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The Better Writing Topic; FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT TO WRITE SHIT
Topic Started: August 26, 2012, 6:56 pm (2,387 Views)
Onime No Ryu
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
This topic will be for getting advice, discussion, and answers to questions all about how to improve one's writing. As an RP site we rely very, very heavily on one's ability to write, and write well. I will be the first to arrogantly toot my own horn and say that I've had over five years of roleplaying experience, and almost two decades of writing outside of roleplaying. You may say that the shitty comics I wrote when I was in second grade don't count, but you might as well start somewhere. While I've never been published and my writing isn't anything like the great authors we all know and love, I think I'm good enough to at least give a few bits of advice to the folks of the interwebs.

There are two aspects to writing, in my opinion. The CHARACTERS and the ACTION. No story can be successful without good characters. Good characters have both good and bad qualities, just like normal people. Good characters have unique personalities, they have little quirks, they have unusual but marking traits, they have telling habits. They develop and grow and learn over time, just like we do, regardless of whether they are elves or dwarves or humans or aliens--however, if your character isn't a human, maybe they don't HAVE to do things like we do. Think about that for a bit.

The ACTION of a story is everything around the characters. The plot, the conflict, the environment, and all that happens to, within, and around it. Or at least that's my definition of it. If you take a writing class in college or something don't quote me cause they'll laugh your ass out. Learning to write good action means learning how to pace, how to describe, how to foreshadow, and how to do all the other shit your favorite authors do without trying--unless your favorite author is Stephanie Myers, in which case go kill yourself.

Now before I launch into my next tirade about how I think you can learn to write better, here are a few resources for helping us write both in and out of RPs.

http://s1.zetaboards.com/Espada_of_Alexandria/topic/4904104/1/#new

http://s1.zetaboards.com/Espada_of_Alexandria/topic/4903672/1/#new

The two topics above, found on this very site, are good for developing characters and for understanding your audience. Check them out.

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/

http://www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/writers/tips/

http://www.novelish.com/writing/advice-from-fantasy-authors/

All of these simply contain writing advice, and most of it is very good. Read it, learn it, and take it to heart.

I'll write up my first "lesson" shortly and then this thing will really get started. Until then feel free to make comments or ask questions.
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Onime No Ryu
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The First Rant: Writing In General

Well for starters, you're obviously going to need a basic grasp of the language you're writing in. I'm assuming that for most of us this is English. Spell check is a great help, but in actuality a lot of the grammar check programs are shit. Especially Microsoft Word's grammar check. It's ass backwards retarded and will hurt more than help. But really, the primary error most people make with grammar is probably mixing up the similar words. You're, your, their, there, they're, etc. Know the difference between those. I won't go too into depth in this because it's something you should have all learned in school, and if you do have a problem spelling or using a word it's very easy to just go to dictionary.com.

Now for a few general rules I've personally picked up. If you really really really disagree, okay, but just remember I'm not pulling this out of thin air. I've been trying to be a better writer for years now and have read a fair deal about the subject.

Write in the active form as often as possible. The passive form basically means that the person performing the action becomes the direct object of the sentence. The active form is the most direct form, where the person doing the action is, well, the person doing the action.

Peter built a house. <-- Active

A house was built by Peter. <-- Passive

Passive verb form can not only be longer and wordier, it is also more awkward to say, and most importantly, it slows down the pacing.

He was waiting until the enemy would come close enough for him to attack.

The above sentence is fairly slow and clunky.

He waited until the enemy came close enough to attack.

This sentence is not only more concise, but the action within moves much faster--note that I also removed an unnecessary and somewhat redundant prepositional phrase.

Using the passive verb form can SOMETIMES be okay if you're deliberately trying to slow something down so that the reader pays more attention or can take a breather from a period of intense action, or if you're trying to be artsy or something. But most of the time, active verb form is where it's at.

Show, don't tell. This is kind of a hard one to grasp--I don't think I'm even that good at it myself yet. The basic idea is to show your audience through the action of the characters how they are feeling or what the atmosphere is without describing it.

"Where are you going?" John asked nervously.

"To a friend's house." Susie said nonchalantly. "Why?" she asked quizzically.


Okay, you know how the characters are feeling when they're saying these things. But can you SEE it?

"Where are you going?" John wrung his hands together.

"To a friend's house." Susie tilted her head and blinked. "Why?"


Now you can see more clearly what the characters are doing, and infer from those actions how they are feeling.

BUT ONIME, you say, WHAT IF SOMEONE INTERPRETS AN ACTION DIFFERENTLY FROM THE WAY I DO AND THUS THEY DON'T ACTUALLY GET WHAT I'M TRYING TO EXPRESS?

