Post by Befera on Jul 10, 2017 17:53:48 GMT
I want to preface this by saying that, obviously, everybody should play exactly the way they want to and enjoy themselves.
However,many people still equate shorter posts with a lack of literacy, literature, creativity and dedication. They are considered for beginners, raise "red flags" and are often implied to be just "lesser" than and this is mainly carried by this idea of literary-ness. Long posts are called literary.
At this point, I think it is one of those myths that someone somehow started and it is just perpetuated now, like a given. Like the idea that vikings wore horned helmets for example - someone starts it and people just take it as a given without any historical evidence (no horned helmets found) and without even taking time to consider how illogical it is (horned helmets are really inconvenient in battle - check out this awesome vid for more).
But back to writing.
Because what I keep wondering what kind of books people read that lead them to thinking short posts or even one-liners are uncreative or unacceptable, I thought the best thing was to just look this up in a few popular examples. Let's go with a random page in Harry Potter:
Harry spun faster and faster, elbows tucked tightly to his sides, blurred fireplaces
flashing past him, until he started to feel sick and closed his eyes. Then, when at
last he felt himself slowing down, he threw out his hands and came to a halt in
time to prevent himself from falling face forward out of the Weasleys' kitchen fire. [Harry, 60 words]
.
"Did he eat it?" said Fred excitedly, holding out a hand to pull Harry to his feet. [Fred, 17 words]
.
"Yeah," said Harry, straightening up. "What was it?" [Harry, 8 words]
.
"Ton-Tongue Toffee," said Fred brightly. "George and I invented them, and we've
been looking for someone to test them on all summer. . . ." [Fred, 25 words]
.
The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; Harry looked around and saw that Ron
and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with two red-haired people
Harry had never seen before, though he knew immediately who they must be: Bill
and Charlie, the two eldest Weasley brothers. [Harry, 47 words]
.
"How're you doing, Harry?" said the nearer of the two, grinning at him and
holding out a large hand, which Harry shook, feeling calluses and blisters under
his fingers. This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie
was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both
long and lanky. He had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather-beaten and
so freckly that he looked almost tanned; his arms were muscular, and one of them
had a large, shiny burn on it. [You can either count this as one post where Charlie is an NPC, and then with the one above it would be 138 words, or say this one is Charlie's post or a general description - it's a difficult one to put in RP terms.]
.
Bill got to his feet, smiling, and also shook Harry's hand. Bill came as something
of a surprise. Harry knew that he worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and
that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; Harry had always imagined Bill to be an
older version of Percy: fussy about rule-breaking and fond of bossing everyone
around. However, Bill was - there was no other word for it - cool. He was tall,
with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with
what looked like a fang dangling from it. Bill's clothes would not have looked out
of place at a rock concert, except that Harry recognized his boots to be made, not
of leather, but of dragon hide. [Bill, 128 words, described in Harry's words again, but I would assume that in an rp context, the Bill player would describe him]
.
Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and
Mr. Weasley appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking angrier
than Harry had ever seen him.
"That wasn't funny Fred!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?" [Mr. Weasley, 50 words]
.
"I didn't give him anything," said Fred, with another evil grin. "I just dropped it.... It was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to." [Fred, 29 words]
.
"You dropped it on purpose!" roared Mr. Weasley. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet -" [Mr. Weasley, 21 words]
.
"How big did his tongue get?" George asked eagerly. [George, 9 words]
.
[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling, quoted under fair use]
Now, just to clarify, I literally took a random sample, I didn't look for an example that proved my point, just for one that featured more than character [because that is what rp is] and I just copy and pasted it from my e-book.
Note how the only times descriptions were written when something new was introduced? And also how the lack of internal narrative for every character doesn't actually detract from the story? How that last remark of George's really doesn't require any more internal narrative to know that he is excited and proud and totally over the moon it all worked out so well?
Again, long posts and expositions have their place - when something new is introduced or when your character is alone in the scene (either in the beginning or because they walk away for a bit and then come back, great time to do exposition and narrative) but at least in books, it is actually very detracting to read a lot of inner workings of characters in the middle of interaction.
