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valhalla-queen · 2 years

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Writing Tips

Punctuating Dialogue

✧

➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.

“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”

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valhalla-queen · 3 years

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Story Idea #91

Jelica was a shape shifter. Her true form was a mighty dragon with piercing green eyes and black scales. Her other form was a petite, black haired girl of 21. She had lived for over a thousand years in her true form, but that was only considered to be young in the other shape shifter community’s eyes.

One day the king of the kingdom that bordered her lands decided the shape shifters were a threat and ordered their deaths. He sent thousands of fighters to slay her people. There were only about 10 of them in the area at the time and they were all slayed easily. She was safe because her parents ordered her to hide in a deep cave for what seemed like forever.

Once the king got word that they all had been slayed, he called off the fighters and Jelica was safe again. She hid in the cave, only coming out at night to hunt in her human form, for 20 years. By this time, the current king had grown old and weak… too weak to cause her any more problems.

One day she decided to go hunting during the day, which was out of the normal for her. It had been an exceptionally hard season for her and she was starting to starve. So she decided to hunt closer to the royal hunting grounds.

While hunting, she came across a hunting party that was led by the prince (age 23) and she tried to run away before they could spot her. It was treason to hunt in the royal hunting grounds and would lead to arrest and being jailed for however long the royals saw fit for the crime.

She tried to run and ended up getting snared in a net trap set for some boar. She tried to free herself before the prince and his hunting party arrived but she wasn’t able to. The prince ordered her to be released from the trap and when he laid eyes on her, he felt something flutter in his stomach. He had found her to be an exceptional beauty. But regardless of her beauty, the prince had to have her arrested.

She was carted back to the kingdom, fearful for her life…. But she didn’t say so because she still had to hide that she was a shape shifter or else the king would probably have her killed. She had to act as normal as she could, which came to her easily seeing she had promised her parents that she would not shift back into her dragon form to keep her safe.

Once they got back to the kingdom, the prince and king decided to lock her up for a year for breaking the law. During which time she got to know the prince more because she had the choice of going to jail or becoming a servant in the castle. She of course chose the servant route.

She cleaned for them, cooked for them, etc. At night she got to go to her chambers to be alone. This is where she decided to shift partially to let her wings show and stretch out (was the only shifting she actually did over all these years because the muscles would cramp up if she didn’t).

One night she decided to sneak out and risk a little flight. She was terrible at it and ended up injuring herself (spraining her ankle). The prince had also decided to escape the walls of the castle for a night ride and came across where she was testing her flight out and saw when she got hurt. He watched her limp to a rock and sit, rubbing her ankle. When his horse kicked a rock, making a loud racket, Jelica looked up in fear and shifted back to her human form fully and tried to run away but couldn’t. She fell over and injured her ankle more. The prince got down off his horse and walked slowly over to her, curious. He never had any ill will towards the shape shifters…. Nor did he know anything about them seeing he was so young when his father ordered them all killed.

Jelica looked up at the prince in fear and scooted away as he drew closer. He told her not to be afraid, that he would not harm her. But she only believed that a little.

He knelt down beside her once she wasn’t able to scoot any further away from him, and he looked at her ankle… gently touching it. She winced at that and pulled her legs in close to her chest.

She begged him to not tell his father what he had seen… that she promised that she would cause no trouble. And the prince believed her.

He helped her get back to the castle and helped her bandage her ankle so she could walk on it properly.

Over the next couple days, the prince got her to sneak out with him to the forest. There the prince convinced her to shift into her dragon form and rod her around the night sky when it was safe.

They ended up falling in love and he wanted to run away with her as her time as a servant came to an end. They were worried they would never see each other again.

But one night, as she had shifted to her dragon form and the prince loaded some stuff up onto her sides, the king grew suspicious and sent riders out to find the prince (as he was due to marry someone else in a few days as well but he obviously didn’t want to). The riders found Jelica and the prince in the forest and saw what Jelica really was. She freaked out and accidentally blew blue flames at the riders, scattering them. The prince jumped onto her back and they flew high into the night sky. The riders reported back to the king, and he ordered her death and the safe return of the prince.

#mystoryidea #storyidea #idea #story #shortstory #short #dragon #fantasy #fantasystory #fantasy story #story ideas #short story #mystory #WIP

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valhalla-queen · 3 years

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Story Idea #87

A black hole opens up in the Earth’s atmosphere and starts to slowly devour the world. Everything within a 20 mile radius started to get devoured. Seven people, one from each continent, had been chosen months earlier to help stop the black hole which is actually a space wurm that has been devouring multiple planets throughout other galaxies.

