Top 10 Rules Online Fiction Writers Should Follow If They Want To Ultimately Make A Living Writing (And Then Some Other Advice)

Do you need to improve your grammar skills? Do you think the way you string words together is sub-par? How 'bout a brush up on your regular English guidelines? Then here's some advice for you.

I'm not the queen of grammar, nor do I claim to be perfect (I bend some of these rules myself), but I came up with a list of things fiction writers on Mibba might find helpful to improve the quality of their work.

Top 10 Rules Online Fiction Writers Should Follow If They Want To Ultimately Make A Living Writing:
1. Check your grammar and proof read. If need be, have someone else check it. It could be an online buddy you’ve never met or your older brother. But wait! Don’t do it just once. Be careful not to re-read a specific chapter more than twice or thrice in the same sitting. It also helps to read your work out loud. Keep your eyes peeled for homonyms and little things, such as the direction of the quotes (“/”), BBcode, and punctuation marks.
2. When you write a story, avoid including links to pictures of things to explain how you imagine them or how they specifically look like, such as clothes or people. Do your best to describe these things using your awesome writing skills!
3. In published works (magazines, online, books, etc.), authors rarely use any other typing styles outside of italics. Try your best to keep it simplified to an extent, but don’t hold yourself back when using bold, strikeout, or smaller and larger texts. They make the writing interesting and expressive!
4. Don’t go overboard with description but don’t underplay it either. It gets boring if you’re describing every move of someone’s hands, but it also leaves the reader clueless as to how things are happening if you make it too bland. Moderation is the key to everything when writing.
5. Fillers make people want to not comment, so make sure your writing is relevant for the most part to the plot.
6. Short chapters are dull, but a chapter that’s too long leaves the reader wanting to get up and leave. A good guideline is to not write less than 600 or 700 words, but to also not write more than 2,000 words. The only exception is when writing one-shots and other forms of flash fiction.
7. Don’t ever beg for comments. However, it’s okay to create an enticement for an update.
8. When you write, don’t spit out a thesaurus. Try writing without one by your side at first, then, if you feel your writing needs a little glitz and glam or a little spice in the mix, re-read your selection out loud and look for words that can be changed. Make sure you don’t change too many (one or two per 1,000 words), because then someone can tell or they’ll find it annoying. In time, you won’t need a thesaurus.
9. Word is great for checking your spelling and grammar, but never trust it completely. It can really screw up your writing and make you seem like you don’t know what’s what when you type. Exercise caution when using any type of computer assistance!
10. Accept suggestions and criticism with a smile and an open mind.

Homonyms:
Homonyms are hard to avoid and also to spot. Common homonyms include:
-Capital and capitol
-Principal and principle
-By, bye, and buy
-Cymbal and symbol

Here are some other homonyms to pay special attention to:
1. “It’s” and “its” are different. “It’s,” when split apart, means “it is”; that’s what the apostrophe is for. “Its” implies a possessive trait, such as “its tail.”
2. They’re, their, and there. When you take away the apostrophe and expand they’re, it becomes “they are.” “Their” is possessive (“That’s their dinner”) and “there” is a preposition (“There they are.”).
3. The same thing applies with your and you’re. When you take away the apostrophe and expand “you’re,” it becomes “you are.” “Your” is possessive.
4. “Whose” and “who’s” are also homonyms that you need to watch. “Who’s,” when split up and spread out, means “who is.” “Whose” is possessive (“Whose cup is this?”).
5. When describing possession, you use the apostrophe before the “s” to describe one person and you use it outside of the “s” to describe more than one person. Take these two different examples:
(1.) “That’s the boys’ equipment in the trailer.” – “Boys’” describes more than one boy.
(2.) “The boy’s t-shirt was soaked from his spilled drink.” – “Boy’s” is talking about one specific boy.

Other Thoughts and Suggestions:
1. It’s hard to use quotes correctly. When you use double quotes, as if someone’s talking, and they quote someone else, use single quotes for that. Example: “And then Joe told me, ‘Stop it! You’re ruining the movie!’”
2. Using punctuation after quotes is also difficult. I’m still trying to get the hang of it myself! Here are some simple rules:
(1.) Inside the quotes, you can end with commas, periods, question marks, or exclamation points.
(2.) Don’t use a period if you continue to describe how someone spoke after the quotes.
(3.) Don’t capitalize improper nouns after a comma, question mark, or exclamation point in quotes.
Here are some examples of different endings:
(Rule 1) 1. “You’re awesome!” 2. “Why did you say that?” 3. “Thank you.” 4. “He mentioned it,” Luke muttered.
(Rule 2) 1. “George wanted me to,” Julia said. 2. “Thanks,” Hans murmured while walking.
(Rule 3) 1. “Yes!” he shouted. 2. “How?” she asked, looking up to Kayla.
3. No one. Not no-one or noone. It’s no one.
4. If you’re adamant on being accurate in a story (i.e. tour dates, specific land marks), check your facts against more than one resource if possible.
5. Don’t try to use special punctuation if you’re not comfortable with it. A semi-colon (;) is a good example of this. It’s usually used to take place of “and,” “but,” or “or,” but it’s also used in different ways to accent the writing.
6. Don’t try to sound too formal or too colloquial when writing thoughts or dialogue unless you mean to. Think about what your characters would say first.