Here are a few arguments I always get when I say I won't write on a board that forces me to write anything more than what I feel like writing (I have written 800 or 1000 for openers, for setting the scene, for introducing a dream sequence etc. but not in every post, not by far!)
- "It's not difficult, just describe something your character sees or smells or hears. You have to use all five senses in writing."
While I very much agree that you should use all five senses in writing - you do not have to do so in every post. If you established in one post that the room smells like roses, there is no reason to bring up smell again unless something changes.
And as we are on the topic: why in the world would I add any sensation if it isn't pertinent to the story? Imagine somewhere up there, Harry had just randomly gazed out of the window and seen a pidgeon, that opened its wings and flew away and Harry wished he was a pidgeon so that he could fly etc. - while that might be interesting for your character - it isn't the point of the scene and makes it unnecessarily long and convoluted if (like above) the scene isn't actually about Harry feeling trapped.
.
What creative writing classes and books actually tell you is that writing should be evocative (evoke the images inside of you) not tell you all the images in excruciating detail because that is actually patronizing the reader's imagination.
They tell you to write just what is necessary. No more. And if you are lucky enough to have an editor, they will end up cutting another 10%-20% of what you thought was absolutely cut to the bone necessary.
- "When people only write a one-liner/one paragraph they didn't really do anything creative and give me nothing to work with."
I think the Happy Potter example debunks this adequatly enough. I find George's last 9 word post evocative and interesting and it gives me plenty to work with. Also, creativity does not equal the amount of time you put into something. Just because I didn't sit there in agony for an hour pulling out 800 words, does not mean I lack creativity. Creativity is the idea, is the response, is a funny piece of dialogue or a surprising gesture. None of those need more than a line, really.
They may not have gone into detail about his feelings or the way he was sitting etc. but I don't see how that lacks giving you something to work with.
- "I want the reader to have a better sense of my character's inner workings."
Why? And I mean this quite literally - why? Yes, some inner workings are good - but mostly, readers want to interpret this by themselves - they don't want to be told every single thought your character has.
This makes your character really boring... because we already know everything about them. There's no mystery. When my character flirts with yours, i don't want to know exactly what your character thought about each other her comments, each of her gestures or touches - that just takes the excitement away.
Like in the Harry Potter example "Geoge asked eagerly" actually gives me plenty of inner workings if I have paid attention to what happened in the story/posts before. Anything else would be redundant.
Honestly? I write rapidfire and my posts average at about 50-75 words and even that sounds totally redundant and too much if posted one after the other into a word document. And more of this does not make it more like literature - it makes it less so.
.
With the exception of Anna Karenina and some "gems", where Lenin waxes about his inner life for pages and pages on end and you wish you could just throttle that self-congratulatory bastard and go back to the actual story, modern books do most of their character delving off-screen and leave it to the reader's imagination. The reader wants the character to grow inside of them - not to be told how they grow.
- "Short posts mean the story progression is slow and threads drag on forever."
This of course depends on the posters, but from what I read it is quite usual for people who post longer (500 words and up) to just post once a day or even just once or twice a week. I find that very slow.
When we play rapid-fire, a week is the average length of time we take for a 200 replies minimum thread (and just to get back to the dedication part, this is about 15.000-30.000 words on average, and I can't really see how that is lacking in dedication).
I understand that not everybody has that much time, but it is a lot easier to write up a few short posts a day than one long one. So yeah, this one is hugely relative and very much depends on how often you post - not on post-length.
I used Harry Potter as an example because almost everybody has read it. I also have Game of Thrones and Crime and Punishment open in front of me with very similar results. There are long passages full of exposition but when it comes down to the interactional part (which rp simply is) things become much snappier.
Tl; dc:
So, yeah, in conclusion - post however you want. But... where are you getting this idea from that 800 words of descriptions, repetitive and over-expositional inner workings, post-splicing and retelling of the previous posts have anything to do with literature?