The one from North America, Jessica, is on a cliff top overlooking her city as the black hole started. A few friends were with her from school and noticed the change in her, not in the normal sense (they were freaking out, she remained as calm and collected as possible).

Standing, she walked to the edge of the cliff and felt the others around the world start to power up, so she did the same. One of her friends came up to her, in shock and begged her to come away with them or else she would die. Of course they didn’t know what was going on with her yet. She closed her eyes and told them that she couldn’t because it was her job, and several others to protect the world from this sort of thing, and that if she didn’t help… the power would be off balance and not work to destroy the wurm…. Then the world would be demolished by the black hole and everyone would die.

She couldn’t have that, no matter how badly she wanted to run and hide with the others. Her friends decided to stay and watch her work seeing if she failed, they would all die no matter if they were hiding or not.

Jessica closed her eyes and focused more on all the energy she had inside her and visualized it connecting with all the others’ powers as well… like a giant electric blue chain. Her power started to show itself as a blue light coming from her palms and circled her. She focused even harder, now on the black hole.

Everyone charged, they all said the same words (not sure as to what those are yet) and shoved their hands outward toward the black hole, shooting the power out toward it as well. It sped through the air in bright blue lines from all across the world. You could see each line hit the black hole at the same time, creating an even brighter blue light in the sky.

You could hear the black hole wurm screaming and roaring in anger as the power started to shred the monster. The black hole it had created with its mouth had closed, but the wurm was still in the atmosphere… which was slightly less deadly than the black hole itself, but still bad.

All the power wasn’t enough to kill the wurm, just destroy the ability it had to create black holes. As the power from all 7 of the people started to weaken, Jessica started to slightly panic. That wasn’t supposed to happen for a little bit, not till the wurm was actually dead.

She opened her eyes and pushed her own energy out through her palms even more intensely, causing her to scream in pain a bit. Her friends noticed the other lines in the sky disappear but not Jessica’s. She had decided to take matters into her own hands and try to kill the wurm herself. But this was a dangerous way of doing it.

The power they used was pat of their own life force and if she used all the power in her, she would die. But that was the last thing that went through her mind. One of her friends, John, decided to run up to her and try to convince her to stop, that there was no way she could kill the thing all by herself. She just told him that everything would be alright and that she would make sure that the wurm was destroyed one way or another.

The wurm noticed she was still firing her energy at him and started to enter the atmosphere to try and get to her. She noticed this and stopped firing for a second, telling her friends to get to a safe place… that everything would be just fine. After a few minutes of arguing with her, her friends started to retreat back down the cliff to a cave close by that they all knew well. John ended up kissing Jessica and telling her he had always cared about her and she reciprocated the feelings to him as well.

Once they were a safe distance away, and the wurm was close enough she could feel the heat from its body, she knelt down in a ball and pulled all the energy she could from her body and the earth together. The light was a greenish blue this time, coming from her chest.

The rest of the 7 would feel the energy shift but at least they all would be safe, along with the rest of the world. She had finally found her purpose and decided to not be selfish about it as well.

The wurm roared as it got even closer to where she was. Standing, she closed her eyes and crossed her arms across her chest to keep the energy building inside her from exploding out too early. She thanked her mentor and family in her mind then threw her arms from her chest to shoot a massive energy beam at the wurm as he was only a couple miles from her now.

The energy beam hit the monster right in the eye and made him glow a greenish blue. Debris from his burning body started to fall everywhere around where he was floating. Then BOOM! Jessica went a sort of supernova with energy and kept it fired at the wurm, who now smoldered and turned to ash.

John caught a last glimpse and screamed out her name, sad she never actually got to live and be with him. Where she had been standing, a patch of glass flowers suddenly grew, which glowed with the residual power from her to be a kind of memorial to her efforts.

The wurms’ ashes slowly flittered to the ground and vanished like melting snow. The world had to recover from the mild destruction of the black hole.

The other 6 people all ended up back with their mentor to learn how to protect the world better seeing they almost didn’t make it, if it hadn’t been for Jessica’s sacrifice.

*Written to ”Losing You” by Ephixa & Laura Brehm*

#storyidea #story #idea #blackhole #scifi #shortstory #short #wurm #WIP #mystory

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valhalla-queen · 3 years

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Story Idea #72

It was a dark night, with the moon and stars shining brightly in the sky. I lay on a rock that was jutting out of the waves; just staring upward at the sky. I had lived my entire life beneath the oceans’ surface. It was forbidden to leave the water due to all the humans… but I couldn’t help it. The world above was so vast and beautiful. There were trees, clouds, all sorts of animals and plants that we don’t have.

