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Post by Lyra WhiteShadow on Apr 4, 2010 19:35:30 GMT -5
A Newbie's Step-by-Step Guide to Writing an RPG Post(or How to Not Make Others Want to Kill You/Your Character)((BTW: I use "newbie" in the most affectionate way possible.)) ((When fully typed out, this guide spanned 8(!) pages, single space, 12pt, Times New Roman font.)) After being asked to help, and offering my skills, I bring to you a pretty understandable guide that, while not all-inclusive, covers most of the basic points, goes over the intermediate points, and touchs on the advanced points, of writing a halfway decent post. I have posted an outline for ease of finding what you need. I suggest that all RP'ers read over a basic guide, such as this one, once or twice a year, or anytime they feel the need to brush up on their skills. The Basics: 1) Punctuation 2) Spelling 3) Grammar 4) Vocabulary The Intermediates: 5) Post Structure 6) Commonly used structures 7) Writing a response to someone else's post 8) Power-Playing/God-Moding The Advanced: 9) Writing an introductory post 10) Writing a monologue post Common Courtesy
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Post by Lyra WhiteShadow on Apr 4, 2010 19:43:12 GMT -5
Punctuation: All sentences begin with a capital letter. All proper names begin with a capital letter. (This includes people, places, characters, etc.) Note: Some people deliberately use lowercase letters in character or place names. This is one of the few exceptions to this rule. An example of this would be a character whose name is spelled “asKillian”. This character goes by the nickname “Kill” and so capitalizes his name as such. This should not be abused. It gets annoying very quickly. All sentences end with one of four punctuation marks. A period (.), an ellipsis (…), an exclamation mark (!), or a question mark (?). Periods may be first on the list but they will be the last item I discuss. In fact, I am going to discuss these punctuation marks in complete reverse order. 1)Question Mark As the name implies, question marks should only be used when asking a question of some form. There is a limited usage when combined with exclamation marks that helps to imply extreme emotion, however this usage is not proper, and can be easily abused. It is usually combined with all caps to indicate shouting. (More on this later.)
Example: WHAT!?! 2)Exclamation Mark As the name implies, exclamation marks are usually used with exclamations, shouts, commands, and occasionally, sound effects. The more exclamation marks, the louder the “voice”. Exclamation marks are often paired with all caps to indicate shouting.
Example: Come here! or BAM! 3)Ellipsis Ellipses should be used to indicate a break in thought, or the trailing off of a voice. They should not be used to anything else, although some use then to indicate time passage. This is allowable, although, as mentioned, is not proper usage.
Example: “Well...” or “I was just saying...” *insert some interruption* 4)Period The lowly period. It sums up most sentences, and most of us never even notice it. There is not much else to say about this punctuation mark. Question? What punctuation mark should I use? Is you sentence a question? If yes, use a question mark. Is it a command, a shout, a loud noise? If yes, use an exclamation mark. Does you thought trail off, or is it interrupted by something else? If yes, use ellipsis.
