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This guide does not meet our current wiki standards for quality. Our Guide Team is currently working on reworking and revamping our guides. While the general information may still be helpful, please be aware that the information provided may be inaccurate.
Recommended Resources
GRAMMAR:
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CHARACTERIZATION:
- Writing A Different Gender Than Your Own
- Character Writing Exercises
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PROSE:
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GENERAL RESOURCES:
General Writing
When writing a story, whether it is a level or an entity, your page needs to have good writing with grammar, syntax, and the overarching story. Your story can be creepy and mysterious, or it could be entertaining and fun — any genre is okay as long as it is compelling, interesting, and easy to read.
Grammar
You will first need to check your spelling errors to make sure people can read and enjoy your story. To make sure this actually happens, try to proofread and don't hurry when writing. If you aren't sure how a word is spelled, try looking it up online or checking a dictionary. You can use online grammar checkers (for example, Grammarly, Writer, GrammarCheck), but you should still check if the grammar checker is changing the text correctly. Try to get rid of as many grammatical errors as possible before submitting your draft for critique — this will be beneficial for both you and the critiquers.
Punctuation
Generally, the punctuation can be easily fixed with online grammar checkers or be fixed after someone critiques you. The most common punctuational mistakes are:
- Misuse of apostrophes. The apostrophe is used to form possessives, not plurals.
- Exclusion of hyphens between compound adjectives.
- Misuse of colons and semicolons. When the second clause expands on or explains the first, use a colon. When the clauses are merely related, but the second does not follow from the first, use a semicolon.
- Total lack of commas. Without commas, sentences can become run-on blocks of text without any breaks.
- Overuse of commas. While there’s no set rule for how many commas mean too many, your eyes are the best judge of overuse. If you think you have too many in a single sentence, consider replacing a comma with a period to create separate sentences.
Story Writing
You'll need to have a compelling story to make a proper entry. It could be mysterious, or action packed, as long as the story has a sense of direction and purpose. Generally, you'll also need entertaining characters that have roles and backstory and a sense of purpose to further entertain the reader. Your story can take place in any place in the Backrooms, as long as it makes sense. Most stories leave a sense of mystery behind it, as it would fill the reader with more questions, but don't leave every question unanswered.
Level and Entity Writing
Much like levels, there are a lot of ways to make a level or an entity. You can make your level or entity terrifying, mysterious, or even funny. As long as your article is entertaining to the reader, it should be good. You should keep the tone you chose and try not to change it.
- For more tips on writing a level, visit the "How To Write A Level" page
- For more tips on writing a entity, visit the "How To Write An Entity" page
Prohibitions
When writing, you should always obey the site rules. Keep in mind that the following things are not allowed in your writing. If you aren't sure if something is allowed or not, you should contact staff.
Plagiarism
You aren't allowed to copy the writing that doesn't belong to you. You can't copy the writing from any other sites (for example, the SCP wiki), books, movies, or any other forms of media and claim it as your own.
Harassment
Harassing other users and using profanities against non-fictional characters in your writing isn't allowed. Racist and/or gender insults are also unacceptable.
NSFW content
NSFW content or gore isn't allowed. This can include any sort of adult content. If you are unsure if a draft of yours violates this rule, please contact a staff member, and we can look over it.
Still need help? Please check out the Guide Hub for more details regarding writing and our wiki!