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Azza Bamboo
Apr 7, 2018


THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021
Is there a standard way to represent digital communications in works of fiction?

I want to write a story that involves a twitch chat, and putting the chat in speech marks doesn't feel right. I'm not going to homestuck levels of dumping whole chatlogs. IMO that's boring as heck, but I do want to put two or three consecutive lines of the chat's spam/shitposting in the story.

Azza Bamboo fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Jan 28, 2020

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Azza Bamboo
Apr 7, 2018


THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021
Thanks guys.

Azza Bamboo
Apr 7, 2018


THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021
On the subject of it's, what's wrong with it's as a shortening of it has?

No one says "it has been a while." I feel like there's an emerging use case for this.

It's been in our speech for some time.

Azza Bamboo
Apr 7, 2018


THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021
You mean going back to pre Elizabethan times when English words could be spellt any way that made the right sound?

Azza Bamboo
Apr 7, 2018


THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021
The deleted post.

Azza Bamboo
Apr 7, 2018


THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021
I noticed a few punctuation guides in the OP, but the ones I could read without shelling out money seemed to require some level of prerequisite knowledge. Are any of the books listed good for a rube who doesn't know what an independent clause is or what makes a sentence complete? I'm not asking to be told by you what those things are, just wondering if any of those guides start from the beginning instead of the middle. At the minute I'm just writing based on what sense I've made of the thing's I've read, but criticism always comes back with "this letter should not be capitalised because (some voodoo poo poo)"

Azza Bamboo
Apr 7, 2018


THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021
Thanks for the reply.

Wallet posted:

From what I recall back when I studied developmental linguistics, people's ability to produce "correct" prose is strongly tied to how much they read as adolescents.

That's a worrying thought on account of me not reading books until recently. Hopefully I can catch up!


Wallet posted:


For independent clauses and complete sentences you probably want to learn some formal syntax. Learning to diagram sentences is, in my opinion, a much better way to start understanding that than trying to read some kind of reference volume. I don't have a good resource on hand but the linguistics thread might. They aren't going to tell you anything about punctuation, though, that's its own thing.

That's a fair bit to take in but I hope I've got this right: There's separate elements to this writing business; namely, syntax (which deals with clauses/sentences) and punctuation (which deals with marks).

If I learn syntax, then I'll have a good chance of understanding the punctuation guides here.

Azza Bamboo
Apr 7, 2018


THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021
I'd go with a colon for the above

"He was tall: Nearly everyone had to crane their neck to see his face."

I can't tell you why though. The semicolon version of the sentence feels like there'd need to be more after craning to see his face.

Azza Bamboo
Apr 7, 2018


THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021
There's a rule that you don't start your sentences with things like and or but. And everyone knows that sucks.

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Azza Bamboo
Apr 7, 2018


THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021
"Have Idea: Looking for someone to execute it."

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