Death to Literacy

[Edric Blight]

Edric Blight strong disagree. To me, it’s important to call people out when they're being assholes. If you go around saying “well everyone who I have offended is wrong” then you never grow as a person.

OP clearly had some kinda issue with the word literate but tbh I found their little screed more pretentious than anyone they might be calling out.

Cuz like yeah I get it you don’t want to write a lot. Okay then don’t. You don’t have to be an elitist snob about people who do write a lot. Especially if your gonna act like you raging against the elitist masses by … being an elitist? Like sure Jan go off.


** not saying you specifically just that the OP gave strong do as I say not as I do vibes. Which is absolutely something that should be called out. You don’t get to act snobby then turn around and get butt hurt cuz you think other people are being snobby. **

Fair enough.

Tbh I briefly skimmed this post and didn’t read all of it in its entirety (which is hilariously ironic to me on my part since the title is “Death to Literacy”).

I just agreed with the point of some people really seem to think they are better than others because they can write more and require their partners to write more.

I always just thought that RPing and writing was meant to be a fun hobby, not an assignment from your Harvard professor. And I say you as in not you specifically, just people in general lol.

Probably should have read this whole post tho on my part lol.

 

[Inno]

Fair enough.

Tbh I briefly skimmed this post and didn’t read all of it in its entirety (which is hilariously ironic to me on my part since the title is “Death to Literacy”).

I just agreed with the point of some people really seem to think they are better than others because they can write more and require their partners to write more.

I always just thought that RPing and writing was meant to be a fun hobby, not an assignment from your Harvard professor. And I say you as in not you specifically, just people in general lol.

Probably should have read this whole post tho on my part lol.

Roleplay is a fun hobby. But at the same time, some want to do more with it. When I first started out I was all over the place. I wanted to do and get better because writing is my thing. Not everyone thinks they are better because they write more or use different adjectives or verbs or want to have more writing in return. Yeah, there are assholes all around but again not everyone is the same.

 

[nerdy tangents]

Edric Blight no worries it was ironically a lot of purple prose on why purple prose is bad.

Which I think is a problem in its own right, cuz at the end of the day people are allowed to write what they want.

Especially since “literate” isn’t even a term used to describe long posts. That is the term used by people who wanted roughly three paragraphs per post. Now hey if you don't want to write that much it's fine. But it's not an unreasonable ask.

What you are thinking of is what was called advanced literate (5+ paragraphs per post). I didn't mind writing that much personally but I can understand how it's not everyone's cup of tea.

Still going on a screed because OP didn't like a vocab word people are using is ridiculous. Using it to demonize people who write 3+ paragraphs is just hypocrisy. Like no one is making them join a roleplay with a paragraph count they don't agree with. So don't rain on someone else's parade who is minding their own business, OP.

Your right this is a fun hobby. And if I find it fun to write five paragraphs and you find it fun to write one that's totally fine. People can have different ideas of what is fun.

 

[Jannah]

I didn't want to comment on this, considering the original post is from 2014, but it seems that can of worms has already been opened so I might as well go for it. It seems odd to me to get so worked up about how much other players choose to write. If they write too much or too little for your tastes then just find other players who are more compatible. Simple. I don't know why this has to be an argument. I also don't know why we have to get so hung up over which sort of language is used either. As one of those multi-paragraph RPers I will use the term literate because it's the term I've always seen used and grown accustomed to in my 20 years of RPing.

 

[Luscinioide]

real hot take: if people get mad over "literate", they should also get mad over "purple prose" because it's just another way to be hateful towards writers who like writing big stuff lol. no different than using "literate" as a way to supposedly make digs at shorter length writers. 👁👁

let people enjoy the way they like to write you heathens, someone is not an elitist just because you don't meet their preferred qualifications to write with them

 

[Idea]

I thought it would be fun to jump to some old threads and revive one that I like, to see what people think.

I don't like the tone of the OP's post (which I didn't finish reading if I'm being honest) but I agree that usually walls of text and purple prose are considered "literate" by the rp community.

What does literate mean for you?

I mean, I think it’s genuinely been like half a decade since I last saw someone unironically claiming that longer text = better quality (if anything I usually see the opposite, people saying "quality over quantity" in discussion of length requirements, as if a lack of standards magically improved writing quality, but I will touch on this matter latter). Literate/Semi-Literate/Etc…, as nonsensical a term as it may be for the purpose, is in the end just a term that stuck for categories I still know as “detailed/casual/simple” merely because that was how they were referred to when I arrived at the site myself.

