. PROPERLY. There are words that you can get away with not capitalizing and those that don’t need it, but NOUNS NEED CAPITALIZED. VERBS NEED CAPITALIZED.


 * They do not need periods at the end. A title is not a sentence or a statement, it’s a title.


 * Exclamation points and question marks are fine, however.


 * A title doesn’t need quotation marks. In any way, in any shape, in any form.

Capitalize Your Sentences:

 * The BEGINNING of a sentence starts with a CAPITAL letter. it doesn’t start like this. It starts like this.


 * Only the first letter of a sentence, and Proper nouns/pronouns/names in general need capitalized.


 * Capitalize the first letter in a quotation. (Example: Bob looked at me and said, “Wow!”)


 * EXCEPTION: When a sentence quotation is split in the middle. (“Wow, you know,” Bob said, “that was amazing.”)


 * Capitalize “I.” It’s I, not i. I walked the dog. I killed a man. Etc.

Do Not Capitalize Every Word Like This.
That’s already been covered in the Quality Standards. A Pasta With Every Word Capitalized Like This Will Get The BAD Tag. Understand?

Punctuation Time!

 * If it’s a punctuation mark, put a space after it. Punctuation marks include but are not limited to: Exclamations (!), periods (.), semi-colon, colon , question mark (?), and comma.


 * SPACE after the end of a sentence. < See that? There’s a space after that period. Without a space, a pasta looks crunched together and becomes hardly readable.


 * If there is more after the end of a quote it ends with a COMMA. (“That’s a lovely dress,” he said with a grin.)


 * If there isn’t, it ends with a PERIOD. (He glanced at the dress, eyeing it up and down, and said, “That’s a lovely dress.”)


 * PERIODS and COMMAS go INSIDE the quotation marks.


 * A question mark that belongs to a quote goes INSIDE the quotation marks.


 * A question mark that doesn’t goes outside of the quotation marks.


 * If you are using “air quotes” or quoting something while you are quoting, use a single quote mark. (“And then I ‘maced’ him with the perfume. Just as effective as pepper spray,” she said.)


 * DO NOT PUT A SPACE AFTER A QUOTATION MARK.

The Annoying Wall of Text
Use PARAGRAPHS. Here’s when you should if you are unsure and need a guide:

After someone speaks.


 * Changing speakers or dialogue.


 * Transitioning subjects, or


 * Breaking up long amounts of text for idea transitioning.

Common mistakes one should avoid (Words.):

 * "It's" is not a possessive pronoun. "Its" is the correct term. "It's" is a contraction, meaning "it is."


 * "Your" IS a possessive pronoun. "Your bike." "Your thing." etc. "You're" is the correct term for things like "You're busted." etc. It means "You are."


 * There: Is a place. Their: It’s their toy. They’re: “They are.”

Common Mistakes one should avoid (Fragments)

 * A sentence that is COMPLETE has a subject, and a verb, and forms a complete thought.


 * A fragment often contains conjunctions that cause them to no longer be complete thoughts. (“Because I ran.”)


 * Imperative sentences have an understood “You” at the end. “Take out the trash” is basically “YOU take out the trash.”

Tense:

 * Keep tense the same all the way through the sentence.


 * Common past tense words have “ed” at the end of them.


 * Common mistake: It’s not “Bringed.” It’s “Brought.” Not “buyed”. It’s “bought.”


 * Another common mistake: It’s “sat,” not “sitted.”


 * Future tense words that are common have the word “will” preceding them. “I will take out the trash."

Comma Splicing/Fused Sentences

 * Use a semi-colon to separate two main clauses. “The man was old; he was at least 70.”


 * Use a period to separate two main clauses. “The man was old. He was at least 70.”


 * ^ Both make sense.


 * Use a comma and a coordinating conjunction. “The boy was small, and his weight had to have been less than 100 pounds.”


 * Use a colon when the second clause explains the first. “The man was old: he was at least 70.

Other common mistakes:

 * Numbers: Use figures for numbers above 10. Use words for numbers one through nine.


 * Use modifiers correctly. A modifier is something that relates or “modifies” a word in a sentence.


 * Use synonyms. Don’t use the same word 35 times. It makes things boring.

Other Quality Things.

 * USE SOME DESCRIPTION. Which is better: “Character X stabbed Character Y,” or “Character X jammed the knife into Character Y’s chest, smiling cruelly as blood began dribbling out.”?


 * A pasta should be AT LEAST a half of a page long. I’ve seen a number of them that are shorter, and most are 1. Pointless, or 2. Anti-climactic, and still pointless. If you ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY HAVE TO write a pasta THAT short, there’s an entire category (two actually) for them on the Trollpasta wiki.


 * If a person you write a pasta about exists in real life, ASK THEM PERMISSION, and DON’T OFFEND THEM.


 * THERE IS ALREADY A TITLE ON PAGES. There is no need nor reason to repost the title in the pasta itself.

Guide created by CalasanX on November 1, 2013.
 * This may be a wiki for spin-offs, but TRY TO AVOID CLICHES AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. They’re boring, and so over-used that they’re over-used here.