You can actually use that to your advantage. If you think about all the different kinds of feelings and how people express them, you'll no doubt find that some overlap. Shaky hands can be a sign of nervousness, fear, or even anger. You can use this to hint at emotional turmoil within a character--they don't know whether to cry or scream, for instance--or even to FOOL your readers. Look up there at John in that previous sentence. You're probably imagining him as a wimpy, nervous kind of guy, right? From the context, maybe he's trying to get Susie to go on a date with him or something and trying to come up with an idea that will make her want to stay and hang out with him instead of going to the mall with her girls.

"Where are you going?" John wrung his hands together.

"To a friend's house." Susie tilted her head and blinked. "Why?"

John reached for the knife.


Now how much did your impression of John, and what he was feeling in the first sentence, change after the last sentence?

Know how to correctly use a thesaurus. People like to use a thesaurus to spice up their language. Don't fucking do that. Why? Because 95% of the time you're probably going to pick a word that no one knows, that feels awkward in speech, or that is being misused. For example, take the phrase, "a blue mood." Blue can be a synonym for sad. That phrase is an idiom used to express feeling sad. What are some other synonyms for blue? Azure is one, let's use that. "An azure mood." Does that not sound fucking stupid? But why? Because we don't use the word azure like that!

Use a thesaurus to help increase your vocabulary, and every once in a while pick a word no one's ever seen before just to make them think--in fact, some authors use this deliberate to make a reader STOP READING and take a step back from the narrative, in order to get their brain working in a different direction. Seeing a word you've never seen before makes you sit up and say "Wait what?" and then you re-read the sentence, and you might catch something you didn't see before.

I typically only use a thesaurus to remind myself of words that I know but have forgotten. Personally I try to only use synonyms that A) match the meaning (refer to the azure example above), B) are (or were in the case of a work that uses old language, like a middle ages novel) used in everyday speech and language, even if only in a formal setting, and C) sound good and fit to the flow of the sentence. If you want to slow things down, use longer words. If you want to establish a rhythm, use words that have alliteration or rhyme. So on and so forth.

Also just as a note, don't fucking use things like "orbs" or "spheres" when you're referring to a person's EYES. They're called eyes, they don't technically have any synonyms. Other parts of the body like the ears and the nose are like this too. And if you think auditory receptacles or something should count, look at the below paragraphs.

For the love of God don't use purple prose. Purple prose means that you're overly descriptive and wordy to the point of disrupting the reader's ability to understand what is going on.

The disemboweled mercenary crumpled from his saddle and sank to the clouded sward, sprinkling the parched dust with crimson droplets of escaping life fluid.

The disemboweled mercenary crumpled from his saddle and sank to the earth, his blood sprinkling the parched dust.

Which of those did you think was better writing? If it's the top one, beat yourself over the head with the nearest, largest object available. You can certainly use adjectives and other methods of description to spice things up and add imagery, but then you have to think--are you painting an abstract picture or are you telling a goddamned story? Are you trying to tell me that a man got his bowels cut out and fell bleeding on the ground, or are you trying to make me envision clouds with little red sprinkles of water all over the place like some kind of scattered artist's brush strokes? And then think about how long it takes your reader to read and process all that description and how that slows down or otherwise affects their understanding of what's going on.

Some people like being extra descriptive and artsy, but you have to find a balance between semantic art and literary utility. Personally I try to never use more than four adjectives in a normal-length sentence unless I'm actually going for some kind of artsy fartsy fancy shmancy effect.

That's all I've got for you this time--I'm thinking next time I'll cover what I think about character development, since that's a really important part of good RPs. If you have any questions, comments, or whatever, PLEASE post them. I hate feeling like I'm talking to myself.
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Winters
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Nice job, Onime. This is some rather basic stuff, I will admit, but still great.

Now, question time. What is your advice on trying to avoid redundant words? One of the problems I always seem to get into when I write fiction is that the narration tends to become sort of "same-y." It sort of feels like I'm giving out more of a list of what actions take place, punctuated by what I consider to be the more interesting dialog.
Edited by Winters, August 26, 2012, 11:02 pm.
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Onime No Ryu
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Winters
August 26, 2012, 10:59 pm
Nice job, Onime. This is some rather basic stuff, I will admit, but still great.

Now, question time. What is your advice on trying to avoid redundant words? One of the problems I always seem to get into when I write fiction is that the narration tends to become sort of "same-y." It sort of feels like I'm giving out more of a list of what actions take place, punctuated by what I consider to be the more interesting dialog.
Thank you.

Avoiding redundancy can be done in a few ways. One of the most common ways is using a thesaurus to get different words--but you have to make sure to avoid the pitfalls that I listed in the previous post. Also, you've got to remember that some things are going to be redundant no matter what, but the reader isn't actually going to notice them. For instance, "said."

He said, she said, they said, it said. "Said" is one of the most commonly used words in any novel ever, unless it's wierd and trying to do some kind of story where no character ever speaks--which might be interesting now that I think about it. Other words like your articles and your conjunctions, you just can't avoid using them all the damn time. So don't worry about trying to replace them--instead, make the words around them more noticeable, more stand out, so that they drift into the background.