Why couldn’t we be allowed to just sit out at night, when no humans are around, to enjoy everything? I guess it was because we were supposed to be a mythical creature from bedtime stories, not something real. It is always dangerous when myth is real.

We merpeople were forced into hiding due to that, and our population was dwindling due to being hunted in secret. The merwomen were the ones who killed the sailors when they confronted us; also we were a female dominated species as well so the men were rare to be seen by humans.

Thing is, we couldn’t help killing sailors. It just is our natural instinct to; a real fight or die situation. This is how we got the name siren; we would attract men to a rocky area at sea, their boat (usually a hunting vessel) would capsize, and then we would attack to protect ourselves.

Listening to the oceans’ soft roar, I just kept watching the sky and letting my mind wonder. I sat like that till the first rays of sunrise peaked over the horizon. I didn’t move though. Sunrises were another thing I enjoyed watching on the surface.

Something in the sky suddenly caught my attention. It looked like a fleet of planes. One of them abruptly caught smoke and started plummeting to the sea. I watched in awe at the sight with a hint of horror.

The plane slammed hard into the waters’ surface, scattering parts, flames, and a huge wave that swept me off my rock. I quickly swam over to the wreckage as the rest of the planes circled back toward the way they had come. I expected to find the pilot dead, but I was wrong. The pilot was fighting against his seat belt to free his leg from under the crumpled control module. He didn’t notice I was there at first, but once he got out of his seat belt he was able to move a bit more freely.

“Help me!” he yelled, helplessly, to me as the plane (a Curtiss P-36 Hawk) made a groaning noise, then started sinking. I just stayed where I was, knowing that I was already going to be in trouble for being on the surface and being seen. If I saved him, I may as well sign my own death sentence.

He was starting to take in water as he breathed and coughed madly. “Please!” he cried out, fear heavy in his voice. Then he was completely submerged. I stayed there for a second, thinking this through. “Crap!” I said with a sign. I quickly swam down to the man and ripped off the cockpit cover so I could get to him easier.

His eyes widened in shock at the full view of what I was. I stopped for a second to see if he would try and pull a weapon, but all he did was grab his trapped leg and pull on it to show me where he was stuck. Swimming closer, I made sure to be on my guard as I carefully pulled at the console pinning him.

Once his leg was free, we were nearly at the bottom. The man had started to move erratically as he lost his breath. Acting fast and without really thinking, I grabbed his scratched up face and put my lips to his. Blowing, I filled his lungs with air. His color in his face started to return and we started back to the surface. Upon surfacing, he gave an excited holler. I just stayed there, a little worried what would happen next.

He smiled and looked at me saying “Thank you. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.” I stayed quiet, submerged up to my nose. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, if anything at all. I was also curious as to why I didn’t want to attack him. Instead I had saved him… which goes against everything I was.

He watched me closely and then slowly swam toward me. Reaching out, he gently touched my cheek. “You are so beautiful.” He said, stroking his thumb over my cheek, to my finned ears, where he then gently pushed my hair back from my face more. I coward a little bit and sunk more into the water.

“It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.” He said pulling back a little so I wouldn’t feel threatened. “What’s your name.” he asked, never losing eye contact with me. I didn’t reply immediately but when I did I said “Jada.”

The man smiled at me and said “Jada. I like that. My name is Connor.” “Connor.” I said aloud, testing the name out “I like it as well.” He smiled at me again and I couldn’t help but smile softly back.

Suddenly there was a loud horn blow from behind me. I spun around and saw a boat speeding toward us. I turned back to Connor and said “I have to go. No one is supposed to see me.” Connor reached out and took my hand before I could disappear beneath the surface.

“Will I ever see you again?” he asked, worry heavy in his voice. “I don’t know.” I replied quickly, looking over my shoulder at the fast approaching boat. “I’m sorry. I really have to go.” I said while letting go of his hand to dive down in time as the boat pulled in closer.

Connor swam in the same place, waiting, as the surface grew farther from me. I could see the boat stop beside him and heard voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. They sounded loud and stressed. Then Connor was lifted out of the water and the boat sped away.

Once it was far enough away, I swam back to the surface to watch Connor disappear. My heart sank a little in fear that I would never see him again… but there had to be another way. He was different from all the humans I was told about growing up. He never tried to attack me or anything like that.

He tried to befriend me and get to know me.

How could that be a bad thing?

*Story is set in the 1930s, Bermuda Triangle area*

#storyidea #idea #story #shortstory #short #mermaid #1930s #romance #WIP #siren #sirenmermaid #mystory

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