Advice/Help One liner rp

[Mr. Sparks]

LMAO, well, it fucking works. I can be descriptive like that, but I'm sure as hell not doing 9 paragraphs for just one simple conversation.

Exactly my point!

 

[SP3CT3R]

In my experience, one-liners are better suited to roleplays that take place in areas where people respond quickly, like chatrooms. Shorter posts can better mimic the flow of interactions, particularly things like dialogue and combat, but the lack of detail means that if you're roleplaying here on a forum, where expecting more than one post per day is demanding, then the roleplay isn't going anywhere any time soon.

 

[rainywrites]

so here's my position on this whole thing. roleplay is for fun. some people have fun writing a quick covo style where it's like:

A: how are you?
B: *shurg* good, i'm a bit tired, because of that whole issue with the cats.
A: oh, i heard about that. are you okay?
B: yeah, it's all good.

for some people, that's fun! for other people, that's not. for other people, they might need two paragraphs to get that vibe going, but maybe they don't like writing more than two paragraphs. for other people, they like writing a novella length reply. it's all about finding the right partners so you can have fun, and not shaming others. me, i write every reply length, although i'll admit that i only have one (1) one liner rp going right now because they tend to get on my nerves (too short for me personally). that said, i'd never shame anybody for liking something i don't.

at the end of the day, this is for fun. find partners that reply the length you do, so people don't feel cheated when they write six paras and you write one. find people you'll have fun with, and don't shame people for finding fun in different ways. this is a fun thing we all do with our spare time, and i see no reason to shame people for writing too much or too little.

 

[Shaila]

Yeah it’s more of a compatibility thing than a good vs. bad thing.

As long as your partner is okay with 1x1 liners it’s totally fine.

Another thing to take into account is that it’s not as simple as just more/less words.

Detailed writers also tend to be people who like to do a lot of planning and building out the world. They are also slower posters that aren’t really looking for rapid fire responses.

So it’s kind of an apple and oranges comparison. The way you roleplay with one liners is very different to the way you roleplay when you do multiple paragraph replies.

So I wouldn’t be looking at other people’s roleplays and comparing yourself. Even when it comes to people who roleplay the same style as you it’s very much a grass is always greener mentality.

The whole - other people must be more successful than me because I can’t see them struggling. It’s a very negative thought process to get into. Because you don’t know how much work and struggle is going on behind the scenes that you just don’t know about.

Well, im a one liner and i still prefer to plan everything

 

[GojiBean]

Hello everyone!! i was just wondering if i should not do one liners they work for me and i have a amazing rp built on one liners but feel dumb compared to other people's masive replys that seem to keep the rp lasting wayyy longer. So should i change the reply length or keep it the same?

Hoyo!

(This reply ended up being a lot longer than I intended it to be )

Anywhoosle!

Quality over quantity is a universally praised and shared expression for a reason.

I've said it many times before, and I'm here to say it again: The length of a post is 100% arbitrary.

Post quality doesn't come from length or the volume of "detail" you include. In fact, the more volume of detail you add to pad your post length, the more likely you are to be detracting from the quality of your post. And I'll explain what I mean about that a bit later.

For now, here are some amazing words of wisdom I picked up not too long ago during a consultation with a professional tv/film script and novel editor: If you plan to include details in a scene, make sure they're in service to the narrative, and in service to the focal point of the scene at hand. If they aren't going to be featured, or in some way made important to a particular moment or event in the protagonist's past, present, or future, don't include them.

What does he mean by that?

Well, take this setting as an example: Two armed and armored knights in a fantasy world are having a heated discussion in the streets of a small merchant town. They're arguing loudly, and the townspeople are afraid and either pretending not to notice, or they're actively going out of their way to hide and get away from the scene. These two knights are arguing louder and louder until eventually one of them challenges the other to a duel. The challenge is accepted, and the duel begins.

What's the intent of this setting description?

The intent is to set the stage for a scene involving two arguing knights who eventually agree to a duel.

So, ask yourself: "Do the following details matter?"

* Color of building walls and rooftops
* Building wall and roofing material
* How many flags, banners, and/or hanging signs are lining the streets
* The exact spatial relationship between each building and business (which business is directly next to which, etc.)
* What material is the ground beneath their feet
* What time of day is it (this was likely established prior to this sequence, so repeating it is not necessary)
* Are there any trees in town
* If there are trees, how many are visible
* What types of trees are they
* Where exactly are they located in relation to the buildings around them
* How much space are they shading
* What direction is the wind blowing
* How strongly is it blowing
* Is it making a thick or thin whistling noise as it blows through the streets
* What sounds are the trees or local animals making, if any
* How many clouds are overhead
* What shapes are the clouds overhead
* How thick are the clouds overhead
* Etc.

So, do they matter?

Not at all.

The inclusion of details like those listed above actively detract from the quality of the scene because they are distracting the reader from what's truly important, which is the atmosphere and growing tension between the two knights as they move closer and closer to the climax, which is the duel.

