Writing Like An Intermediate/advanced Rp'er, - Documentation -

Writing Like An Intermediate/Advanced RP'er

It is obvious that there is a certain standard you must adhere to for intermediate/advanced RPG boards. You know that writing a post on an intermediate/advanced RPG board is like writing a little novella. It has to be rich in detail, descriptions of surroundings, people and thoughts, but also with dialogue; good interesting dialogue. This is what to do to RP at an intermediate/advanced RPG.

However, what you may not know, or are struggling with, or maybe just in need of a little reference, is how to RP like this. The aim of this documentation is to provide tips on how to achieve this combination of requirements in order to create an intermediate/advanced post. Hopefully after reading, you will have an even better idea as to what makes an interesting and exciting post that captures attention and demands to be read.

Planning
You'd be surprised just how much it helps to jot down what the main points of your post is going to be. You could layout out the rough content of the paragraphs, or you could write the thoughts, actions and speech you character may use, whatever is helpful.

Use More Descriptive Language
While you must leave some things up to the reader’s imagination, that’s not to say that you should abandon them in a text filled only with dialogue and nouns, leaving them to think up complete descriptions of things themselves. It is supposed to be you telling the story, not them. So,

Don’t:
Eleanor looked at the dress laid before her as it rested upon her bed. She picked it up and looked at it for what seemed like hours. Her eyes flicked across it over and over, absorbing every detail.

‘Well?’ he finally asked, ‘Do you not like it?’
‘Oh no! I love it!’ she exclaimed, waving her hand in dismissal of the suggestion.

Do:
Eleanor looked at the shimmering dress laid gently before her as it rested on her soft bed. Yet then she picked it up and looked at it for what seemed like hours, a look of surprised delight resting upon her face. Her eyes flicked across it over and over, absorbing every detail. It was a silky and delicate green, sparkling and shining in the light.

‘Well?’ he finally asked, a doubtful look upon his face, ‘Do you not like it, is it the colour?’
‘Oh no! I love it!’ she exclaimed excitedly, waving her hand in polite dismissal of the suggestion.

Use Similes, Metaphors and Personification
A simile is like a comparison, often making use of the word ‘like’ or ‘as’. E.g. ‘The colour is like that of a raspberry.’ A metaphor is when one thing is said to be another in order to achieve a greater effect or emphasis. E.g. ‘Her eyes are windows to her soul.’ The eyes aren’t really windows, but this does create a more interesting sentence than simply naming the colour or shape of the eyes. Personification is when you apply (usually) human traits/abilities (etc.) to something that is not human, again to make things more interesting. E.g. ‘The cold clawed at them with its icy nails.’

Don’t:
The hot sun burnt their skin as they walked through the scorching desert.

Do:
The sun’s gaze was harsh and unrelenting, beating upon their shoulders like a red-hot whip. The desert was a hell from which they would never escape.

Don’t Reveal Everything At Once
In order to keep people engrossed in the story you lay before them, you should not hand everything to them on a silver platter. That is, if you have introduced a new scene, or a new person, don’t just reel off everything about them. Instead, reveal bit by bit throughout the paragraph, page, or even post.

E.g.

Don’t:
Eleanor entered the room, she wore a long, white dress that hung to the floor and her light hair lay gently upon her shoulders as she looked at him with blue eyes. She had been in the gardens, singing with the birds, such a beautiful voice she had. She was tired and needed to sleep, such a long day it had been.

Do:
A gentle knock there was upon the wooden door, yet no answer could he give before it creaked slowly open upon its hinges. A pale hand reached around it and followed a vision of white entering gracefully as if borne in by angel’s wings. Unhurriedly, she closed the door behind her as if she was somehow unwilling to shut out nature, unwilling to place a divide between them as the birds still sang their songs outside, pleading for her to sing to them just once more. Then her eyes turned to his, a knowing glance she cast upon him, looking without permission but unhindered into his soul. They were as circles of blue staring at him, focusing on his true thoughts, his deep desires. A smile stretched across her lips as she walked closer to him, her dress brushing lightly across the floor.

‘Eleanor-,’
‘Shhh, my love.’ She soothed, her voice tender and calm like the first morning rays of the sunrise.

Try Phrasing Things In Different Ways
Often, a sentence sounds much more interesting when said in a different way. Hard to explain without examples so here goes. Sometimes one way will sound better than the other, so once you get used to changing the sentence around, you can decide for each case, which sounds better (Hint: a lot of the time, you are changing from active to passive sentences and vice versa).

