( more SPN costuming meta, with pictures - spoilers for 1.16: Shadow and 1.18: Something Wicked )

And while I'm talking about John and Dean, ( ... 1.20: Dead Man's Blood spoilers )

( eta! )


I am on fire with the meta today. Next on the spn:meta agenda: fandom meta on genderfuckery.

Okay, I'm sick of this ruining otherwise good stories. Here's how you use punctuation and dialogue at the same time(!):

Let's just say Dean and Sam are in a bar. Dean has just told Sam to take the goddamn pool cue and bludgeon that succubus over the head with it. There are a few things Sam could say in response. Here are the options:

Wrong way:
"What" Sam said incredulously "Dean, I'm not hitting that succubus over the head. She'll curse us so we have to dry-hump each other to death"

Right way:
"What?" Sam said incredulously. "Dean, I'm not hitting that succubus over the head. She'll curse us so we have to dry-hump each other to death."

Note that:

• the dialogue (those words between the "quotation marks") have punctuation. Within the quotation marks. There needs to be punctuation before every single closing quotation marks that you are using for dialogue, be it . or ! or ? or , or even - or ...



• the passage is divided into three separate sentences. Note that sentence structure, in terms of punctuation, disregards "quotation marks". In other words, quotation marks do not automatically signify the beginning or end of a sentence. The first sentence in this passage is "What?" Sam said incredulously. The second is "Dean, I'm not hitting that succubus over the head. [third:] She'll curse us so we have to dry-hump each other to death." Thus, the beginning of each sentence requires a capital letter, and the end of each sentence requires a period or equivalent.

( six more dialogue-and-grammar problems SOLVED! behind the cut. Seriously, if you're a writer, CLICK THE DAMN CUT. )


Wasn't that fun? And while I'm at it, please do not include any of the following terms or their variations in your fanfiction:

• the older man
• the youngest winchester
• the brunette
• the elder
• the taller man
• the naked man
• the older brother
• the hazel-eyed man

I know you might have the urge to 'mix it up' when you feel like you've just typed 'Dean' for the fifth time in one sentence, or if all your characters are male and your 'he's are getting confusing, but studies have proven* that the brain doesn't process names that way - they don't really notice them linguistically, only as signifiers. So the reader is going to be more jolted out of the story by you saying "the eldest Winchester" or "the freckled demon-hunter" instead of Dean for the second time in five words, which they won't even process. Mmmkay? Trust me on this one.

Er, I've used a couple of these name-alternatives in the examples above to demonstrate correct and incorrect uses of upper- and lower-case (as names always start with uppercase).




Please feel free to share this post with anyone you think desperately, desperately needs it. Cmon, fanfic readers and anal grammaticians web-wide, represent!

PS. uh, if you're an actual grammatician, feel free to correct me. Because, like, I was never actually properly taught grammar, I just read bucketloads and know what feels right. Like.


* please don't ask me what studies, I have no idea, it's third-hand knowledge, but I do know as a dedicated fanfiction reader that I really, really notice more when you use these bullshit name-alternatives.

eta: at almostnever's suggestion, I've changed all the 'inverted commas' in this to 'quotation marks', which ought to be more universally recognisable terminology :D