One way to keep things from feeling like a list of "He did this, then he did that," is to add description while staying away from purple prose. Another way is to show me rather than tell me what he did.

Bob charged up his mana to prepare for a powerful spell, then leaped high into the air before he brought the magic crashing down on his enemy.

That's probably what you mean, right? It sounds kind of like a list, straight from action to action. So let's see if we can SHOW it rather than TELL it.

Bob cupped his hands, a warm glow blossoming in his palms. He pumped his legs and soared, unleashing a wave of power over his enemy's head.

I personally think this is better, and it's both more descriptive and less telling without sacrificing too much of the specific detail. If a reader can't grasp that glowing hands=preparing spell, soaring=jumping, and unleashing=casting, they're probably not the kind of audience you want to tell your story to anyway.

I hope this helped.
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The Best
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Onime No Ryu
August 26, 2012, 10:27 pm
The disemboweled mercenary crumpled from his saddle and sank to the clouded sward, sprinkling the parched dust with crimson droplets of escaping life fluid.
Fucking Morek

But yeah, this is good Onime. Most of it is stuff I already know, but seeing it again sort of refreshed my memory. It's easy to let the quality of my writing slip, so it's nice to be reminded. I'm interested to see what you have to say about character development
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yuna
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This might get me back into the creative, and overall better, mindset of writing... So thanks Onime...

Now... Is it usually better to have things be "short and to the point", or "slightly longer with more detail"...?
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Onime No Ryu
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yuna
August 28, 2012, 1:45 am
This might get me back into the creative, and overall better, mindset of writing... So thanks Onime...

Now... Is it usually better to have things be "short and to the point", or "slightly longer with more detail"...?
You're welcome, that's what this topic was for after all. I'm glad to know folks seem to appreciate it.

As for your question, it's a bit subjective. It depends on what you're trying to accomplish, what kind of scene you're writing and the time, and your personal preferences.

If you want a scene to have a fast pace, you want to keep it short, but not necessarily simple. What I mean is, if your sentences are short, you may want to use very vivid, powerful word choices. You may not have many adjectives, but the verbs should be strong enough on their own to give you a very detailed image within the mind's eye.

If you want a scene to be slow or relaxing, you'll want it to be longer with more detail. You'll also want to pay special attention to your word choice, just like above. Choose words that match any themes or images you're trying to represent. These words may not always be the first that come to mind, either. Sometimes you might have to step back and really think it through.

Scenes that are meant to be fast are fights, surprises, and suspension builders.

Scenes that are meant to be slow are exposition sequences (which need to be done very carefully because exposition is usually seen as a bad thing), build-up for the other types of scenes, and tension builders. Note that tension and suspension are different things. When you build tension, you're getting the reader excited because they can tell something big is coming. With suspension, the reader already has an inkling of what might possibly happen, but they don't know what or how or when or any of the specifics. With tension, things are slowly progressing to a sudden, snapping point where the scene will change from a slow to a fast pace and suddenly things start happening. With suspense, things are already moving at a fast pace and a few things are happening, but the big event the reader is waiting for is coming...it's coming...coming...NOW. That may seem slow, but during a period of suspension, things are already happening. Suspense is also giving the reader a literal suspension on the action that is already happening. Hence the infamous cliffhanger.

I think it's harder to write fast than it is to write slow, because we're all used to seeing the usual slow, descriptive, almost purple prose of all the early novels. As children a lot of us probably read things that were written before we were born, and as fantasy fans a lot of us have probably read part or all of such classics as Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Those writing styles differ vastly from today's modern styles, even with the differences between individuals accounted for. So I'm going to give an example of what I mean--and what I don't mean--for short, fast writing with powerful word choices.

He took out his sword quickly, and cut open his enemy's throat.

This is fairly short. It's also completely, completely wrong, in my opinion. Let's break it down. First of all, this sentence is in two pieces, separated by the conjunction. There are two actions, so we do need some kind of connection, but that comma there is slowing everything down.

Next, the two pieces themselves are weak. They tell rather than show, and what little they do show is not descriptive nor powerful, and thus they lack impact and speed. What are some words for "taking out a sword?" There's "unsheathed," there's "pull out," there's "drew," and a few others that are pretty pointless for our purposes. "Unsheathed" and "drew" are both single words, so let's go with them. We want something singular and powerful.

Now think about what the act of drawing a sword entails. You grab the handle and pull it out, to be frank. Proper swordsman would argue there's a bit of technique to it but we won't go into that. But in this particular example sentence, the characters is drawing and attacking in the same movement. That means it needs to be fast. Our whole point is to make this sentence fast. What's faster--to unsheathe a sword, or to draw it?

If you're like me, you probably think drawing a sword implies more speed than unsheathing it. Now, because we've chosen a word we associate with speed, it's redundant to tell the reader that the sword is being drawn with speed. So we can remove the adverb "quickly."

He drew his sword and cut open his enemy's throat.

