Writing Improvement Squadron/Basic Writing Techniques

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Writing Improvement Squadron Overview Basic Writing Techniques Style and Mechanics Plot and Story Character Development Simming Policies Creating Original Material Edit this Nav Basic Writing Technique Tutorials Tackling Common Grammatical Errors Forever Written by Fleet Captain Kali Nicholotti There are many parts that come together to make a really great sim, but one of the most basic is quite simple; proper use of the language in which we write. For some writers, this is more difficult than others, especially if English is not the first language of the writer in question. English, as a whole, can be difficult to master, yet, weaving words together in the manner that we do, while managing not to completely mangle those words into something unrecognizable will enable you, as a writer, to transport your readers into another realm. And in that realm, your audience will be able to stay deep within the flow of what you’ve written, allowing your characters, even more than ever before, to come to life. But as we’ve said, mastering the language is hard, but there is a positive side to that. While there are plenty of confusing exceptions to the so-called ‘rules’ of English, most of the errors that you’ll run into here are pretty common. We’ve seen them before, and we will see them again, but hopefully, with this tutorial in hand, you’ll be able to vanquish them from your writing forever! Spell Check! – It’s said that almost forty percent of all errors within writing occur because spell check wasn’t used. If you don’t have one built into your word processor or browser, check out this gem, which can also help those who are writing in English as their second language. They’re/Their/There – This is, perhaps, one of the most common grammatical errors that you’ll run into when writing. Unlike many homonyms, there are three options instead of two, which makes it more difficult to remember the rules regarding each one. Still, if you keep in mind the basic apostrophe rule and remember that they’re means they are, you should be able to keep the going there, and the going to their house separate. Your/You’re – These two words are often confused, yet they mean totally different things. Remember when you are writing that an apostrophe (‘) in the middle of a word means that you are putting two separate words together. Think about that when you sit down to write. Do you need to talk about your writing, or do you just mean you are. If you mean you are, then make sure to use the apostrophe version you’re. Through/Threw – Though they sound the same, these are two other words that have very different meanings. When you are considering using one of them, remember to think about if you are going to be going through something like a tunnel, or if you threw something like a ball. See/Seen/Saw – Seen is one of the most misused verbs out there. It doesn’t sound too wrong in most cases, even when it is horribly so, which means that you’ll have to remember a simple rule in order to use it correctly. These are all different tenses of the same action, so when your character has seen something, remember not to use seen unless it has a helping word (has, had, have). Keep in mind that they can always see something, or talk about how they saw something afterwards. Core/Corps – While not as common as some other errors, this one’s important because of the members of the Corps that many writers may run into at one point or another. Remember, core is the center of something, such as an apple, while corps means ‘body’, such as in Marine Corps. Its/It’s – Here’s another word that gets mixed up often. In order to avoid mixing up its and it’s, stop to think what you are talking about. If you are describing a property of something else in the possessive sense, such as a ship losing its shields, don’t use the apostrophe version. It’s is a shorter version of it is, so only use that version if you mean to say it is. Moot/Mute – You might, from time to time, consider writing that something was a mute point, but that would mean the point was silent. When something doesn’t matter if it is debated or not, it is actually a moot point. And while you can debate it anyways, as the word also means that something is open for consideration and discussion, you might not want to mute the television and miss something more exciting. Affect/Effect – This is another common grammatical mistake that can be avoided if you just remember a simple little trick. Next time you’re asking yourself which one of these to use, think about what it means. Affect is pretty much always a verb, which is an action word. On the other hand, effect is almost always a noun. When you affect something, you will always see an effect. Could of/Could have – A lot of time, when we’re writing, we sometimes write what we’ve heard instead of what is really being said. Because of dialects and speech irregularities, it’s sometimes easy to fall into the habit of thinking a saying, statement, or commonly used phrase is one thing when it isn’t. This is one of those phrases; don’t use ‘could of’, as it doesn’t make grammatical sense. No one could of completed something, but, they could have completed it. 