These are the details which absolutely must be included if the scene is going to be of quality, and hold the reader's attention and excitement until the end of the climax:

* Which knight started this altercation, and how
* Are they arguing semantics, morals, personal views, etc.
* How loudly are they speaking/yelling at one another
* What exactly are their choice of words
* What's their body language like
* What's their tone of voice like
* Are there any other law enforcement agents, like local town guards, watching and/or trying to interfere
* How are the towns people reacting to their quarrel
* Is it at all obvious that a duel between these two could potentially harm onlookers if it gets out of hand
* How far apart do the knights start their argument, and do they move closer as it becomes more heated
* Which one issues the challenge, and how
* How quickly, eagerly, and/or reluctantly does the other accept
* What is the reaction of the townsfolk

These kinds of details directly service the narrative by focusing on the characters who are at the center of the scene to help it advance, and they also service the intent of the scene by establishing, maintaining, and building upon the tension as we get closer and closer to the duel and the consequences it could have for the locals as they observe it all going down.


When details are included which are not in service to the narrative or the focal point of the scene at hand, the editor called it scene painting.

For example, if you're opening post in a fantasy adventure RP ends up being 20+ paragraphs in length, and you include ten thousand details about the look of the landscape from the shape and size of the trees to how they lean this way and that, and how the mountains look both up close and in the distance, and how the clouds make shapes as your protagonist character walks the lonely dirt roads between one major city and the next, ask yourself: "How much of that landscape and scenery is actually going to be relevant and be featured at some point in this story?"

If your answer is: "Not much, if any of it," then sad to say but you just wasted however much of your time it took to write those 20+ paragraphs filled with crap that doesn't matter in the past, present, or future of the RP, and which will more than likely be skimmed or skipped entirely by anyone reading because they're looking for the details that actually matter. As participants of the RP they're looking for details that will actually matter to them when they respond with their own post after yours. And for all the "detail" you included, you both wasted their time and likely put them off. Even those who love to read can't deny that they prefer to read information that's actually in service to the narrative and the scene at hand rather than reading information that's just there for the sake of being there.

If, in the entire 20+ paragraphs, you only included one or two sentences describing the look of the town your character arrived in at the end of your post, that's what everyone's going to skip to and actually focus on.

And this is not limited to scenery. It can be any details about any scene at any time which fall into this trap of not being in service to the narrative or the scene's primary intent. This could even be tied to dialogue. If your character is in a conversation that's been nicely moving back and forth, and then suddenly your character goes off on a giant info dump and reminisces about their past without any provocation or reason for doing so, that's scene painting. All of this crap about them and their past, while there's certain to be one or two gems present, could have been conveyed another way. One which was far more appropriate, well-timed, and purposeful.


I'll say it again: The length of a post is 100% arbitrary.

The longer your post is, the more likely you are to be scene painting. And the more scene painting you have, the lower your post's quality truly is. The only way your posts can reach more extreme lengths without falling into the trap of scene painting is if you actively understand the difference between details that matter, and details which don't matter.

If you're going to mention seeing a town far off in the distance while walking down the roads between major cities, you'd better be planning to visit that town at some point in the adventure, or have it be a location your character has been to before which will serve and inform their decisions and/or dialogue moving forward. Otherwise, don't mention the town any more than the time it takes to say "saw a town in the distance," and then move on. Don't describe the church tower in the middle, don't describe the wide of it on the horizon, don't describe whether or not your character can make out any specific building shapes, a wall around its perimeter, etc. Again, unless you plan to include those details in some way in the future to service your narrative, there's no point mentioning them now other than to try and impress others with how much info you can cram into a single post.

But that's not quality.

After all, there's a HUGE difference between writing 20 paragraphs worth of detail for "detail's" sake, and writing 20 genuinely quality paragraphs that both arrest and hold the attention and excitement of the reader because every word is in proper service to the narrative and intent of the scene at hand. And in my own experience, very few role-players I've met who pride themselves on always writing longer posts are capable of accomplishing the latter.

While they were indeed able to write posts upwards of 10-20 paragraphs on average, very little of the content they brought to the table in any way was in service of the narrative or the scene in question. It's been a lot, and I mean a lot, of needless fluff and imagery writing that didn't do anything except delay and distract from the core of the scene at hand. Maybe one or two paragraphs out of the 10-20 they would always writer were actually relevant, or held any information of genuine value to me as one of their RP partners, and the scene which were in at the time.

And in many cases these long posts actively detracted not just from their own quality, but the pacing of the RP as well since it was able to completely break the tension or excitement which had been building in posts prior. All the other posts were direct and to the point and moved the scene along. Then comes the essay with a load of fluff and imagery, and suddenly we're all scratching our heads and asking ourselves OOC "So... Do we have to respond to ALL of that? Or just the bit at the end?"

You can guess what we all decided to do.


In summary.

If you can capture the details that matter, then the length of your post doesn't matter.

It can be one sentence. It can be two or three sentences. It could be a paragraph or two. Or you could write a research paper.

What's important is that your post, and all of the content held within it, acts in proper service to the narrative and the intent of the scene at hand. The more fluff and imagery writing (or scene painting) you include, the lower your post's quality is.

Cheers!