So we've removed a few of the things that slowed this sentence down. What we have now is more connected, fairly faster, and also shorter so the reader can get to the next action more quickly and keep up the pace. This would probably be alright--but we don't want alright, we want BETTER. So let's keep going.

This time we have to think about the words as a whole, not just the single verbs. To cut means one thing, to cut open means another. When you cut something it may be as simple as nicking it, like when you give yourself a paper cut. To cut something open implies that you are cutting out a large chunk of it, not completely severing it, but literally opening whatever is inside the object to the air outside said object. To cut your throat might mean that you just scratched it and it's bleeding a little. To cut your throat open implies that your windpipe, major arteries, maybe even bones, are now visible because flesh has been sliced away leaving an empty gap between the outside world and your insides. It's a bit of savage phrasing, now isn't it? So the synonyms for "cut" that we can choose need to be savage.

Since the character is using a sword, some of the first verbs to come to mind are probably "slashed" and "sliced." These are alright, but too often used, and still too weak in my opinion.

Now really open your eyes, because I'm about to blow your goddamned mind. In order to write an event, especially events that we don't see often in day-to-day life, such as sword fighting, there is a crucial factor. You have to KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. You may not need actual experience cutting something, but you need to have a basic idea of how it works and why it works that way. Writing what you know not only means drawing on your own experience but also the experience of others--finding interviews and videos and things like that. This is why I'm considered to be arguably the best "fighter writer" among the LS community, because I've been doing martial arts for over 8 years and have an inkling of how close combat actually works.

So, here's some tidbits about how cutting something with a sword works. First off it depends on the type of sword. With European arming swords, longswords, broadswords, etc., it really only takes a chopping motion. A proficient swordsman would be much more efficient and graceful, however, and would likely do the same as the Japanese swordsman I'm about to describe. For swords such as katanas--and probably also sabers, cutlasses, any kind of blade that is light and has a curvature--you can't just chop it like an axe. You swing the blade, true, but once you feel the edge make contact and the weight of the sword bite into your target, you then DRAG it. Your arm continues following that arc of your swing, and your arm probably bends a little too because there is now another force acting on your blade's opposite end, and if you try to straight-arm it it will be much harder. Your sword flexes a little bit in your hand, its weight shifting. And you literally just drag the blade across the surface of the target you just chopped into, slicing it apart. It's kind of like cutting wrapping paper when the scissors start to glide, I guess, only you're pulling towards your body instead of pushing away.

Swords also do not cut cleanly unless they're fresh off the whetstone, and even then it's only for that one time. The wear and tear of cutting through bones and bodies wear the blade down, and then there's the fact that our bodies aren't as precise as we'd like them to be. Our arms and hands tend to waver, we tend to be ever so slightly off in our aim, etc. So instead of getting a clean slice you get a sort of jagged line torn down your target.

Wait. Wassat? Wassat wite dere? Look!

You get a jagged line torn down your target.

Torn.

Now that's not a verb we associate as a synonym with cut, is it? Well maybe. But not off the top of our heads. And what are some other words like that?

Rip. Shred. Shear. Carve. Those are probably just a few we could find but they'll do for now.

Shredding implies that the target is being cut over and over again into tiny pieces. Our character has only cut his enemy once so we'll get rid of that one.

Carving implies slow, precise work. We want fast and savage, so this one's eliminated too.

Shearing something is a lot like shaving it. Not savage enough, so it's no good.

Rip and tear mean almost exactly the same thing, so from here it's probably a matter of preference. But to me, when I rip a piece of paper, it's long and drawn out. You grab the two ends and just pull back smoothly and it just riiiiiiips in two. When I tear a piece of paper, I just grab the ends and jerk and it goes KSSH. So tearing is faster, more savage. Now we have the phrase "tearing open." But actually, we could remove "open" entirely. Because if you wrap a piece of paper into a cylinder, and then you tear that paper, anywhere or any way, the inside of the cylinder is now revealed to the outside world. It is open. BUT WAIT! Remember what we just said about swords, and how their slashes aren't smooth, but jagged? After you tear off a piece of paper, or if you drag a jagged knife through your steak, what are you left with? You've got the torn piece, you've got the little flecks of steak left in the groove of your knife. Those pieces were taken OUT of the whole.

"Tear open" is redundant.

"Tear" by itself would make sense, but might not be POWERFUL enough.

"Tear out" sounds pretty good to me, and is SHORTER and FASTER than tear open without sacrificing description.

He drew his sword and tore out his enemy's throat.

And this is the kind of powerful, savage imagery we were going for. His blade just rips through the flesh, but faster, and you can even see the little flecks of meat on his sword after it comes out the other side.

Now for just a few minor touch-ups.

