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Writing for PinnacleYou can check a style guide for general grammar rules, but there are a few common mistakes we see over and over again that you should avoid. Plot Point CampaignsWondering what a "PPC" is or how to write it? Try this! Style SheetsUse Body Text for the body of your work, Header 1 for chapter headers and the start of major sections. Heading 2 is for section headers within a given section, and Heading 3 is for individual descriptions within subsections. The Merchant: Silas is polite and responsive, but knows nothing pertinent to this adventure. Passive VoiceUsing an active "voice" makes your writing more vibrant and exciting to read. A passive voice is often less direct and more hesitant-sounding, and is typified by excessive use of the word "will." Authors tend to think of their adventures as happening in the future because it hasn't been played yet. Don't. Think of them as happening in the present. If you use the word "will," you're probably wrong. Don't say "The adventurers will see a shiny object nearby." Instead, take the active voice and say "The adventurers see a shiny object nearby." Do a find/replace for the word "will" when you're done. 99% of the time you should get rid of it. This is the number one change we wind up having to make with new writers. “That and Who”Try not to mix these two up. “The man that saved my life” should be “The man WHO saved my life”. IndentationsAlways indent the first line in a paragraph. Do not do this by using a tab. Instead, set your Body Text Style to give you an automatic, first line indentation (.03" is good).. SpacesWe only use one space between sentences or after a quote or a colon or whatever. Using two spaces is a holdover from the typewriter. TabsIf you need more space between letters or words, always use tabs. This is especially true for tables. For tables, set your tabs so that things look good. This is entirely objective, so just do your best. We'll be reformatting this kind of thing in layout anyway. PunctuationAlthough most style/grammar questions are answered in Strunk & White, here are a few we want to highlight. Also, scan this section even if you’re an English teacher: we have a couple of idiosyncrasies we practice with punctuation marks. Apostrophe: When you drop letters out of a word (which we often get in “Prospector speak” for Deadlands), you usually type in a single quote mark: ‘. Most computer programs do this automatically for you. Unfortunately, you really want an apostrophe: ’.
You put apostrophes before partial years too, as in ’76. Commas: Use them sparingly, but know when to use them. We use the serial comma. This means that when you’ve got a list of several things and the last bit’s separated from the rest by the word and, you put a comma before the “and.”
Also, always use commas to set off whole sentences joined by a conjunction.
Don’t bother with using commas at the end of sentence that have inclusive terms like too or as well.
Dashes: Don’t put a standard hyphen in front of numbers (the minus sign on your keyboard). Instead, use an n-dash: –. So it’s –1, not -1. Also, don’t use the double hyphen for a break. Use an m-dash: —. When using an m-dash, don’t leave spaces around the dashes. Microsoft Word automatically changes a double hyphen to an mdash.
Funky Characters: There are lots of characters that your computer can make for you that you shouldn’t try to replicate in another way. These include: ª, ©, ¨, É, •, °, ¢, and so on. Sometimes it’s not obvious where they are, but a little digging can find them. Parentheses: Keep punctuation outside of a parenthetical statement unless the entire sentence is in parentheses.
Possessives: Don’t put another s after a possessive apostrophe that ends in an s.
Quotations: Put the period or comma inside a closing quotation.
Question marks come inside a quotation only if they’re part of the quote.
Spelling: Always use standard American English spellings. One common error is to add an s onto the end of a word like toward. Toward, forward, backward, and so on, do not end with an s.
And please don’t forget to use your spellchecker before you send anything in. If you’re confused on how to spell a word that we use in our books, just find it in our books and spell it the same way. Numbers: For numbers one through nine, spell them out. For anything higher or lower, use digits instead.
Always use digits for game statistics. Never write “0;” Instead spell It out “zero.” Subject-Verb Agreement: Make sure the subject and verb agree. Remember, the word posse is singular, not plural. Also, the pronoun for posse is it, not they. You’d be surprised how many folks mess this one up.
The Well-Abused Gerund: In Deadlands, skill names that end in -ing usually drop the g. So fighting becomes fightin’. This may not always be true though—some of the kung fu skills in The Great Maze don’t follow this convention—so pay attention. Wordiness: Try to be succinct. Say what you have to say and move on. You can often drop the word “that” from a sentence. Try it both ways. If it works without it, then drop it. The same goes for “in order to.” You can almost always reduce this to just “to.” Shorter paragraphs and sentences are easier on the eyes and thus more likely to be read. That: The word “that” is highly overused. Don’t say “The room that has the golden statue is the one that is trapped.” Instead, say “The room with the golden statue is trapped.” FormattingOne of the trickiest things about writing for games is getting the formatting right. For Savage Worlds:
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