I do agree however, with the notion that it is much better to just lay these things out in explicit terms rather than vague shorthands. Give a concrete length requirement and say “I want good grammar” if those are the requirements you want for the kind of posts you want to read, and the kinds of posts that work for you for writing as well. I have found that concrete metrics like that far better match you with the right partners in terms of writing style, as even when you don't strictly adhere to the rule all the time, a partner that does habitually work in those lengths and degree of detail is usually more suited for that length's mindset. Being honest, however, I'm not a fan of the current trend of paragraph-based measuring, because both paragraphs of this response so far are paragraphs, one is nearly twice the size of the other, and neither of these is anything I'd particularly call "sizeable" (and after writing the next paragraph, that one turned out even larger than this one, as if to show the disparity on what might count as a paragraph between people making it a borderline meaningless metric).

One issue of note to me, is that I think beyond simple preferences, people have different lengths they are (at any given time) more suited for, and I think a lot of issues with longer posts arise from people trying to write longer posts as if they were writing smaller ones. That is where you will usually find people just padding their posts for the sake of padding them. Someone whose mindset aligns with longer posts, writes them because that is what their writing style tends to produce, if they are not meeting those lengths, they might first ask "what am I missing?" as opposed to "what can I add?". If they do ask what they can, then they will pick something they can incorporate seamlessly into the post. I know plenty of people who'd struggle to write three lines. I know if I write less than seven odds are I've been given literally nothing to work with for several posts and I've run out of tricks and options for anything I could do. This isn't, I want to be clear, a question of skill. This is a question of tastes and values. Someone who only values what directly affects the plot and characters is not writing as much naturally as someone who has an eye on scene structure, worldbuilding, introspection, atmosphere, and other factors. Because for the first, all the latter is "purple prose". Is it any wonder then, that one who usually views the content of longer length as purple prose, would struggle to write that length as anything but?

Now length isn't a 1 to 1 proxy to these values and writing styles of course - but it's a good enough approximation that I believe match-ups are consistently made much better when people find the right length for themselves and work with people who like to give them what they want to read and receive what they want to write.

 

[nerdy tangents]

Idea yeah I think that’s why folks have moved to more descriptive requests in their interest checks. I can’t remember the last time I saw a 1x1 that had “literate” as a request. It’s usually “please write X paragraphs” or “I write X amount please match.”

I also think you hit the nail on the head in that people's personal writing styles favor specific lengths. It's when you fight against your preferred length that the overall quality suffers.

I couldn't hit a paragraph per post if you put a gun to my head. I just don't have the mindset that lets me be that succinct.

On the other hand in my heyday, I could regularly manage a page in a half-long post. And it never felt forced or like I was passing cuz I enjoyed going into that level of detail. Now I have gotten into shorter posts as I got older but I think that's more cuz I got more things going on IRL and can't dedicate the time and energy to RP that I used to.

So yeah I think the whole "it's all padding" is always the case of people writing beyond their comfort level.

 

[nerdy tangents]

real hot take: if people get mad over "literate", they should also get mad over "purple prose" because it's just another way to be hateful towards writers who like writing big stuff lol. no different than using "literate" as a way to supposedly make digs at shorter length writers. 👁👁

let people enjoy the way they like to write you heathens, someone is not an elitist just because you don't meet their preferred qualifications to write with them

Reminds me of the folks who would get mad when I turned them away from my groups cuz they didn't follow the rules.

Like you can call me an elitist bitch until your fingers fall off, I'm not changing my rules to spare your feelings. And even if I were inclined to do that you throwing a giant temper tantrum shows me you're not a team player anyway.

 

[Luscinioide]

Reminds me of the folks who would get mad when I turned them away from my groups cuz they didn't follow the rules.

Like you can call me an elitist bitch until your fingers fall off, I'm not changing my rules to spare your feelings. And even if I were inclined to do that you throwing a giant temper tantrum shows me you're not a team player anyway.

yeah, rp rules exist for a reason lol. not only do they let the op find what they want, it also stops people from being miserable when writing with them. someone who struggles to write half the amount i do is going to have a BAD time...it's not fun to have someone else write circles around you! same thing with someone struggling to meet the same reading level of writing. a 8th grade level won't mesh well with college level, and that's fine. that's why people say what they want.

tbh the real elitism is anyone who shits on other people for wanting to rp a specific way. (unless they're being homophobic, racist, or whatever) they want to use the term literate? cool. they want to write script? cool. they want to write super novella and have strict requirements? cool. whatever makes them happy. it's not my place or anyone else's to intervene.

 

[Celestial Water]

Lazy lit 4 lyf

 

[Syntra]

real hot take: if people get mad over "literate", they should also get mad over "purple prose" because it's just another way to be hateful towards writers who like writing big stuff lol. no different than using "literate" as a way to supposedly make digs at shorter length writers. 👁👁

let people enjoy the way they like to write you heathens, someone is not an elitist just because you don't meet their preferred qualifications to write with them

I mean... I wouldn't necessarily say that, lol. To me, purple prose is a stylistic problem that has little to do with length, and much more to do with how clunky the text reads. I think you can write big, poetic-sounding stuff without it devolving into purple prose!

