User:Alucard vess/Sandbox4
Looking After Grammar |
Written by Fleet Captain Diego Herrera
You’ve read through grammar tutorials and you’ve even dusted off those English books from your school days. You are a veritable grammar king! Or are you? Do you really have that black belt? Can you string two subordinate clauses together with a chain and use them as lethal weapons like Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon? And if so, do you make the same noises as he did.
Let’s hope not, especially if you type up your SIMs in a public library…
There are many pitfalls and stumbling blocks that are easily avoided by familiarising yourself with certain rules, examples of which are provided below. Some may look finicky (come on, you know you love finicky) but when they’re the difference between entering a writing challenge or the top SIMs competition and walking away with a victory under your belt, you’ll be glad that you took the time to brush up!
Capitalisation
Sci-fi writing creates a range of difficulties when it comes to choosing whether or not to start a word with a capital. You have ‘Bajoran’, ‘Engineering’, ‘Commanding Officer’ and a variety of other things that are just waiting to throw a hyperspanner in the works. Fortunately, there are some handy conventions that can help you to keep your nose clean. Take a look below!
Alien Races
Whenever you refer to a member of an alien race, use the same rules as you would for nationality, which requires a capital letter. If someone hailed from Germany you would say:
“He is German.”
It’s the same deal if someone mistakenly thinks you’re drinking plome’ek soup when in fact your evening meal hails from a different Federation founder world‘s culture:-
“It’s actually Tellarite cuisine.”
Always use a capital! Of course, with rules come exceptions and this rule is no exception to the, er… rule. If you’re talking about Terrans, use a capital, but humans? Always lower case.
Locations
“Commander, I’ll be in Engineering.”
You will! ‘Engineering’ is a proper noun in this case, the name of the ship’s engine room. Notice it’s not the name of the ship’s Engine Room. If you’re using the title of a place name, such as ‘Ops’, ‘Engineering’, ‘Sickbay’ or ‘Ten Forward’ then you use a capital. If your location needs ‘the’ before it then you don’t in most cases, such as ‘the bridge’, ‘the observation lounge’, ‘the transporter room’. If you can put a ‘my’ in front of it then you’re also likely to be looking at lower case: ‘my quarters’.
Ranks and Duty Posts
Here’s where it gets a little more complicated. If you’re talking about ‘lieutenants’ and ‘chief engineers’ then you sometimes capitalise and you sometimes don’t! How can you tell? Well, this is the exact same rule as when to use, or not use, a capital letter for ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad’!
If you’re addressing someone by their title or rank, or stating your rank as if it’s a name, use a capital:-
“I think I’ve found something, Captain.”
“You should probably ask Lieutenant Johnson.”
“I’m Kathryn Janeway, Commanding Officer of the USS Voyager.”
“I’m going to tell Mom!”
In all other cases, use a lower case letter. In some cases you might be using ‘the’, ‘my’ or ‘a’, which will give you a heads up:-
“I think I’ve found the captain.”
“You should probably ask the lieutenant.”
“Kathryn Janeway is the commanding officer of the USS Voyager.”
“I’m going to tell my mom.”
“How many ensigns does it take to change a light bulb?”
Using Commas for Subordinate Clauses
There aren’t many hard and fast rules for using commas by themselves and it can often come down to a matter of style. However, subordinate clauses need to be marked off with commas if you want your sentence to be understood the way you intended. Sometimes the meaning can be changed by omitting commas, or it can become ambiguous, or it can just look difficult to read. Here’s an example:-
He walked out into the snow although it was cold enough to numb his feet to collect his mail from the mailbox.
Without punctuation, that reads as a little stilted and it’s difficult to process. Some people might have to read that twice to get the sense behind it. With commas it becomes much easier.
He walked out into the snow, although it was cold enough to numb his feet, to collect his mail from the mailbox.
What we did there was mark off a subordinate clause, which is a part of a sentence that could be removed entirely without compromising the sense of what we’re trying to say, with commas. I did it again in the previous sentence! Suddenly this is everywhere! Below, so that you can see I’m not just making this up, is the example sentence with that whole clause removed (yes, I did just do it again!):-
He walked out into the snow to collect his mail from the mailbox.
Correctly marking off these subordinate clauses is what enables you to accurately write complex sentences, so it’s worth giving it a try!