Note: The ellipsis is the only exclamation mark that can be combined with another, and only with questions marks, or exclamation marks. Example: “But...!” or “How do I...?” If none of the above, use a period. Spelling: If you are not sure is you have spelled a word right, USE SPELL CHECK. But be aware, spell check is NOT fool proof. Read over what you have written before AND after you spell check. Spell checkers often change a word to what they think it should be, but it can completely alters the meaning of your post. Spell checkers trip up most often on commonly confused words like: to, too, and two, whether and weather, and so forth. Nothing beats having someone else read your post as well. While we are on the subject. Chat speak has led to common, deliberate misspellings: liek, roxors, and others. Do NOT use these in a post. You will be hunted. Also do not use 1337 or brb or any other language. This board is run by English speaking Americans, therefore we require all posts to be in American English or readable/understandable British English. I do not mean to insult any British speakers, but some of your words are impossible to understand or mean something completely different to us Americans/Yanks/whatever we're being called at the moments. Grammar: Most sentences require a subject (something to do the action or have the action done to them) and an action (something that is done). “George.” is not a sentence. “Runs.” is not a sentence. “George runs.” is a sentence. You can add on to your sentences with adjectives, words describing the subject or adverbs, words describing the action. Using our previous example, “Speedy George runs quickly.” Exceptions to this rule: Unfortunately, there are many exceptions to this rule. Commands are usually just an action: “Sit down!” since the subject is the person being commanded. Questions can also be exceptions: “What?” since both the subject and action are implied. The best way to be sure is to read your post several times, and see if it sounds right. Then, go read something else or do something else, come back, and re-read your post. See if it still sounds right. Vocabulary: Mellicha and Arvais have posted a very nice vocabulary listing, but any thesaurus can be used as well. However, don't make your post so “esoteric” (meaning exotic or unusual) that it can't be read. It is perfectly okay to use the same word a few times in a post, but if you are using it four or more times, you may want to find another word to use. Bad Example: The snow was falling thickly. The wolf's paws crunched through the snow with every step. The snow was cold and biting. He couldn't wait for the snow to go away. Good Example: The snow was falling thickly. The wolf's paws crunched through the crust with every step. The flurries were cold and biting. He couldn't wait for the blizzard to go away. I should point out that there are some vocabulary words that should not be used. If your character is a foul mouthed sailor, so be it, but even the worst sailor does NOT curse every other word. Additionally, there may be an age limit on certain phrases/words. Respect these limits or be banned.
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Post by Lyra WhiteShadow on Apr 4, 2010 19:48:01 GMT -5
Post Structure: Your post structure should follow the same basic grammar rules as a sentence. You can, in fact, think of a post as a very big sentence. It should have a subject and an action. You can add descriptions to the subject, to the action or both. Using an example from above: “Speedy George runs quickly.” becomes “Speedy George, the brown Tasmanian devil, runs quickly though the outback desert.” This is a good length sentence, and a good base for a short three to five sentence (the minimum for this game) post. We can add more like this: “The hot sun shines down on the red scorching sand. Speedy George, the brown Tasmanian devil, runs quickly though the outback desert. He races to the nearest shade tree, where he lays down and takes a break from the heat.” And all of a sudden, we have a nice basic post. Commonly used structures: There are some common threads you will find in most RP posts. The first is separation of speech and thought from action or description/background information. Speech is usually separated with double quotation marks (“ and ”). Some players will bold or underline speech in addition to or instead of using double quotation marks, although theses are also used to imply shouting. Some use italics, but that is most often used for thoughts. Thoughts are also separated using single quotation marks (' and '). Actions may be separated out using asterisks (*). But this is more common in live chat RP's rather than play-by-post RP's. Some players may also use this in a post: IC: George looks at the tree. OOC: He doesn't know that Cam the chameleon is in the tree about to jump on him. IC means “in-character” and OOC means “out-of-character”. In other words, George's player is telling the reader there is something in the tree, even though George doesn't know it. This can be useful if you need to explain why something happens the way it does, (if a sword suddenly casts a magic spell, the poster may want to let the reader know that this is a magic sword), but most of the time, OOC revealed information is either:
1)Already known 2)Will be known shortly, or 3)Is unimportant in the long run and is just being used to lengthen a post. Sometimes you really do need to use OOC, but you can just as easily send someone a message or post in the OOC board and not clutter up the RP boards. USING ALL CAPS IS THE SAME THING AS SHOUTING!!! Most players do not use all caps for a few reasons, mostly because it is hard to read. When they do, they use it only for a word or two, rarely for a whole sentence. To give the same effect as shouting, some player use bolded or underlined text. Remember, the exclamation point is your friend. Writing a response to someone else's post: I put this under intermediate because it is actually fairly easy to write a good post in response to someone else's. You just need to take what you know from their post, and write your own to respond to it. Let's take our good post from before: “The hot sun shines down on the red scorching sand. Speedy George, the brown Tasmanian devil, runs quickly though the outback desert. He races to the nearest shade tree, where he lays down and takes a break from the heat.” From this post we know that George (or Speedy George) is a Tasmanian devil, he is brown in color, he is, indeed, a HE, he lives in the desert, and is currently under a tree. Now George's post has given us a great opportunity to react to him. Since he is under a tree in the middle of the desert, maybe we can assume it is the only tree for some distance. This gives you, Cam the chameleon, a reason to interact with George. You also need something for Cam to be doing, and something for her to do now that George has flopped himself down under your tree. A good short response might go like this: Cam the chameleon was basking on a limb enjoying the sun. Her skin had changed to the same color as the bark, so it was not surprising that the Tasmanian didn't see her. She watched him flop down in the shade, and lay panting. 'It must be very warm with a fur coat,' she thought. She crawled down the branch until she was near him and asked, “Do you need some water? You look hot. There is a stream hidden just over that hill.” This is a good response because it tells us about the new character who has joined the thread, (she is a she, a chameleon, and her skin changes colors), she responds to George's actions, and, MOST IMPORTANT, she gives George something to do in the next post. George might decide to go to the stream and drink, he might decided to talk to the chameleon and then go drink. He might even decide to EAT the chameleon, although that would be power-playing/god-moding, which we will now discuss. Power-Playing/God-Moding (PP/GM) Never, ever, EVER, say what another character does/feels/says/thinks/etc. Even if you are playing the other character, it is better to not post their actions in another character's post. This rule is most important when writing a fight scene. You CANNOT play another characters actions, no matter what. Exceptions: Yes, after all that, there are exceptions. If you post something like: “George knocked on the door and waited for a response.” all the other player can say is “Come in” or “Go away” or something like that, which makes for a pretty lousy post. In this case, the response should be pre-planned OOC, so that George's post might read, “George knocked on the door and waited for a response. When he didn't get one, he opened the door.” Or the other player might post, “Cam didn't say anything, hoping George would leave, however he came through the door anyway.” This is “soft” PP/GM, and is allowed, provided permission is given.
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Post by Lyra WhiteShadow on Apr 4, 2010 19:58:08 GMT -5
Writing an introductory post Introductory posts can be one of the most difficult to write. It is the first time you are playing a character, it is that character's first post, and to top it all off, you are starting a thread instead of responding to a pre-existing post. First, congratulations for taking on a seemingly impossible task. Second, here's a secret way to make it a good post. Are you ready? It does NOT have to be a page long. One to two paragraphs is fine, as long as they are well-written. However, a lot of players like to post long intro posts. So here is a good outline for you. We made a good sentence with a subject and an action. We turned that sentence into a post, with a subject, and an action. Write an introductory post the same way, with a subject, and an action. A good intro post has approximately three to five paragraphs. Use one or two paragraphs to describe your character. Use another one or two to describe the area around your character and his/her reactions to it. Use your last paragraph to have your character do something so another character can interact with your wonderfully introduced new character. Sample Introductory Post: (This is not about Speedy George. I simply am not enough interested in George as a character to write an intro post for him. Instead, this is a post I wrote for another RPG. I also used it as my sample post. This is a very in-depth, detailed, advanced post. This is longer than it could be, but does a very good job of introducing my characters, their backgrounds, and a brief glimpse into their future.)
| My days are numbered... |
A pair of wolves walked slowly among the silent stones. The older, Keena, a silvery-black female limped painfully, her hind leg injured and swollen with an infection that was slowly killing her. She paused often, at times even stopping entirely, trying to regain her breath and ease the searing pain that shot through her at every step. Alongside her ran the younger, Schism, a tannish-grey male, enough similarities between the two to mark them as family, perhaps even mother and son. His adult frame was betrayed by his youthful actions, he was barely a teen, and still carried all his cubhood hopes and fears. He often bounded forward to pounce into large tufts of grass, scattering insects, mice and small birds, then running back to pace his mother's side once again, before taking off in another direction entirely.
| My nights are cold... |
It was easy to tell he had a deep devotion to his mother, the only parent he had ever known. He had always taken care of her, since she hadn't seemed able or willing to stand up for herself. He knew some of her past, having heard it thrown at her as insults from higher ranked pack members. Having heard of her past, he wondered why she would allow the punishments she had received. But whenever he tried to ask her about her past, she grew distant, and would only say that, 'That creature is dead now. Let her remain dead.' In time, he stopped asking, and accepted that whatever had happened to change her, would remain forever a mystery, unless she chose to reveal it to him.