But overall, I agree. Hell, what I consider to be purple prose doesn't even have to be purple prose to other people because tastes differ. Preferences are preferences and you aren't 'better' for liking certain things. ('You' being the general 'you' here, ofc.)

 

[Luscinioide]

I mean... I wouldn't necessarily say that, lol. To me, purple prose is a stylistic problem that has little to do with length, and much more to do with how clunky the text reads. I think you can write big, poetic-sounding stuff without it devolving into purple prose!

But overall, I agree. Hell, what I consider to be purple prose doesn't even have to be purple prose to other people because tastes differ. Preferences are preferences and you aren't 'better' for liking certain things. ('You' being the general 'you' here, ofc.)

honestly i consider it to be just another one of the many buzzwords that get thrown around in writing communities lmao. there's no real definition to it because it's very subjective, quite like the 700 versions of literate. like i don't really even register it as being a thing, i can't think of a single example in my brain that'd make me go "dam that's TOO much detail. author really do be trying to pad out the word count." but then there's people who think three paragraph posts are purple prose so lol

...albeit, im probably a bad person to talk about it because i enjoy tolkien's multi page rants about trees and r.r martin's thesis length descriptions of food

 

[Syntra]

honestly i consider it to be just another one of the many buzzwords that get thrown around in writing communities lmao. there's no real definition to it because it's very subjective, quite like the 700 versions of literate. like i don't really even register it as being a thing, i can't think of a single example in my brain that'd make me go "dam that's TOO much detail. author really do be trying to pad out the word count." but then there's people who think three paragraph posts are purple prose so lol

...albeit, im probably a bad person to talk about it because i enjoy tolkien's multi page rants about trees and r.r martin's thesis length descriptions of food

Haha, fair! For me, 'too much detail' is when it breaks my immersion. And don't get me wrong, I am a wordy bitch! I have written 2.5k words for a single post before! But when someone rambles about something that doesn't feel relevant, that's when my brain is like nope.jpg and I check out.

And, in my book, that still isn't what a purple prose is. That's just being very wordy. As I define it, purple prose is like, using big words clumsily in an attempt to make your writing look more sophisticated. So, nothing to do with length, really.

But I guess this goes to show that the definitions in the rp community really are wonky, lol.

And yes, I do, in fact, hate Tolkien, so it seems we are ideologically opposed, haha.

 

[nerdy tangents]

Yeah I always got the idea that “purple prose” is what Idea was talking about. People who are more comfortable writing short posts trying to pad for word count by abusing a thesaurus.

It’s not so much “too much detail” as it’s “you said the same thing three times by trying to use weirdly constructed synonyms.”

 

[Edric Blight]

I love that a post from 2014 can still spark discussion in 2022. Puts a smile on my face.

 

[Idea]

I love that a post from 2014 can still spark discussion in 2022. Puts a smile on my face.

To be fair we ARE on the internet. Just about anything can spark discussion. Though it's nice to see it's been rather civil discussion.

 

[Edric Blight]

To be fair we ARE on the internet. Just about anything can spark discussion. Though it's nice to see it's been rather civil discussion.

I’m not laughing at it. I’m just saying I like it. It’s a civil discussion on a rather heated post from 2014. All I’m saying is it makes me smile. It’s a timeless post.

 

[Idea]

I’m not laughing at it.

I never suggested you were? I did get your meaning.

 

[Edric Blight]

I never suggested you were? I did get your meaning.

Alright good.

 

[Murdergurl]

I’m not laughing at it. I’m just saying I like it. It’s a civil discussion on a rather heated post from 2014. All I’m saying is it makes me smile. It’s a timeless post.

kinda funny how it still bears relevance. Back then I thought the term "literate" was a stupid way to describe high word count. I still think it's a stupid way to describe high word count. I've said it before, I'll say it again: Literacy does not equal word count. Purple Prose does not equal literacy, either

You can have 1000+ words of total trash that are just padding and piss-poor descriptors. OR a single paragraph of absolute pearls made in succinct, tasteful delivery. The latter is literacy. The former is not.

 

[Edric Blight]

kinda funny how it still bears relevance. Back then I thought the term "literate" was a stupid way to describe high word count. I still think it's a stupid way to describe high word count. I've said it before, I'll say it again: Literacy does not equal word count. Purple Prose does not equal literacy, either

You can have 1000+ words of total trash that are just padding and piss-poor descriptors. OR a single paragraph of absolute pearls made in succinct, tasteful delivery. The latter is literacy. The former is not.

Exactly. Literacy does not equal word count, idk where anyone got that idea lmao.

Agreed.

And again, just speaks to the timelessness of this post.

 

[Edric Blight]

I really don’t know why I’m so amused we can still comment and talk on a post from 2014 and have meaningful and actually surprisingly, civil discussion, about it. The glory of the internet.