It's important to punctuate your fics correctly. Here's a rundown of the basic punctuation marks and how to use them.

Period (.) — If you can read well enough to be reading this—or online at all—you ought to know what a period is. It goes at the end of a sentence. That last sentence there was an example. I'm assuming that I don't have to explain this further.

Question Mark (?) — Again, you already know this. It goes at the end of questions. Is your sentence a question? Then you should use it.

Exclamation Point (!) — This goes at the end of a very excited sentence. Please, please use them sparingly, and only in dialogue. Descriptions are rarely exciting enough to warrant them. And for the love of God, only use one at a time.

Comma (,) — These are a bit trickier.

*The very basic is that commas are used where there's a pause in the sentence. If you're reading a sentence aloud and there's a natural pause, that's where the comma goes. For example, the pause in the last sentence.

*Commas are used between items in a list. If I was to list my favorite newsies in order, I'd write:

I like Blink, Racetrack, and Dutchy.

However, the last comma (Racetrack, and Dutchy) is optional.

*Commas are used to offset names, places, and years. Examples:

"The name's Kelly, Jack Kelly, you think I'm lying?"

Jack's full name is enclosed in commas.

Or in a date,

It was July, 1899, and the newsies were going on strike.

You put the commas around the year.

Or, in a place,

The strike took place in New York, New York, and affected the whole state. You put the commas around the state.

(Or Boston, Massachusetts, for a less repetitive example.)

*Commas go at the end of quotations, if the sentence is continued outside of the quotation. Similarly, if the sentence starts before it moves into the quotation, the comma comes before the quote.

"Jack, I was just joking," David said.

Or

David said, "Jack, I was just joking."

More about this in the quotation mark section.

* Commas are used when addressing someone directly.

"Jack, let's go back to my place and divvy up."

There's a comma after Jack's name because David was speaking directly to him.

Commas are tricky things, and I've seen them both overused and underused. A trick for figuring out when to use them is to read the sentence aloud. If you pause where there's a comma, you're doing it right; if the pause feels too long or unnatural, take a comma out.

Quotation Marks ("") — Quotation marks tell you when someone is speaking. Here's a brief conversation, my recreation of a movie scene:

"Hey, Race," Jack greeted his friend.
Race answered, "Hey, Jack."
"How was your day at the track?" Jack asked.
"Remember that hot tip I told you about?" Racetrack sighed. "Nobody told the horse."

* Quotation marks go around dialogue. So that means that whatever anyone says goes between them, like in all of the spoken lines above.

* When you explain who's speaking after the sentence, you put a comma right before the closing quotation mark. ("Hey, Race," Jack greeted his friend.)

* The exception to this is if the dialogue ends with a question mark or exclamation point, in which case, that's the punctuation you use. ("How was your day at the track?" Jack asked.)

* If you state who's speaking before the line is actually given, a comma goes before the first quotation mark. (Race answered, "Hey, Jack.")

* If the sentence doesn't continue after the dialogue, end with the proper punctuation, not a comma. ("Nobody told the horse.") This is also the case if you don't state who's speaking.

Apostrophes (') — Apostrophes are used for contractions and to show possession.

* Contractions are when letters are taken out. So things like "They're," instead of "they are," and "Who's that?" instead of, "Who is that?" get apostrophes. You put them in place of the letters you took out.

* You show possession with an 's at the end of a name. "The hat that belongs to Jack," becomes, "Jack's hat."

You don't need an 's for "his," "hers," or "theirs."

Special note: You don't need an 's for "its," either, if you mean "something belonging to it." However, if you're shortening "it is," than you do.

* However, many words are pluralized with an s at the end. This makes things even more convoluted. An apostrophe and s is still used to show possession in any singular word, no matter what the final letter is. So you'd have the dress's skirt, even though dress ends with an s.

*If the word is plural and does not end in an s, add an apostrophe and an s. (The children's crayons.)

*If the word is plural and does end in an s, it only takes an apostrophe. So you would have the parents' children.

Special note two: I was asked to emphasize this by a friend, so I shall. Apostrophes are never, ever used to pluralize words. They show possession or contractions, not plurals.

Ellipses (...) and dashes (—) — Both of these are used to vary the look and the feel of the writing. It keeps the text interesting, especially within dialogue.

* Generally, an ellipse is used if someone trails off during a speech. ("See, Morris here... He can't count to twenty with his shoes on.")

* Generally, a dash is used if someone is interrupted.

"You listen to me. You just shut up and—"
"No, you should listen!"

While they can be used within the narrative itself (that is, the stuff that isn't dialogue,) do so carefully.

Paragraphs — Paragraphs are possibly the most important thing listed here. They make your story legible. Without paragraphs, there's nowhere for the eye to rest; it gets lost and wanders, people lose their place, and even worse, people become confused. There are certain places that readers are used to pausing, and if you don't give them that, it's hard to understand what you're saying.

* Start a new paragraph every time the speaker changes.

To go back to the quotation example, you can see that I start a new paragraph at the beginning, then when Race speaks, again when Jack does, and again when Race does. Two different people should never speak in the same paragraph.

* Start a paragraph every time you change topics.

This is a bit harder to define. Start a new paragraph when the basic subject you're dealing with changes. If you're describing the majesty of the Brooklyn Bridge, and then describing Spot waiting on the other end of it, start a new paragraph when you start talking about Spot.

Varying paragraph length can be very effective in writing. It can be hard to read a lot of long paragraphs in a row, so try to keep them to a nice length. Perhaps use a longer paragraph if you're doing a long description. Also, a one-sentence paragraph can offset an important idea. I find they work well for character revelations.

Online paragraphs get a bit funky. If you're writing offline, of course, you indent using the tab key at the beginning of a paragraph. However, indenting online is bitchy, and rarely used. In general, a line break between paragraphs works. Just make sure you do something to show that a new paragraph has begun.

Plurals — This isn't exactly punctuation, but it's not grammar either, so I put it here. It's how to make a word multiple, that is, how to discuss more than one of something.

This isn't difficult. The basic rule of thumb is, put on an "s". Dog becomes dogs; cat becomes cats, etc.

* If the word already ends in an s, you add an additional "es" to the end. Dress becomes dresses; sorceress becomes sorceresses, etc. Not too hard.

Okay, things get trickier, but not much, when the word ends with a y. The basic rule of thumb, here, is to change the "y" to "i" and ad "es". So, query becomes queries, berry becomes berries, and so on.

* There is an exception to this rule, though, which is when there is a vowel right before the y. Here, you just ad on an s, like a normal word. So dopey, for example, becomes dopeys. Whatever that means.

Of course, English is a messed up language, so there are words that confuse the matter. You have one child, and many children, or one person and many people. On the other hand, you have one deer, and also many deer. Some words don't change at all when they become plural, but other words change totally. It's like irregular verbs, there's no easy rule or anything. You just have to know these words. You probably already do, because you probably speak English already. Honestly, how many people say childs instead of children? I'll give you the benefit of a doubt here.

However, another cautionary word, there's a difference between plurals and possessive, which was already covered and is done with an apostrophe. They sound the same, but cats and cat's are different; the first one means there's more than one cat present, and the second one means something belongs to a single cat. If you want to speak in the possessive about a plural, it would be cats'. This is one of the most common mistakes I've seen, so please be careful and don't get it mixed up.

Confused? Email me with questions and I'll try to make things clearer.