| The spark within... |
But, despite the cruel things done to them in their past, he did remember some good things. Though the Alphas had merely tolerated the pair, the Betas had if not taken care of them, they had taken care not to harm them. In fact, the young wolf remembered many months playing with the Beta cubs, a boy and girl, and their older brother. On the other hand, the Alpha cubs, the heirs apparent, had done their best to pretend he hadn't existed. He remembered many a time he should have gotten in trouble, but Jaron and Selah had stood up for him, and more than once, he had taken the blame for something they had done. At least, until that night...
| Has faded so low... |
It had been several months since the metal trap had ironically saved her and her son's life from the destruction of their pack. Ironic, because in saving her, it had killed her. She wasn't sure if it had been the trap itself, or something on the trap, but whatever it was, poisons were coursing through her body, and she was growing weaker all the time. She found it hard to sleep mostly because of the pain but also because she couldn't seem to keep warm anymore. The nightmares didn't help either. She kept seeing the burned ground and twisted bodies of her former packmates. She wondered if anyone else had survived.
| Slow down my son... |
She knew that Jaron had survived, for he had been with them when the disaster struck. But they had not seen him since he had left off to find Selah, whom he swore was still alive. She hoped that he did find her, and that she was alright. But was worried about her son more. She was afraid that her time was close, and she didn't know what her death would do to her son. She had thought she would always be there to help him, and then, when he was ready, she would be able to die peacefully. But that wasn't going to happen now, and she only hoped she could prepare him for being alone, before he was alone...
| This, I fear, could be my last run... | Writing a monologue post A monologue post is one character either talking to himself/herself or completing some action with no intention of having another character join you. The format of a monologue post is the same as a long intro post, except in the last paragraph, instead of posting something for another character to interact with, post a conclusion for your character. Have them leave the room, go to sleep, die, whatever. Sample Monologue Post: (Again, I don't care enough about George to write a post for him. This is another post I wrote for the same RPG as the other. This is a very in-depth, detailed, advanced post. It is also a great example of a monologue post.)
|For everyone, there comes a point when we must set aside our childhood. How this comes about, what precipitates it, is different for each of us. For one it may be a sudden responsibility, such as a new sibling. For another, an accident or a permanent injury. For another, a loss, a friend moving away, the death of a pet...| |the loss of a parent...|
Keena lay curled in the shelter of a rock, shaded from the heat of the sun and the morning dew. Her silvery-black coat seemed duller in the shadows of the rock overhang above. Her swollen leg was extended as far from her as possible, the wound and fur around it crusted with dirt, blood, and infection. She had shivered through most of the night, and Schism had crawled next to her, lending his warmth to her shaking body. Her breathing was labored; she wheezed and coughed through the night. Now Schism stood looking down at her as she lay, silent and unmoving.
He didn't understand.
He approached her body and nosed her gently, whining under his breath. His nose touched her, and he jerked back, startled, for her feverish body now lay cold. He moved forward again, this time laying his chin across her chest, listening, feeling. She was still, the rasping of her breathing silent, the comforting "thump-thump" from her chest was gone. He whimpered softly.
He didn't understand.
"Mama," his voice was ragged. "Mama, get up, please..." He pawed at her, shaking her. Her head slipped brom her paws to the ground with a dull "thud"; it was the only movement she made. "Mama!" he cried frantically. "Mama! Mama!! MAMA!!"
|Realization dawns slowly when we don't want to believe. We go through a these stages: shock, disbelief, anger, sorrow, acceptance, moving on. Unfortunately, some don't make it through all the stages. They become stuck, trapped in between, caught in a never ending loop...| |unwilling to move forward, unable to go back...|
"Mama," the young wolf sobbed, "Please..." He cried, for what seemed like forever to him, and when his voice was lost, he continued to sit with her, silently. Still unable to comprehend, or perhaps, simply unwilling to accept, he went out and hunted, birds, mice, insects, bringing them back to the stone shelter, hoping his mother would wake and eat.
