A Guide to Good Role-Playing

Article One

Writing and role-play go hand in hand.  While a great number of games offer a visual interface, the still-popular art of text based role-play relies on the written word to convey a scene.  The fundamentals of creativity in writing apply to live play, but this bit is going to go into the actual story form that many people use to convey backstories, out of play scenes and introspective pieces.

This time around, let's take a look at the first rule of good writing.

Rule One: Keep It Simple, Stupid

This does not actually refer to the complexity of your creative endeavor, but to the complexity of your prose.  The more overblown your prose, the more ten-dollar words you use, the harder it will be to read.  When writing a story bit for your role-playing, try using the more common words first.  While having a good vocabulary can and does enhance writing, there is a line between good vocabulary and thesaurus abuse.  Generally speaking, if you need to actually crack open a thesaurus for more than just the occasional suggestion, you're doing it wrong.

The reason why simplicity in prose is a good thing is this: You want the actual feelings, thoughts and senses to come through the writing, rather than being drowned by it.  If your reader has to break away from the text in order to look up a word, they lose the flow of the work and are less likely to really absorb what you're trying to say.  Writing to convey thoughts and feelings isn't a matter of what words you use, so much as the artistry you practice while using them.

You need to appeal to them on a visceral level.  Cerulean, instead of blue, does not convey anything more deep and lovely, it simply is a bigger word -- most people don't know what shade of blue it actually is.  If you need to convey what kind of blue it is, then add another small description -- pale blue, blue-green, light blue.

Another thing to consider while writing is that you do not need to fit a physical description of your character into every single piece.  While the occasional note on their appearance is all right, mentioning the color of their hair or eyes (unless it somehow relates to plot) in every post is overkill.  Instead of relying on such things, put out an initial description and allow the rest of your words to convey the real meat of your character -- actions, feelings, thoughts.

Finally, there are some words that need to be avoided at all costs.  Not only from a role-play point of view, but from a writing point of view.

Do not use orbs.

Ever.

Eyes may indeed be orbs, but the use of orbs as a description is perhaps one of the worst in all of role-play and writing.  The word has an entirely different feeling than the body parts it intends to describe -- where eyes are immediately recognizable, and therefore processed almost subconsciously, 'orbs' can and often do make readers think of anything from spider's eggs to chocolate balls.  Even genuinely good writers and role-players fall into this trap, as it has been perpetuated so many times.

Just don't do it.  No matter how many times you use the word 'eyes' (which should only be the number of times you need to, rather than want to), it will not get old.  You won't wear the word out.  Use of the word orbs, however, has gotten so old that it has kicked the bucket long since.

Other words you should avoid are: Digits, tiers, tresses and globes.  Especially globes, but avoid all of those.  Fingers, lips, hair and (insert: boobies, breasts, tits, whatever) works much better.  It's what people are doing with those parts that are important, not what word you use to describe them.

Ultimately, the skill of all great writers is to convey what they want with the least number of words, using relatively simple statements.  The true artistry of writing is never how many big words you know, or how big your thesaurus is, but in how you can take the words that apply to all writing and turn them into pictures, feelings, ideas and stories.

Keep it simple.  Keep it real.

If you do those things, you can't end up too far wrong.

-- Steff Watson
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