Punctuation and General Formatting

General punctuation 

Exclamation points and question marks should not be used in multiples (a character bellowing a line, for instance, can be amply indicated by capital letters and a single exclamation point). When in sequence, the question mark should come first, followed by the exclamation point, e.g., "?!" 

Quotation marks

Quotation marks should use US quotation style for punctuation. Therefore, commas and periods that are not part of the original quotation should be placed inside quotation marks, but other punctuation (e.g., exclamation marks, colons, and semicolons) should be placed outside the marks.

The marks used should be double quotes in all instances for initial quotations, with single quotes used only for nesting quotations, e.g., "I asked what 'animunculi' meant; he said, 'I don't know.'"

Note that all such marks should be straight quotes, as used in this guide, not "curly" (or "typographers") marks. This is not so much a stylistic choice as a practical one, as curly marks will cause errors with the Creation Engine.

Apostrophes 

Apostrophes should only be used in English to indicate either possession or the omission of letters or numbers (but in-universe languages like Dunmeris may use them for other purposes). 

To form a possessive of a singular noun or of a plural noun that doesn't end in "s," add an apostrophe and "s" to the end of the word. For any singular or plural noun that ends in "s," add an apostrophe but no additional "s" (e.g., "Widow Vabdas' Deed"). Though it is not grammatically incorrect to format a singular noun that ends in "s" according to the rules for other singular nouns, in Skywind we prefer to avoid this when writing for general purposes.

It is incorrect to use apostrophes preceding an "s" when pluralising words, including decades and acronyms (e.g. "2020's" and "CPU's").

Also note that in Morrowind and Skywind, the Imperial-aligned guilds (i.e., Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, and Thieves Guild) do not use the possessive form, so do not feature an apostrophe. 

Ellipses

Ellipses (...) should begin immediately after a word and be followed by a single space except when they start an extract mid-sentence or indicate a pause at the beginning of a sentence (with a capitalized first letter), in which case they should directly abut the following word. For example:

"So you want the book or not?" "...Yes." "Forty-two septims... Do you want me to count the gold out for you?" "...Also yes." 

Serial commas 

The "serial comma", also known as the "Oxford comma", is a comma placed immediately after the penultimate term and before the coordinating conjunction ("and" or "or") in a series of three or more terms (e.g., "I dedicate this book to my parents, Queen Barenziah, and Waughin Jarth" not "I dedicate this book to my parents, Queen Barenziah and Waughin Jarth"). We use the serial comma in all such lists in Skywind. 

Dashes 

Due to text coding limitations, some characters like the en- and em-dash cannot be used in the Creation Engine. These should instead be represented by the "double hyphen" ("--"), which in all instances should be preceded and followed by a single space.

Interrupted speech should feature a single dash at the moment the utterance concludes, e.g., “Hey! Thief! Stop that Bos-”

Hyphens and compound words 

Despite sharing a character, hyphens do not have the same grammatical function as a dash. The rules for hyphenating compound nouns can seem confusing or variable in English: "twenty-one" is universal, "truck-driver" less so. Further complicating matters, the Elder Scrolls has been inconsistent in hyphenating words between titles.

In Skywind, compound adjectives should be hyphenated in text, e.g., "netch-leather boots." "Netch leather" on its own is a noun and should not be hyphenated.

However, note that "hand to hand" stands on its own: it is not an adjective, but the correct noun phrase for the in-game skill. The expected noun "combat" (as in "hand-to-hand combat") is only very rarely appended to the end of the skill in Elder Scrolls titles.

Confused? If in doubt, don't use a hyphen! 

Spaces 

In all situations requiring spaces, use a single space. Double spacing after a period is typographically incorrect. 

Emphasis 

The typefaces in Skywind do not have bold or italic formats. Words that need to be stressed for emphasis in dialogue, or in the narrative voice, should be written in *asterisks* or ALL CAPITALS. Only the latter should be used when formatting in-universe texts.