"Blade" and "sword" both have 5 letters. But blade looks shorter to our brains even though it isn't because b, l, and d are all tall letters and they're all close together. When you have tall, skinny things close together, they don't look very wide. Vertical lines in clothes make the person wearing them look thinner because of this optical illusion. So if you want your sentence to LOOK and FEEL even shorter and faster, you could use blade instead of sword. And the word throat just means your neck, that bit above your shoulders that connects to your head. However, saying "tore out his enemy's neck" is more awkward in my opinion. I point it out because it's a natural conclusion someone might come to because it's a shorter word. Through this, I hope you realize that you not only have to judge the word based on its length, but also on its sound when spoken--because even when we read, the voice in our head says it to us and we "hear" it.

So our final piece:

He drew his blade and tore open his enemy's throat.

This ended up being a very long answer to a very short question, but I hope it explained everything you wanted to know, Yuna.

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Perascamin
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Hmm..This would help a lot if people read it all.
In War; Victory. In Peace; Vigilance. In Death; Sacrifice.

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Onime No Ryu
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Perascamin
August 28, 2012, 2:07 pm
Hmm..This would help a lot if people read it all.
It would. You should encourage them to do so.

The Second Rant: Character Development

Character development is super, super important for RPs. If your character is lifeless or just moves around like a game piece on a board, it's a piece of shit and you should feel bad. Characters that get a lot of development, form emotional bonds with other characters, and form a bond with YOU, the author, as if they're your kids and you wanna see them succeed, are the best kinds of characters in my book. So, I'll start this thing as if it were a character sheet for an RP and address each piece in turn.

Name.

DO NOT CREATE THE NAME FIRST. I'm sure a lot of you have used sites like behindthename.com to find names that mean cool shit, or else you just put things like Dragon Slayer or something into a translator and turn it Japanese regardless of whether or not a formal name with that meaning actually exists. Names have MEANINGS, and we associate those meanings with certain traits. We also associate names with certain personalities, based on the names of people we've met in real life. If every John I've met was an asshole, maybe I associate being an asshole with the name John subconsciously. If you give a character a name before you come up with anything else for them, those subconscious associations are going to bleed into the rest of the character, and they might end up changing them in a way that you didn't want. So leave the name for last.

Appearance.

DON'T DO THIS FIRST EITHER. The appearance is very important for a character, but what a character looks like and what they wear and what colors their clothes are also have preconceived traits associated with them.

Backstory and Personality.

THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD DO FIRST. Start with the personality. Think about what kind of character you want to have and what traits you want to give them. Think about how they interact with others, think about how they envision themselves, think about how they think about things. Put them in a variety of different hypothetical situations and imagine how they would react. Imagine how you want them to grow and develop, and what you want their self story to be. Do you want them to become better? Worse? To stay the same? To lose hope and then regain it? Once you've sorted all this out you should have two versions of your character's personality--their start-game self and their end-game self. Now you'll need to identify the major milestones they'll need to accomplish or overcome in order to reach the end-game self. A coward first has to admit he is a coward. Then he has to find out why he's a coward. Then he has to find out how he can overcome his fear. Then he has to confront it and overcome it. And after that he has to learn from everything that's happened to him. So now you have how your character will begin, and what they will become, and what they'll need to do to move from one state to the other.

Now for the backstory. Look at your character's start-game personality, and decide what might have made them like that. You'll probably want to do at least a little bit of research on psychology and whatnot, just to get a better grasp of how one's upbringing or the events around them can influence their development. Once you have the events or conditions that would have caused their personality's development, think of settings that could introduce those conditions or events. Did they grow up on a farm, in a city, the son of a noble, or a peasant? Get in the character's shoes and imagine how you'd feel in those situations and why you'd feel that way. Even if we're all different in the way we think, a lot of us will have similar opinions on certain things--for instance, I'm pretty sure if we all had drunk fathers who beat us, we might all react the same way. That's why psychologists and criminal analysts can pin down certain causes for psychopathy and other conditions, because people tend to react the same way to a lot of the same shit. So even if your character is a different person, thinking about how YOU would react and what choices you would make is still an effective method of developing them. However, what you want to be careful of is that you don't want them to be a CARBON COPY of YOU. I see this all too often in some RPers--their own personality is the only one they know, so all of their characters are just like them.

MATT IS THE WORLD'S FUCKING WORST ABOUT THIS. Kaze's pretty damn bad too but GODDAMMIT MATT STOP MAKING THE SAME GUY OVER AND OVER.

Anyway, now that you have a backstory and a personality, you want to make sure you have motivation. Some of you might include this in the personality, but if you haven't already got it you definitely want to make sure you do by the time you finish this step. What do they want to do the most in their life? What are their lifelong dreams, their long term goals, and their short term goals? Why do they want to do these things? How do they plan to accomplish them? What are they afraid will be their biggest obstacle between them and their dreams? Answer all of these questions and review what you've already done to make sure everything matches up and makes sense.