Documentation written by stainsofblue of RPG-D
However,many people still equate shorter posts with a lack of literacy, literature, creativity and dedication. They are considered for beginners, raise "red flags" and are often implied to be just "lesser" than and this is mainly carried by this idea of literary-ness. Long posts are called literary.
At this point, I think it is one of those myths that someone somehow started and it is just perpetuated now, like a given. Like the idea that vikings wore horned helmets for example - someone starts it and people just take it as a given without any historical evidence (no horned helmets found) and without even taking time to consider how illogical it is (horned helmets are really inconvenient in battle - check out this awesome vid for more).
But back to writing.
Because what I keep wondering what kind of books people read that lead them to thinking short posts or even one-liners are uncreative or unacceptable, I thought the best thing was to just look this up in a few popular examples. Let's go with a random page in Harry Potter:
Harry spun faster and faster, elbows tucked tightly to his sides, blurred fireplaces
flashing past him, until he started to feel sick and closed his eyes. Then, when at
last he felt himself slowing down, he threw out his hands and came to a halt in
time to prevent himself from falling face forward out of the Weasleys' kitchen fire. [Harry, 60 words]
.
"Did he eat it?" said Fred excitedly, holding out a hand to pull Harry to his feet. [Fred, 17 words]
.
"Yeah," said Harry, straightening up. "What was it?" [Harry, 8 words]
.
"Ton-Tongue Toffee," said Fred brightly. "George and I invented them, and we've
been looking for someone to test them on all summer. . . ." [Fred, 25 words]
.
The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; Harry looked around and saw that Ron
and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with two red-haired people
Harry had never seen before, though he knew immediately who they must be: Bill
and Charlie, the two eldest Weasley brothers. [Harry, 47 words]
.
"How're you doing, Harry?" said the nearer of the two, grinning at him and
holding out a large hand, which Harry shook, feeling calluses and blisters under
his fingers. This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie
was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both
long and lanky. He had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather-beaten and
so freckly that he looked almost tanned; his arms were muscular, and one of them
had a large, shiny burn on it. [You can either count this as one post where Charlie is an NPC, and then with the one above it would be 138 words, or say this one is Charlie's post or a general description - it's a difficult one to put in RP terms.]
.
Bill got to his feet, smiling, and also shook Harry's hand. Bill came as something
of a surprise. Harry knew that he worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and
that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; Harry had always imagined Bill to be an
older version of Percy: fussy about rule-breaking and fond of bossing everyone
around. However, Bill was - there was no other word for it - cool. He was tall,
with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with
what looked like a fang dangling from it. Bill's clothes would not have looked out
of place at a rock concert, except that Harry recognized his boots to be made, not
of leather, but of dragon hide. [Bill, 128 words, described in Harry's words again, but I would assume that in an rp context, the Bill player would describe him]
.
Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and
Mr. Weasley appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking angrier
than Harry had ever seen him.
"That wasn't funny Fred!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?" [Mr. Weasley, 50 words]
.
"I didn't give him anything," said Fred, with another evil grin. "I just dropped it.... It was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to." [Fred, 29 words]
.
"You dropped it on purpose!" roared Mr. Weasley. "You knew he'd eat it, you knew he was on a diet -" [Mr. Weasley, 21 words]
.
"How big did his tongue get?" George asked eagerly. [George, 9 words]
.
[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling, quoted under fair use]
Now, just to clarify, I literally took a random sample, I didn't look for an example that proved my point, just for one that featured more than character [because that is what rp is] and I just copy and pasted it from my e-book.
Note how the only times descriptions were written when something new was introduced? And also how the lack of internal narrative for every character doesn't actually detract from the story? How that last remark of George's really doesn't require any more internal narrative to know that he is excited and proud and totally over the moon it all worked out so well?
Again, long posts and expositions have their place - when something new is introduced or when your character is alone in the scene (either in the beginning or because they walk away for a bit and then come back, great time to do exposition and narrative) but at least in books, it is actually very detracting to read a lot of inner workings of characters in the middle of interaction.