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! Capitalization 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. Speaking for Others: The Voices You Borrow Written by Captain Malcolm Lysander As to speaking for other people in your sim, here’s the basic premise you should follow: feel free to write small things for other characters, as long as they are accurate with that character. Here are some examples using the characters that played in the StarBase 118 Operations sim. One example included a dialogue between the captain (Lysander) and a medical officer (Bizak): (sim) “BIZAK: Well, I guess I’d better start at the beginning?” “LYSANDER: I’d say that’s the best place.” In this situation what Bizak wrote for Lysander was not something that would change the situation dramatically, nor was it something that was beyond the scope of what Lysander would say in that situation. So, we could say that “low impact dialogue”, or dialogue that really doesn’t have much effect on the entire sim is acceptable. HOWEVER, if Bizak had written: “BIZAK: Well, I guess I’d better start at the beginning?” “LYSANDER: Why would I want to start from there?! I have to go, I don’t like you.” … that would be unacceptable. Why? First off, Lysander probably wouldn’t say something like that because he has never given an indication that he doesn’t like Bizak. After all, in that sim, HE asked HER to have a drink with him, so obviously he wouldn’t then decide that he didn’t like her. The following also wouldn’t work: “BIZAK: Well, I guess I’d better start at the beginning?” "LYSANDER: Uh oh, watch out! The Enterprise is crashing through the wall behind you as we speak!” … for most obvious reasons. For starters, nothing dramatic is happening in the sim that would suggest that there would be any reason for a ship to come crashing into the station. Next, before you put something into a sim that will changes things, like the Enterprise set to ram the StarBase, you need to talk to the captain first. Another example of a GOOD use of someone else’s character: “LYSANDER: Locke, fire phasers!” LOCKE: Aye Captain, firing phasers!” Lysander put the words in Locke’s mouth that would more than likely be spoken by Locke, the tactical officer. You simply have to walk a fine line between moving the sim along, and giving too much of someone else’s character. Use your good judgment, and try to use the other person’s character as little as possible, to avoid a problem. Keep your words neutral (so that you’re not stepping on the other person’s character in the wrong way), and only use the other character for simple actions, if you have to use them at all. If you’re going to involve another character in such a way that the other character may be injured, you should CO-WRITE the sim together, or at least ask the other person how far you can go with their character. Co-writing a sim means contacting the other character via Instant Messenger or e-mail to write the sim out piece by piece. (So, one person would write one thing, and send that to the other person. Then the other person writes their response, and sends that back. Then you put all that into one sim and send it out.) Using NPCs: An Empire at Your Command Written by Captain Malcolm Lysander There is a plot device that may help those of you who don’t have another person simming with you at your post. (i.e.- if you work in security, and there is another security officer on the crew, then you have another person simming with you at your post. But some posts, like Helm/Com/Ops, may only have one person stationed at them — you.) This plot device that you’ll find helpful is called the “Non Playing Character” (NPC). Everyone is free to play as many NPCs in the sim as they wish (within reason, of course.) Many people in UFOP create two or three (some people, like Hamlet, have about 20 NPCs) “extra” characters. These characters aren’t your main characters, but every now and then you use them as someone else to interact with in the sim. For example: Let’s say there is only one science officer on your crew. You could create another character who’s an ensign, and is also posted to science. During your sims, you could have your primary character interact with the new ensign by giving him orders, helping him fix things, or whatever. You don’t HAVE to create a character who’s in the same department as you though. You could just create a civilian character which which your primary characters falls in love with, for example. You may create NPCs who are of equal or lesser rank than you. (i.e.- A Lieutenant can create an NPC who’s a lieutenant or an ensign. An ensign can only create NPCs who are ensigns, cadets, yeomen, etc.) NPCs are just there to add a little depth to your sims. If your characters are always working alone, you’ll start to get bored. By showing how your main character interacts with other characters, you’re developing your character for us more, which is always good. Avoiding Backsims, Regaining Missed Opportunities Written by Rear Admiral Rocar Drawoh Ever missed someone’s post and had to backsim after the plot had moved on? Alternatively, perhaps you have posted a sim that moves things on and then a fellow player posted a sim requiring responses from your character in the past even though you had moved your character on from that place or time-frame? This is a situation we all face from time to time and generally our solution is to post a backsim, filling out the necessary gaps and asking the reader to insert it back before the current time frame. Such backsims can be over a page long, however more often than not they will be a post of just a few lines which appear at the start of our next sim with a massive leap in time to the rest of our post and little concept. Despite this common practice, there are ways to effectively avoid backsim posting. One of the easiest and most effective methods is the ((Flashback)) which if you milk it can really help you do some character building; as it shows your character thinking about an event in the recent past or that something important was still playing on their mind some time latter. Essentially this allows you to insert the lines that have been missed within the context of your sim. e.g.