The kills remained untouched.
He would not eat them, waiting for Keena to take her share. Night came, day, another night. Still he remained, ignoring the death bugs that had begun coming for his mother, and that her shelter was watched by carrion birds. He waited until one morning he awoke to find the scavengers at work.
Then something happened to him.
His eyes flickered, flashed, their golden color darkening to deep brown, almost black. He stood, a thunderous snarl starting low in his throat then leaping to his bared teeth and out. He roared as he attacked, snapping at whatever he saw moving. Afterwards, he ate well of his kills, filling his empty belly on their flesh and blood. His anger sated with his hunger, he backed away, his eyes fading back to a soft golden color. In the absence of anger, sorrow rushed in and he mourned what he had done.
|Wild ones can do little for their dead. They can try to rouse them, beg and plead with their still forms, bring food to their lifeless shells. But the time comes when they know nothing more can be done. So they do the only thing they can...| |bury the past, mourn the present, move on to the future...|
It wasn't acceptance, per say... but it was realization...
He stood looking down at Keena's body for a long time, his eyes darkening once more from pale gold to dark brown. Angrily, he attacked the crumbly pile of stone that supported the wall of her shelter. With a rumble and a cloud of dust, the wall collapsed, burying Keena beneath a pile of dirt and rocks. He placed a paw upon the pile, lifted his head, and voiced a howl.
Long, pure, true wolf-song, the ultimate expression of sorrow, loss, and pain.
He remained at the grave site one last night, before he turned to face the rising sun. "Good -bye, Mama," he whispered. "You have done everything you can for me, but now I have to take care of myself. I'll leave you here, the highest point in this place, so you can watch and make sure I do right. Good-bye Mama, good-bye."
He bowed his head as the sun flashed brightly into his eyes and slipped away, into the mists.
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Post by Lyra WhiteShadow on Apr 4, 2010 20:09:36 GMT -5
This is a basic requisite of RP'ing, but covers so much material, it gets a spot of its own.
One of the keys to RP'ing, especially with people you are not in contact with in RL (real life) is PATIENCE. Not everyone can be online at the same time, especially if you live in different cities/time zones/countries/continents/planets/etc. Not everyone is feeling creative at the same time. People suffer from writer's block, from physical ailments (*cough*hack*wheeze*), and from RL. Work/school/extra-curricular activities/etc. schedules may often conflict with another person's abilities to post. Give people time to come up with an appropriate response. Give everyone who is in the thread a chance to post once in a while. If George, Cam, and Bucky the rabbit are in a thread and Bucky's player doesn't come online for a day, he shouldn't come back to five pages of Cam and George posting without him. A few posts is okay, twenty are not. Ten posts is pushing it.
Also, do not harass other players if they do not respond right away. Harassing can mean sending them messages every few minutes (which is classified as spam and is banned by most forum rules). Spamming a “post board”, (a board where you can post that you have posted so others will know which threads they need to respond to), is also rude and against the rules. Any kind of spam really is against the rules. Give a player a few days to post. If they don't, send them a message, or post on a “post board” or other OOC board. Then, give them a few days. The reverse is true. If you will be gone, post a message saying you will be gone, so people can play around you. If you are writer/creativity blocked, post a message saying so. Common courtesy people. Very easy to do.
Do not steal characters. This should be obvious, but it bears saying, again. Do NOT steal other players' characters. Do not steal their histories, their appearances, including images if modified specifically for that character, their personalities, or anything else.
Do not steal any art. If the art says free use, then okay. If the art has rules, follow them. If the art says DO NOT TOUCH, then... all together now, DO NOT TOUCH. Common courtesy.
That pretty much sums it up everybody. This post will now be unlocked for comments, unless Mellicha determines it should be locked again.
My sample post are copyrighted to me. Speedy George, Cam the Chameleon, and Bucky Rabbit are trademarks of Lyra WhiteShadow and should not be used without payment of appropriate royalties. I do NOT give permission for this guide to be posted ANYWHERE. Message me if you want to use it, I will check out where you want to post it, and give you permission or not as I see fit. Thank you everyone, and happy posting.
Lyra
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