The arrow pierced his heart, mortally wounding him. ---> He was mortally wounded by the arrow that pierced his heart.
He ran to save her as fast as he could. ---> To save her he ran as fast as he could

Try to Avoid Unwanted Repetition
Some repetition is ok, when it is intentional and sounds good. ‘The world hated him, she hated him, and most of all he hated himself.’ However, when you look over your post and notice that you have used the same adjective several times when describing your settings, characters and thoughts, or even worse, if you have repeated similes and metaphors, then you know you need to revise a little.

It doesn’t take too long to use a thesaurus or take a moment to think of a different word, but it does make the post look better by far. Obviously you can’t avoid repeating some things, just try and keep it minimal!

Make Dialogue More Than Idle Chat and React To Actions
Really get into your character, think you are your character when you post. Pretend what the other person has posted, what they have said to your character, they have said to you. If you were that character, how would you react? You react in some way to everything that is said and done to you, so why should you ignore dialogue and actions in your post?

So, try to get a reaction appropriate for you character, don’t move out of character. One of the worst things you can do is act out of character and make your profile meaningless.

Two Main Reactions
React physically or mentally or both! Think of your character as an actual person, and as a person, they will be happy, angry etc. sometimes they might lash out, or even plant a kiss. Either way, make sure you react, keep things interesting, and make the thread more like one flowing story as opposed to two or more people fighting for their own stories, and not reacting to one another.

Afterthoughts
Don’t forget at the end of the post, your character’s afterthoughts. From all the actions and reactions, how do they feel? Has their opinion changed about the other character(s)? What are they now thinking?

With all of the above, you should get a good idea on how you can make those intermediate/advanced RPs you're after!

'Writing Like An Intermediate/Advanced RPer' written by Andy of http://rpg-directory.com

Here is a little tutorial on how to roleplay, and how not to roleplay.

Firstly some roleplaying basics, which you need to remember!

If you want to show you are speaking, then do so as if writing dialogue in a story. For instance:

"I hate History" said Bob.

If you want to show your thoughts, you can do so in italics, or like so:

"I hate history," thought Bob.
"I hate hisotry," thought Bob.

To show actions just write as normal,

Bob took out his wand.

DO NOT use ** to make actions more obvious.

To say something out of character, for instance if you want to inform someone on the thread of something, then use double brackets:

((OOC: I won't be on the internet for another two days))

Remeber, posting is always in third person.
What not to do:
I climbed the stairs. "There are far too many," I thought. There at the top I met a black cat, "Hello sweetie," I said.

The above example does follow the basic rule apart from the fact that you are doing it directly from you perspective. That was first person.

This is how it should be: She climbed the stairs. "There are far too many," she thought. There at the top she met a black cat, "Hello sweetie," she said.

The she's or he's you can also replace with the characters name, constanly she, she, she is getting boring to read.

Third person basically means: He said, she said and so forth.

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Also use proper grammar and spelling. Ofcourse not everyone's first language is English. But roleplaying with chat language and loads of shortenings are very annoying. Mostly other members won't reply in a thread if you don't use proper grammar and spelling.

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Now you had the basics, we can start to see how you can use these things in actual roleplaying.

Roleplaying isn't just simple typing a sentence, or have a turned based chat with eachother, like this:

This is how NOT to roleplay:

Doesn't seem wrong? Does it? Well it is wrong. Of course this can be considered roleplaying. But not around intermediate/advanced RPG's.

Mostly intermediate/advanced rp'ing can be compared to writing a book. Describing suroundings, actions of your character, thoughts, what your character says, and combining this all in one post.

So, what is good roleplaying then?

Good roleplaying is 'Describing'.

Describe your surroundings, describe how you are feeling, describe what you are thinking, describe your actions and reactions.

Inbetween the describing you can of course say something, talk with another person. This way, roleplaying doesn't become boring. It does become boring when you're not describing. When you are simply 'roleplaying' the speech of your character, and get an anwser back, continuing like that.

Let me give you a good example. We will use Peter and Bob again.

How TO roleplay:

Look. That's already much better. Do you see how those two react onto the other one's description. If Peter hadn't described he walked over to the Notice board, there was already much less for Bob to react/roleplay to.

If you roleplay like this, you can develop your roleplaying character, you have more fun reacting to another members post, and that member having more fun reacting to your posts.

There is also another way to roleplay, this is a little different, almost the same, but it could make it easier for other member and for yourself to follow the RP's in a thread

Ok, another way to roleplay:

Well, only one little thing is changed. But somehow, if you do this, it is easier to reply to a topic. More when someone describes an action first, and askes something to you last in the post. Then this comes in handy. If you use this, you can describe your feelings,thought,actions,reaction first. Then you put the sentence of the other person your roleplaying with in italics, and then give a reply.

This is also very handy if your roleplaying to more then one member in a thread. This way it much easier to reply to more questions then one.

'How to Roleplay' written by ShinLi of http://rpg-directory.com