Now that you've got all of the above done, you can start coming up with their appearance and their name. You want it to match their backstory, their personality, and their setting. A fiery tempered character might wear bright colors. A character born on a farm wouldn't have a lot of fancy outfits. A civilian in fantasy land won't dress the same way as a random guy in New York. You have to remember to take all of these things into account and pay special attention to the style and setting of the RP. Too many people don't do this and it makes things kind of awkward to see someone wearing blue jeans in King Arthur's court. You have a little leeway in fantasy, because for one thing the presence of magic might mean that textiles can be more easily created and altered, and for another if it's anime style, it's based more on visual appeal than on functionality and historical accuracy.

The name comes last out of all this even though some might argue it's the most important part. But this way you can be sure that your name really matches your character instead of the other way around. And please, even if you want your name to have a fancy meaning like Burning Fire or Holy Warrior or something, pick a REAL name, or at least something that sounds like a real name, and don't just make those words your name in another language. For example, Takeshi is a Japanese name that means "warrior," and in my opinion, it's a whole fucking lot better than Chikara Bushi, which is a more literal translation of "Strong Warrior."

Once you've done all of that, you've basically created your character. We usually add things like spells and special attacks and inventory and equipment and all that shit, but that's just the "gameplay" side of things. The above stuff is all you really need to CREATE a character.

Now that the character is created, it needs to be developed. Go back to the personality section and review your end-game character and what they need to do and overcome in order to become that way. Always keep these things in mind, and when the RP starts, actively look for opportunities to start these events or engage the character in a way that will accomplish your goals. Also come up with some events of your own that could serve as sidequests to the main plot while also accomplishing your character development. Don't be afraid to roll with it if things don't go your way--part of the fun is watching the character develop differently than you thought he would. In fact, sometimes this feels more natural, because it's spontaneous rather than planned.

There's always one important rule to remember though: CAUSE AND EFFECT. Too many people just move their characters around willy nilly without having good cause to do so. Just because your character's development calls for him to, I dunno, kill another human being and suffer mental trauma because of it, don't just have him go out into the street and slaughter a hobo or go randomly jump into a fight between other Players and monsters. He needs to have a justified cause. Even if the character is "crazy" or "random" (which are two adjectives I'm beginning to really fucking hate, especially because of facebook/forum bitches who are just liek so crazy and random LOL!!!11!!) they need to have a reason that makes SOME sense. If your character really is mentally unstable, they don't have to have a one hundred percent logically sound reason. But it still needs to be at least like, 20% logically sound. Let's say, for instance, that a character horribly butchers a dog or something. Lots of psychopath serial killers start out doing twisted shit to animals before moving on to humans. He probably wouldn't just get up and go kill a dog for no reason out of the blue. Maybe he's walking down the street, and he sees people talking or laughing or whatever and it sets off some kind of berserk button in him. Maybe he gets jealous that everyone else has friends and he doesn't. Maybe he gets angry that the girl he likes is with someone else and not him. Now maybe he sees the dog. Maybe it's barking. Maybe it knocks over a trashcan and scares the guy because of the noise.

He's already mentally unstable, and he's already angry and envisioning doing bad things to the people he doesn't like. Now there's a dog making a lot of noise and startling him for no good reason. It's just a dog, what the fuck is it's problem? It's a stupid fucking dog that doesn't know shit and it's just so goddamn stupid looking, just like that stupid looking faggot she chose over me, his fucking stupid face looks just like this piece of shit dog--

And now see how we've got a more natural cause, a better progression, towards a sudden fury that drives this individual to hurt this innocent creature?

Characters need to have REASONS that match their personality and their motivations and desires before they do ANYTHING. And the very fact that you have this reason for doing it means that the character is thinking and experiencing these events for themselves, not just moving around like a piece on a game board. This will more naturally lend itself to their development, because you're IN character, rather than just moving your player mouthpiece from point A to point B.

The next thing to keep in mind is that a character needs to stay true to their goals and personality, and that they need to stay an individual rather than being swept along with the group. If you have a legitimate reason to follow the group do so, and if you don't, you probably shouldn't. Too many times random people come together for a random cause that makes sense to only a few of them. Granted, in some situations there's a more immediate reason than the character's personality. Like in AWD--maybe your character didn't have a personality quirk that made them want to follow Matt's orders and go get the artifact back from the thieves, but they probably sure as hell had a desire for survival that would make them run like everyone else from the gigantic monster in the arena.

There are admittedly some moments when logical reasoning will go out the window, but this is very rare and usually only during extreme circumstances. So always remember, logical cause and effect, logical progression, logical thoughts.

I've probably missed some other stuff and I feel like I didn't go as much into detail as I originally planned, but right now I'm suddenly drawing a blank. I hope this has helped so far.

When you put real effort into creating your character, and really forge a bond with them, and get inside their heads when you write, you'll have a much better character and a much better time in the RP.
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Onime No Ryu
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
Reviving this, and issuing a challenge to all who would partake!

Send me a character, a bit of your writing, or just ask me what I think about your work and I'll do my best to overcome any problems that you want help with! You want to make better characters, I'll critique what you've done so far and give you tips to improve! You want to write better, I'll read what you've got and help you edit it to be better! Just bring me anything and everything; all I want is to help make people better writers so that they can be more proud of what they do!

