Basic Grammar, etc. Read before attempting to write.

[jiahao_94]

Well, it has come to light that some people have horrendous punctuation skills, grammar; or it may be that you are not sure how to write properly in English due to it not being one of your main languages. Whatever it is, here goes.

Punctuation
The most important technique to make a story readable is punctuation. Most importantly, you need to apply it properly in dialog.

He said, "I hate cookies."
"I hate cookies," he said.

In short, in simple dialog, punctuation preceding the speech will have to include a (,"), the speech, then a punctuation mark, followed by a double inverted colon: (").

"I not only hate cookies," he said, "but apples too!"

In complex dialog, like above, the punctuation marks are to be applied exactly, with the only alterable one being the ending marks of the sentence; that can only be a (."), (!") or a (?"), depending on the context.

Tenses
This should be simple.

Present: I go there everyday.
Simple enough. Used to express habit or current event; also expresses a constant, i.e., "The Earth revolves around the Sun."
Present continuous: I am going to go there now.
Used to express a currently running event. E.g, I am writing an essay.
Present perfect: I have gone there for twenty years.
Used when "exact" time is not known, and describes an event that happened in the past, and ended in the present.
Present perfect continuous: I have been going there for twenty years.
Used when exact time is not known, and for an event that is still running.

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Future: I will go.
Used when stating a fact, or predicting things.
Future continuous: I will be going.
Future perfect: I will have gone by ten.
Often used with the expression "by the time", or "by".
Future perfect continuous: By 8 o' clock, I will have been reading for more than two hours.
Used with duration of an activity that will be in progress before another activity in the future takes place.

Past: I went.
Used to indicate an activity that took place at a given point in time, in the past.
Past continuous: I was going to go when it rained.
Used when one action began earlier, and was in progress when the other action happened.
Past perfect: I had gone before the rain could get me.
Used for an activity which was completed before the activity took place.
Past perfect continuous tense: I had gone for two hours before he talked to me.
Talks about an ongoing activity in progress before another activity. E.g, The client had been waiting for two hours before you finally attended to him.

Time-line: Client waiting for two hours --> attend to him--> boss talking to you (present)

"To"
This is very basic. When "to" precedes a word, that word has to be in root form, i.e, no tenses, plural, etc.

An example would be "to jump", jump being the root word. The phrase cannot be "to jumps", "to jumping", "to jumped", etc.

That's all for now. Back to writing.

[lagger12]

I constantly make grammar and tense mistakes in my fanfics. I gave up on them though. Good job putting all this together. Should help future fan-fic writers understand more.