Post by Otterling on Sept 20, 2012 0:58:09 GMT -5
Ok, so I’m totally not trying to be arrogant here, please don’t look at this thread that way, but I’ve been told before that I write pretty good posts and I thought I’d share some of my techniques here so that anyone who might be interested could use these same ideas. I also welcome any and all additional suggestions because I know that I can always improve too. I love getting feedback on writing even better so as long as it’s constructive, please chime in!
There’s some basic guidelines I try to incorporate in each post to really impact the reader. In no particular order, here they are:
1.It’s in the details.
This sounds relatively simple but it’s something I see a lot of writers overlook. Most writers I know can see the whole story playing out in their head like a movie. They see the scene they’re trying to describe but they forget that the reader is going to have an entirely different mental picture. What you need to do is pretend that your audience is blind. They can’t see the movie you’re seeing so you have to describe it to them. Don’t just say your Jedi is in a garden, tell us what that garden looks like. Are there flowers? Is there a waterfall? Is it sunny? Cloudy? Is there wind? You don’t even have to go overboard with it. Just slip those details into the action you’re describing.
Example:
Mon’vuuem walked out into the courtyard in front of the Jedi Temple looking for Vreem.
Mon’vuuem slowly descended the marble steps of the Jedi Temple, making her way out into the courtyard. The sun warmed her skin through the folds of her robe and she blinked as the cool shade of the inner halls gave way to the brightly lit greenway before her. She scanned over the many wandering Jedi that made their way to and fro, some chatting quietly with each other, some in meditation, but she couldn’t see the individual she was looking for. She needed to find Master Vreem.
As you can see in the above examples, the first is pretty cut and dried. We know there’s an action there but it lacks much meat so it’s hard to picture as clearly. The second example gives the reader a little more to go on and their imagination will fill in the rest. It paints a far more detailed picture without slowing down the action too terribly much. This won’t work as well for high paced posts but some measure of detail is still good to have.
2. You have five senses so use them all.
You have five senses to play with but most people rely only on sight when writing a post. Try adding in those other senses for a more impactful read. If your character is standing before a burning house, then just saying that steals all the oomph out of the event. Sure the house is on fire but it won’t feel real to the reader who will just nod and pass over that fact. If it affects your character, it should affect the reader too.
Example:
Kabira watched her family home burn.
Kabira braced herself against the heat of the flames as they rose from the home she’d grown up in. Her skin felt seared but she couldn’t look away. Acrid smoke filled her nostrils and made her eyes water though she couldn’t tell how much of that was tears at all she’d just lost. Soot and ash rained down around her, filling the air with a charred smell, and the roar of flames was the only sound she could hear.
In the second example, the reader would get more of a sense of actually being there while Kabira experienced this trauma. You want to draw the reader in so that they experience what your character does. This will bond them more to the character and they’re more likely to empathize and care about what happens to them.
3. Communicate with your RP partners.
This is huge. I cannot stress this enough. Seriously. Some of the best threads I’ve ever written or read were because the players in the thread worked very closely with one another behind the scenes. If you’re going to be in a thread with someone, contact them over PM and work out the details. Figure out your basic plotline first. Feel out what actions they’d like to see for their characters and let them know what you’d like to see too.
In one of my favorite threads, A Cold Shoulder, player WWFF and I spent many PMs just figuring out how our characters would interact and what we’d love to see happen. We could work out if we wanted our characters to take damage and how much. We could work out what Force attacks would be used and when. It just helped keep the whole flow of the thread going and to any outsiders, the whole thing unfolded seamlessly. It’s invaluable to work out those sorts of things with the other players so that everyone knows generally where the thread is heading and what to expect to some extent.
4. SHARE THE SPOTLIGHT.
This is bold and capitalized for a reason. It’s one of the most vital parts of being a good RPer. EVERYONE wants to feel special. We love our characters, we’ve spent ridiculous numbers of hours just getting them written up and approved. I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t care about their character at least a little so of course we all look forward to that moment when our character really shines. It’s that movie perfect moment when we get to see our creation step up and take the limelight for a moment. The problem is that this only works if the other players cooperate.
It’s something I’ve seen from time to time. The player gets so invested in giving themselves that shining moment that they forget to let the other characters shine too. RPing isn’t about just one person being cool though, it’s about sharing that spotlight and interacting. Spend some time getting to know the characters that you’ll be interacting with and then let yourself be impressed. When your character is interacting with them, don’t hesitate to make them look awesome. You can have your character notice something about them or be impressed by them. If you don’t think your character would be impressed, then at least spend some time from the third person point of view to point out that the other characters in the thread are doing something noteworthy.
Also, don’t be afraid to be afraid. It’s just plain silly for my civilian character to not be scared of someone’s Sith. Heck, my padawan should be wetting himself if he comes across a full blown Sith master. It just makes sense, right? My padawan isn’t going to stand a chance against this monster so why have him mouth off or be completely unmoved? If I have a character of equal power to someone else, then I can still have them be impressed because different characters have different strengths. Is the other character graceful? Are they beautiful? Are they odd looking but cool? Do they have a good sense of humor or are they snarky in a biting way that gets under your character’s skin? Then say that. It lets the other player know that you noticed their awesomesauce character too.
That simple fact can be a HUGE esteem boost. The people you RP with will notice and enjoy RPing with you because they won’t have to feel like they have to fight for even a moment in the spotlight. If you put someone else’s character up on a pedestal, then they usually return the favor at some point. Take turns being the main focus of everyone’s attention and then everyone can be happy. And if you find yourself in a thread where someone isn’t sharing the spotlight, you can gently remind them that everyone should have a turn being cool. If that doesn’t work, maybe you should find a different RP partner.