Note that I will be as honest as possible, and that while I don't intend to insult anyone, sometimes our feelings get hurt when something we made with loving care is torn apart by a critic. So just understand that my only intention here is to help people improve.

So who wants to be first?
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Keith
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Mage
whats the prize
MAP OF HYRULE

BESTIARY

WORLD NOTES
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Onime No Ryu
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
burntmeat
December 30, 2012, 4:47 pm
whats the prize
Self-improvement!
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Keith
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Mage
wtf do you give kids apples on halloween too
MAP OF HYRULE

BESTIARY

WORLD NOTES
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Shade
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Scout
I guess I'll be first.

Just tell me what you think of my writing style and ability, because I'm quite curious if there's any overlap between what I think my flaws are, and what others think my flaws are. I'm not going to request that you overlook any specific portion of my "work," because all I'm interested in is a general overview of sorts.
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Onime No Ryu
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Well this is awkward, Shade, as you're one of the writers here that I consider to be much better than myself, so I can't really come up with a lot of critiquing to do.

You have a great writing style that's balanced between dialogue and description, and even short interactions that would be one-liners from anyone else end up being a short paragraph that is short enough not to seem purple prosey, but long enoug to actually have some substance to it.

I will say two things: One, you are sort of on this fine line between too plain and too purple. Sometimes your descriptors feel too basic, like they could use spicing up, but other times it's the opposite. And two, sometimes your actions feel redundant because, as said in reason one, the descriptors are too basic. Cyril laughs and sighs, then he laughs again and smiles. The wording is the same and so is the order. But take this with two grains of salt; it's just my opinion, and it's also a matter of personal style.

So overall this is all I can say, Shade. You're a great writer, probably one of the best on the site.
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Garm0099
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Marksman
I have a feeling that I'm going to regret this but tell me what I need to fix (other than adding more paragraphs in my walls, I know I have a real problem with that...)
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Onime No Ryu
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Garm, I'm going to be honest with you: You are one of the members that I feel need the most work on your skills. HOWEVER, after reading through a lot of your posts in order to gather data for this review, there's good news--you're a bit better than I thought you were. You're certainly much better than you were back during the days when you hung with Badwolf's crew and made those super emo characters or those ripoff characters who had bankai and went 10 times the speed of sound.

One of your biggest problems, Garm, is that you're too basic. You're using some descriptive verbs here and there, but overall your posts are always just "He did this, then he did this, then he went over there and did that." They're a straight, step by step description, and it's boring and plain. It's not just that you're not using enough descriptive language, it's that you're TELLING us what's happening instead of SHOWING us, and that's a big no-no in writing. Let me use one of your recent posts to demonstrate. I'll go sentence by sentence, and fix EVERYTHING. Keep in mind that this is the way I, ONIME, think it should be fixed. Other writers may have other opinions that may certainly be just as valid, and you yourself may not agree with some of it. Just take it all with a grain of salt and wait for the final outcome before you make a decision.

Quote:
 
Finally defeating the Living Armor, Leonel relaxed his stance and put his weapons away.


Like I said, you're telling, not showing. Think about the verbs you used, and then think about WHAT HAPPENS as a result of those verbs. The armor was defeated. What happens when a person is defeated? They slump to the ground, they fall like a rock, they gasp their last words, a number of things. In this particular situation, the armor was in the pool of water when it was defeated, and it fell apart.

In the second part of the sentence, think about what the word relaxing implies. What do people do when they relax, especially after something as intense as a battle? When people put their weapons away, what happens? Think about ways you could describe those actions.

So after that, here's the refined sentence I came up with:

Quote:
 
As the armor fell apart, its pieces sinking in defeat to the bottom of the pool, Leonel let out a sigh and returned his sword to its sheath.


Does this make the stuff I said earlier make any sense? Do you understand the point I'm trying to get at here? Just to make sure, let's do a few more examples.

Quote:
 
People swarmed around Yu as she was knocked out unconscious. He briefly considered going over to help as well, but he figured the small girl would need some space.


The first part of the first sentence is okay except for the redundancy at the end. Knocked out already implies unconciousness, you don't have to use both of them. The second sentence is slightly better about the whole telling thing, but still telling in the end. Here's my suggestion:

Quote:
 
People swarmed around the unconscious Yu. He began to take a step towards her, but stopped himself and turned away. The small girl would need some space.


I hope some of this is starting to sink in; let's do one more, just for the rule of threes.

Quote:
 
He moved over to the corpse of the demon and surveyed its sword and shield. The sword was twice his height although he figured he could still used it if he worked at it, or at the very least get the thing reforged to his size.


The first problem here is that the second sentence is a HUGE run-on. You should definitely look up some grammar rules on the net and do some research about run-on and compound sentences, as your posts tend to have a LOT of run-ons or just rambling sentences that go on forever without any kind of punctuation.