Here are a few arguments I always get when I say I won't write on a board that forces me to write anything more than what I feel like writing (I have written 800 or 1000 for openers, for setting the scene, for introducing a dream sequence etc. but not in every post, not by far!)
- "It's not difficult, just describe something your character sees or smells or hears. You have to use all five senses in writing."
While I very much agree that you should use all five senses in writing - you do not have to do so in every post. If you established in one post that the room smells like roses, there is no reason to bring up smell again unless something changes.
And as we are on the topic: why in the world would I add any sensation if it isn't pertinent to the story? Imagine somewhere up there, Harry had just randomly gazed out of the window and seen a pidgeon, that opened its wings and flew away and Harry wished he was a pidgeon so that he could fly etc. - while that might be interesting for your character - it isn't the point of the scene and makes it unnecessarily long and convoluted if (like above) the scene isn't actually about Harry feeling trapped.
.
What creative writing classes and books actually tell you is that writing should be evocative (evoke the images inside of you) not tell you all the images in excruciating detail because that is actually patronizing the reader's imagination.
They tell you to write just what is necessary. No more. And if you are lucky enough to have an editor, they will end up cutting another 10%-20% of what you thought was absolutely cut to the bone necessary.
- "When people only write a one-liner/one paragraph they didn't really do anything creative and give me nothing to work with."
I think the Happy Potter example debunks this adequatly enough. I find George's last 9 word post evocative and interesting and it gives me plenty to work with. Also, creativity does not equal the amount of time you put into something. Just because I didn't sit there in agony for an hour pulling out 800 words, does not mean I lack creativity. Creativity is the idea, is the response, is a funny piece of dialogue or a surprising gesture. None of those need more than a line, really.
They may not have gone into detail about his feelings or the way he was sitting etc. but I don't see how that lacks giving you something to work with.
- "I want the reader to have a better sense of my character's inner workings."
Why? And I mean this quite literally - why? Yes, some inner workings are good - but mostly, readers want to interpret this by themselves - they don't want to be told every single thought your character has.
This makes your character really boring... because we already know everything about them. There's no mystery. When my character flirts with yours, i don't want to know exactly what your character thought about each other her comments, each of her gestures or touches - that just takes the excitement away.
Like in the Harry Potter example "Geoge asked eagerly" actually gives me plenty of inner workings if I have paid attention to what happened in the story/posts before. Anything else would be redundant.
Honestly? I write rapidfire and my posts average at about 50-75 words and even that sounds totally redundant and too much if posted one after the other into a word document. And more of this does not make it more like literature - it makes it less so.
.
With the exception of Anna Karenina and some "gems", where Lenin waxes about his inner life for pages and pages on end and you wish you could just throttle that self-congratulatory bastard and go back to the actual story, modern books do most of their character delving off-screen and leave it to the reader's imagination. The reader wants the character to grow inside of them - not to be told how they grow.
- "Short posts mean the story progression is slow and threads drag on forever."
This of course depends on the posters, but from what I read it is quite usual for people who post longer (500 words and up) to just post once a day or even just once or twice a week. I find that very slow.
When we play rapid-fire, a week is the average length of time we take for a 200 replies minimum thread (and just to get back to the dedication part, this is about 15.000-30.000 words on average, and I can't really see how that is lacking in dedication).
I understand that not everybody has that much time, but it is a lot easier to write up a few short posts a day than one long one. So yeah, this one is hugely relative and very much depends on how often you post - not on post-length.
I used Harry Potter as an example because almost everybody has read it. I also have Game of Thrones and Crime and Punishment open in front of me with very similar results. There are long passages full of exposition but when it comes down to the interactional part (which rp simply is) things become much snappier.
Tl; dc:
So, yeah, in conclusion - post however you want. But... where are you getting this idea from that 800 words of descriptions, repetitive and over-expositional inner workings, post-splicing and retelling of the previous posts have anything to do with literature?
Documentation written by stainsofblue of RPG-D