So that about sums it up, I think. Please chime in if you have some additional suggestions!
There’s some basic guidelines I try to incorporate in each post to really impact the reader. In no particular order, here they are:
1.It’s in the details.
This sounds relatively simple but it’s something I see a lot of writers overlook. Most writers I know can see the whole story playing out in their head like a movie. They see the scene they’re trying to describe but they forget that the reader is going to have an entirely different mental picture. What you need to do is pretend that your audience is blind. They can’t see the movie you’re seeing so you have to describe it to them. Don’t just say your Jedi is in a garden, tell us what that garden looks like. Are there flowers? Is there a waterfall? Is it sunny? Cloudy? Is there wind? You don’t even have to go overboard with it. Just slip those details into the action you’re describing.
Example:
Mon’vuuem walked out into the courtyard in front of the Jedi Temple looking for Vreem.
Mon’vuuem slowly descended the marble steps of the Jedi Temple, making her way out into the courtyard. The sun warmed her skin through the folds of her robe and she blinked as the cool shade of the inner halls gave way to the brightly lit greenway before her. She scanned over the many wandering Jedi that made their way to and fro, some chatting quietly with each other, some in meditation, but she couldn’t see the individual she was looking for. She needed to find Master Vreem.
As you can see in the above examples, the first is pretty cut and dried. We know there’s an action there but it lacks much meat so it’s hard to picture as clearly. The second example gives the reader a little more to go on and their imagination will fill in the rest. It paints a far more detailed picture without slowing down the action too terribly much. This won’t work as well for high paced posts but some measure of detail is still good to have.
2. You have five senses so use them all.
You have five senses to play with but most people rely only on sight when writing a post. Try adding in those other senses for a more impactful read. If your character is standing before a burning house, then just saying that steals all the oomph out of the event. Sure the house is on fire but it won’t feel real to the reader who will just nod and pass over that fact. If it affects your character, it should affect the reader too.
Example:
Kabira watched her family home burn.
Kabira braced herself against the heat of the flames as they rose from the home she’d grown up in. Her skin felt seared but she couldn’t look away. Acrid smoke filled her nostrils and made her eyes water though she couldn’t tell how much of that was tears at all she’d just lost. Soot and ash rained down around her, filling the air with a charred smell, and the roar of flames was the only sound she could hear.
In the second example, the reader would get more of a sense of actually being there while Kabira experienced this trauma. You want to draw the reader in so that they experience what your character does. This will bond them more to the character and they’re more likely to empathize and care about what happens to them.
3. Communicate with your RP partners.
This is huge. I cannot stress this enough. Seriously. Some of the best threads I’ve ever written or read were because the players in the thread worked very closely with one another behind the scenes. If you’re going to be in a thread with someone, contact them over PM and work out the details. Figure out your basic plotline first. Feel out what actions they’d like to see for their characters and let them know what you’d like to see too.
In one of my favorite threads, A Cold Shoulder, player WWFF and I spent many PMs just figuring out how our characters would interact and what we’d love to see happen. We could work out if we wanted our characters to take damage and how much. We could work out what Force attacks would be used and when. It just helped keep the whole flow of the thread going and to any outsiders, the whole thing unfolded seamlessly. It’s invaluable to work out those sorts of things with the other players so that everyone knows generally where the thread is heading and what to expect to some extent.
4. SHARE THE SPOTLIGHT.
This is bold and capitalized for a reason. It’s one of the most vital parts of being a good RPer. EVERYONE wants to feel special. We love our characters, we’ve spent ridiculous numbers of hours just getting them written up and approved. I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t care about their character at least a little so of course we all look forward to that moment when our character really shines. It’s that movie perfect moment when we get to see our creation step up and take the limelight for a moment. The problem is that this only works if the other players cooperate.
It’s something I’ve seen from time to time. The player gets so invested in giving themselves that shining moment that they forget to let the other characters shine too. RPing isn’t about just one person being cool though, it’s about sharing that spotlight and interacting. Spend some time getting to know the characters that you’ll be interacting with and then let yourself be impressed. When your character is interacting with them, don’t hesitate to make them look awesome. You can have your character notice something about them or be impressed by them. If you don’t think your character would be impressed, then at least spend some time from the third person point of view to point out that the other characters in the thread are doing something noteworthy.
Also, don’t be afraid to be afraid. It’s just plain silly for my civilian character to not be scared of someone’s Sith. Heck, my padawan should be wetting himself if he comes across a full blown Sith master. It just makes sense, right? My padawan isn’t going to stand a chance against this monster so why have him mouth off or be completely unmoved? If I have a character of equal power to someone else, then I can still have them be impressed because different characters have different strengths. Is the other character graceful? Are they beautiful? Are they odd looking but cool? Do they have a good sense of humor or are they snarky in a biting way that gets under your character’s skin? Then say that. It lets the other player know that you noticed their awesomesauce character too.
That simple fact can be a HUGE esteem boost. The people you RP with will notice and enjoy RPing with you because they won’t have to feel like they have to fight for even a moment in the spotlight. If you put someone else’s character up on a pedestal, then they usually return the favor at some point. Take turns being the main focus of everyone’s attention and then everyone can be happy. And if you find yourself in a thread where someone isn’t sharing the spotlight, you can gently remind them that everyone should have a turn being cool. If that doesn’t work, maybe you should find a different RP partner.
So that about sums it up, I think. Please chime in if you have some additional suggestions!