Remember that a sentence expresses a complete thought. A compound sentence expresses two thoughts by putting a comma and a compound word between them--and, but, or, etc. If your sentence is expressing more than two thoughts it should probably be broken up into multiple sentences.

Now for the showing instead of telling.

Quote:
 
He strode to the bank of the pool and looked into the depths, one hand upon his chin. The Living Armor's sword would tower over him, but perhaps it could still be of use--especially if it was reforged.


Overall this version actually isn't too much better than yours. Sometimes you just have to tell things as showing them is difficult. Someone else might have a better way to do this one, actually, but this is all I've got. But notice the language I used, notice the little actions I included. Those things go a long way in helping the reader envision an image of your character and what they are doing.

I'm going to stop here so that this isn't all too TLDR, and let you digest these thoughts. If you want more, just say so, and I'll address what's left--specifically, splitting up walls of text into paragraphs and character creation.
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rorysuperpowers
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Scout
I would also like to request criticism if you have time.
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Garm0099
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Marksman
Thanks for pointing that stuff out man, helps out a lot :D
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Matttheman89
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Assassin
OH! OH! CRITQUE ME!

No seriously. Go ahead. I DARE you.
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Onime No Ryu
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
Matttheman89
January 1, 2013, 2:01 pm
OH! OH! CRITQUE ME!

No seriously. Go ahead. I DARE you.
RORY IS FIRST, WAIT YOUR TURN.

Sorry for the wait, Rory, I've been a little distracted. I'll get to it pretty soon, I promise.
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Matttheman89
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Assassin
YOU'RE TOO SLOW
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Onime No Ryu
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rorysuperpowers
December 31, 2012, 11:12 am
I would also like to request criticism if you have time.
Rory, let me just say that I'm extremely glad you joined us. In my opinion, you're the ideal kind of new member, the kind that we need more of around here.

As for your writing, you share one of your problems with Garm--you TELL instead of SHOW. You write that Adil said something "reluctantly," did something "quickly," etc. Instead of that, try to SHOW the reader how Adil is feeling when he/she says or does things through his actions. Instead of saying "he walked quickly," you could try "he strode" or "he marched" or, if Adil is also angry, "he stormed" or "he stomped." Do you see how those actions imply speed, while also implying mood?

There are three ways this can be fixed. One, learn more synonyms for actions. This can be accomplished with a thesaurus, but remember not to overuse it. Read my earlier posts in this topic for more about learning to use a thesaurus.

Two, learn body language. I'm sure you can look this up on the internet somewhere, but there are lots of different physical actions associated with mental thoughts and emotional feelings.

Three, experience. Just keep writing, trying to get better every time, and step back to look at your writing and say "what would make this sound better?" Eventually you'll learn how to take something apart and put it back together in a better way.

Also, look at Garm's review, since this is his problem too. You always want to SHOW instead of TELL.

Your other problem is that you could stand to be a little more descriptive, not just about how Adil is thinking and feeling an acting, but also about his/her surroundings. Think about what he/she is seeing and how Adil would describe it, or how you would describe it if you want to get further out into 3rd person narrative. I can't really tell you how to do better description, as you just...well, describe things. One thing I will say, though, is that you should think about how things like colors and smells and stuff like that affect people, and pick those out based on what you want to make your readers feel. For instance, if I want to give a sad, dreary impression, I might describe a castle as being made of "cold, moss-covered stone," instead of "white brick covered in swirling, flowering vines."
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Onime No Ryu
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
Matttheman89
January 1, 2013, 2:01 pm
OH! OH! CRITQUE ME!

No seriously. Go ahead. I DARE you.
Matt. Matt, Matt, Matt. Matt, Matt, MATT, MATT, MATT MATT MATT MATT MATT.

Your writing is very bland and boring to read. You state simple facts and just move around from place to place like all the characters are simple pieces on a game board. You TELL instead of showing, but you don't even put any effort into the telling.

And you make the SAME. DAMNED. CHARACTER.

EVERY TIME.

Don't tell me you don't. Oh sure, if you look hard enough, they have one or two little bitty tensy wensy differences. But other than that their personalities are all exactly the same.

You could benefit by taking everything I've said to everybody in this topic so far to heart and trying to work on ALL OF IT. Don't overwork yourself; just take one or two and decide "I'm going to improve these aspects of my writing." Give yourself a time frame, say a month, and work on it and then come back and we'll see how much better you've gotten. But for God's sake, start working on SOME of it. You're one of the few players around who still remembers the old, old days, and one of the few who diligently RPs without making the rest of us wait around for ages.

The first thing I want you to do? Start SHOWING instead of telling, just like Garm and Rory. You can use their work as comparison for your own, and the three of you can work together as writing buddies to keep each other on track.
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oniskieth
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The Silver Light
Just don't tear me down.
Katherine's Approval
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Systematic made by Phaede of the SZ..