The Dreaded Semicolon
The dreaded semicolon is a piece of punctuation often avoided because quite frankly what is it for? The answer is that it exists purely to save you time! This helpful and good natured little beastie can be deployed to join together two sentences that directly relate to one another (one might be explaining why something’s true in the other, for example), or it can join together two sentence fragments that would normally be linked by ‘but’ or ‘and’, or something similar. Here are some handy examples:-
He listened intently but there was nothing to be heard.
becomes
He listened intently; there was nothing to be heard.
and
Several members of the coalition decided to set a reverse course and head home in the knowledge that they were heavily outgunned and regrouping was the better option.
becomes
Several members of the coalition decided to set a reverse course and head home; they were heavily outgunned and regrouping was the better option.
Forcing Good Habits: Halting and Avoiding "All Dialogue" Sims |
Written by Fleet Captain Kali Nicholotti
While it might come easy to some people, writing and including exposition and characterization in your sims isn’t always the most cut and dry thing. It doesn’t always flow naturally, and for those who struggle with this aspect of ‘better writing’, it can be frustrating to improve when you aren’t quite sure how.
Don’t worry though; you aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last to have this problem. Plenty of people play this game not because they are writers, but because they have a deep love for all things Trek, and the appeal of writing for a character of their choosing, in a world largely designed as we go, yet based in something we love, can be pretty strong. As an open group, Starbase 118 makes it a point to include everyone we can, but it’s obvious that some sims simply invoke more feeling and offer deeper insight than others.
So how do you join the ranks of the writers of such sims? Here are a few tips that can help force your hand into penning more epic words in more amazing structures, leading to sims that invoke feelings, paint mental images in everyone who reads them, and in general, help inspire your crewmates.
Force of Habit
You might be told over and over again to include characterization in your sims, but if you aren’t sure where to start, or what to include, it can be hard to build this kind of habit in your writing. In this case, it’s a good idea to follow this simple rule:
For every three or four lines of dialogue, include a descriptive block.
It might sound too structured, looking at it now, but ultimately, what you’ll be doing is forcing your mind – and your fingers – to build the habit you are looking for. Sure, it means you might have to go back through your sims, or stop mid-sim, to really think about what you might include, but when the sim is done, it will be of higher quality and more inspirational than the one you were going to originally send.
Regardless, make sure that you force yourself to do this for a couple of weeks. After a half dozen sims, you’ll start to notice that it will get easier and come more naturally. Before long, you’ll wonder how you ever wrote before.
The Scene, Character Thoughts, or Movements
Still not sure what to write about in your descriptive blocks? Generally, you’ll find that the blocks of text between the colons in a sim will include one of three things:
- Text describing the scene around the characters, such as the color of the walls, the foliage, the smells, the light or absence of, how heavy the air might be, or a million other things that explain how the environment around your character looks. This kind of exposition can also include the description of events as they occur. (IE – ::The ship exploded on the screen into a million tiny points of light that rivaled the very stars beyond.::)
- The thoughts that are going through your character’s mind, that aren’t included in thought bubbles. Yes, thought bubbles are used for ‘real time’ thoughts, but descriptive blocks can be used for a kind of reflection your character might be having. (IE – ::She sat back and pondered the idea of what to have for dinner. Certainly steak was one option, but would her guest approve?::)
- Movements your character is making in response to an event, something in the scene, the other person or people they are interacting with, or even as a result of something they did themselves. (IE – ::He turned and covered his eyes as the ship exploded to shield himself from the blinding light.::)
Mixing these three things is generally what happens, though, so if you can react to an event in a descriptive and make it seem as if it were really happening, or at least convey to other readers vividly what is going on, then you’ve met with success.
In Time
When your Commanding Officers and others around you ask for more, or you read the sims of another writer and wish you could invoke feelings and imagery like they can, don’t get frustrated. Like all skills, developing your writing skills can take time. The point of setting up definitive rules, like in the beginning of this tutorial, is to force yourself to do something until it becomes a habit. In time, you won’t need to stop and look over your sims to count lines of dialogue before you send a sim in.
And remember, no matter how far you might be in your writing development, there are always resources and help available to you. Don’t hesitate to reach out to your commanding officer, command staff, or other crewmates. You might be surprised just how eager your fellow writers are to share information, hints, tips, and experiences. Not only will you gain new perspectives, but you’ll be building up your OOC connections at the same time. Keep this in mind and making your sims better will end up being simpler than you ever imagined.
Writing Alien Spicies |
Written by Captain Grier Reinhard