- Say a staff meeting ends and I have simmed my character back to his office, but then Commander Shartara posts a set of lines for me to reply to in the meeting. Rather than back sim, I could simply include the following lines in my next sim… ((Rocar’s Officer -Duronis II)) ::Having left the conference room some moments earlier, the Ambassador sat down at his desk and picked up a PADD. As his green Ktarian eyes gazed over the information he couldn’t help but think back to something that Shartara had said to him during the meeting, Rocar’s mind going over their exchange just moments earlier:: ((Flashback – Conference Room)) Shartara: Sir. . . I quite like Kate Rusby’s voice:: ::Rocar chuckled a little as he’d remembered Rusby singing at his birthday. Despite his reservation he had replied…:: Rocar: Okay. . . .see if she’s free to perform at the Embassy reception on Tuesday. ((End of Flashback)) ::Rocar sat in his office and shook his head in amusement at the brief exchange before the meeting had carried on and come to a close. Smiling to himself he turned his attention back to the PADD and the matter at hand.:: For added effect I would advise you to write the Flashback in the pluperfect tenses (i.e. “He HAD said” instead of “he said” or “He would have said” rather than “he would say”) as this helps convey the fact that it is an event in the past that your character is remembering. Of course simply remembering something without reason rarely happens in RL unless we are reminded of the event, and this lends itself to the sim as it offers the writer to use a little style in artistic technique. Rather than just sticking a flashback into the middle of the sim, try and lead into it by including a trigger. For example, if you are going to flashback to an event by a lake, then describe the ripples on your characters cup of coffee catching your characters attention; if you are going to back flash to a conversation with a beautiful blond then spot a blond haired officer ahead in the corridor; or if you’re going to remember a fight with an Orion, then sim an NPC mentioning Orions to your character in everyday conversation, or pick out a key word in some dialogue that someone else simmed for you. A flashback memory triggered something around your character is quite a stylistic way to write and helps bring a back sim into context whilst replying to the gaps you missed; you can even portray your character as giving the matter thought after the incident and thus do some good character building. This technique can also be adapted slightly to allow for showing different side to your characters. How often in RL do you have a verbal confrontation with someone and then several hours later think of something witty you should have said? Likewise, when simming, it will occasionally happen that you write a reply to someone’s previous sim and then latter you realize that you did not maximize on the gaps in the dialogue and missed out on a chance to do some real good character development? If this happens, then there is no need to pull your previous sim, despite your mistake. Instead, why not use thought marks and the flashback techniques to play over what happened and have your character imagine the same event with different dialogue. Perhaps start off with your character meditating or in bed ready for sleep, then have them think about what they said and imaging the alternative line that they did not say or could have said. This way you still manage to use the dialogue the way you realized you could have done, without having to pull your previous sim. Try these two sims out, and you not only avoid the dissatisfaction of posting a few lines of disconnected back sims or having to pull sims you not happy with, you also end up writing a new sim off the back of your previous oversights. These new Sims will allow you depth and development to your character whilst using some nice writing techniques that provide you with a high quality sim and something a little bit different to usual. Advanced Simming Tips Written by Vice Admiral Hollis Calley The best way to improve at simming is to sim often. Involve others when you sim. Remember once an idea is simmed, it can go in many directions. If an error is made, always try to fix it in character. When simming with others be willing to give them time to respond. I always figure 48 hours should be adequate, and after 72 hours continue on. When simming for others, limit responses to 5 words or less. You can also do joint sims by using chat soft ware, or exchanging emails. Do not create and solve a problem in one sim. Nor should one push the plot too far all at once. Doing so is called a “Marathon Sim”, and while useful for administrative reasons, should be avoided. Avoid meta simming; there may be times when the player knows exactly what is going on, but the character remains ignorant. Mysteries are often spoiled by meta simming. Be gentle with one and other. Everyone can have an off day, or miss something. Ultimately this is a friendly game. Expect consequence for IC actions. If someone phasers an innocent, expect them to be hauled up on charges. Some captains hate surprises. If you are planning a sudden plot twist that will re-write the mission contact the command officer to clear the idea. IC can bleed into OOC. Be careful when simming confrontations between characters. Often such sims should be proceeded by an OOC discussion that specifies what will happen, and how to resolve the confrontation.