Advice/Help Fleshing Out Posts

[KingOfPrinces]

One thing that I have had trouble with since I started RPing was fleshing out my paragraphs and making my words seem nice. I have trouble reaching three paragraphs unless I fill it with long words and overdescriptive sentences. What advice do you have for me?

 

[rae2nerdy]

So first don't start out with a length in mind. If you are trying to hit a specific length than your writing quality will always suffer as you are focusing on the wrong thing. Instead look at what your partners are writing and just try to mimic that from your partners perspective. Also reading books helps as it will give you a template to follow in describing settings.

 

[Idea]

I'd say instead, be sure that such length is actually what you want.

Detailed roleplaying isn't for everyone. People have different styles of roleplay and there's nothing wrong with any of them, they are just different styles, but those different styles come with different mentalities. You will not do well in roleplaying detailed if you approach it with the same mentality you'd approach casual roleplaying, because such is the fundamental difference. Casual roleplaying is more dynamic, often more organic, snappy and the replies are faster as well. Detailed roleplaying on the other hand is by design more descriptive and focused on the appreciation of every moment. If you want to roleplay detailed, you have to appreciate the descriptions and greater immersion despite the hit to the pacing.

One potential metaphor would be like making a trip. A casual roleplayer could take a plane: They would get to the point faster and more comfortably. Detailed roleplaying is like doing the same trip by foot: it will take longer and be harder, more forethought will have to be put into how to organize and you can't expect meals you have to carry them with you and be disciplined about when to eat them, etc... but doing so you get to experience more of the journey, to really soak in the view and everything in between your start and your destination.

So, assuming your prefered method IS detailed, or that you are trying to transition to detailed, what can you do?

1.Read and Research
The first methods are as simple as they come: If you want to write about stuff in a more expansive way, you have to see how people describe things, you have to expand your vocabulary (by which I mean expand your natural vocabulary, not look up words and shoving them into the text without knowing what they mean) and it also helps to just understand the medium.

So read, read a lot, don't shy away from looking up stuff you don't understand either. And if you're really looking forward to improving your detail and your writing in general, doing research about writing itself is a good way to help you frame concepts you knew intuitively but couldn't quite put your finger on, or in just gaining awareness of certain aspects of writing you didn't quite realize were there before.

2.Don't Rely on the Muse: Think Ahead
When asked about writer's block, professional writers tend to have one advise to give: Don't. Stop. Writing.

The muse, aka those times of inspiration when you just really feel like writing a lot or when it seems almost easy, those are a great help, but they aren't reliable enough. Furthermore, the more you lean on those to write, the more dependent you become on them. So if you are trying to get into writing a lot, you have to learn to systematize it, to be able to put out content even when you're not quite at your best.

This is a task that can only be achieved preentively. Designed your characters with potential character arcs in mind, with personalities and powers etc.. that will help you have content for posts etc... In my case, since I am a planner by nature, I often find myself outlining content ahead of time to use when the time is right or needed.

3.Perspective and Show Don't tell
One surprisingly simple way to expand your posts is to just avoid "jumps". Time jumps are the most common kind, but there are other kinds as well. For instance, your character is told something and you immediately give the character's response, without describing what went through the character's head in between. How did the character get to the decisions they made, what did they feel during the whole process etc...

This is but a small facet of content you can get by just applying two simple concepts: Character perspective and the "show don't tell" rule. Different characters will think, act and speak differently, they will have a different sense of common sense and thus different reactiosn to things. They may draw comparisons between things others wouldn't to bring them to the areas they know better, or notice details others wouldn't because of their own experiences. Keeping those details in mind can not only help you expand your post, it will help you characterize your characters better as well.

As for show don't tell, basically you get more content because instead of saying "he angrily grabbed the mug" you can say "his fingers wrapped around the fragile container like they were on the verge of straggling it".

4.It's not all about the action
This goes quite in line with what I said earlier about mentality. One of the most common mistakes of casual roleplayers in detailed RPs is that their solution to needing more content is adding more actions. Casual roleplay only really asks for whatever actions and dialogue move the plot forward, but detailed roleplay wants the focus elsewhere as well. Taking room out of your post to really convey the emotional and mental state of the characters, what goes through their actions, what the world around them is like, what people and actions look like, etc...


Now you may be worried "but what if I describe too much?". Well, that normally shouldn't happen, but here's a generally useful way of getting a good first guess: Ask yourself, what is the narrative purpose of this description? Is it foreshadowing some future event? Is it establishing something about the tone, setting or anything the characters will interact with? Is it helping convey the point to the reader?
If the answer is yes to any of those, you are generally going to be in a good track.


I do hope this helps. There is more I could say, though in the end of the day, the biggest advise I can give you is, experience. Nomatter what tricks one uses, in the end of the day the best way to improve will be pratice, gaining experience, and keeping an open mind to improve.

Good luck and happy RPing!