What are the fundemental rules for writing stories? Such as when to begin a new line, When to use a comma or full stop (translation:‘period’), basically how to get the structure right for creative/story writing. Specifically stories laced with dialogue.
A link to some online resource for this would be appreciated, or direct inclusion within the thread.
My writing ability is largely self-taught and so likely to be full of bad practices. If I’ve any hope of picking up writing as a hobby I’m going to have to get the fundementals sorted first.
Whenever I have written something in the past it never looks right, probably because of being incorrectly structured.
Pick up a good manual of style. These are hugely expensive, but you can find older editions in most used bookstores for a few dollars, and it’s well worth the investment. They will explain, in detail and with examples, all of your questions about punctuation and spacing.
Regarding story structure, that depends an awful lot on length, genre, and market. My advice: go to the library (or your own shelves) and take a close look at some of your favorites. Re-read them, not with an eye toward the enjoyable plot, but look at how they are structured / paragraphed / etc. What they have in common will be a better model than anything we can tell you, and more suited to your needs than anything online.
You may want to take a look at some story design books. They do not deal with surface details like punctuation and writing style; instead they look at characters and the events and transformations they go though. Related are books about “world design”, which describe how to create the settings stories take place in. World design covers everything from getting the details right on a 19th-century stagecoach to creating entire planetary systems.
First rule is that you can ignore the rules if you have a good reason to do so.
Commas and periods are simple: the full stop means the end of the sentence (or a sentence fragment – they are good tools in fiction); a comma means a pause within a sentence (it can get more complicated, but this is a good, quick rule)
“Dialog,” he said, “is punctuated like this.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You use standard sentence punctuation,” he said. “The main exception is if the sentence ends before the ‘he said’ or equivalent. Then you use a comma instead of a period. Other punctuation at the end of the sentence stays the same as normal.”