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tenshinoakuma) wrote2008-12-24 12:26 am
tenshinoakuma) wrote2008-12-24 12:26 am
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Okay I swear I'll stop with the RP babble spam soon.
I didn't start out as being particularly good at RPing.
This is important, because sometimes it feels like players have this expectation that they should be omg amazing!!!1! from the beginning. And I think that's an unreasonable expectation to have of yourself (or of other people), because for the vast majority of people, it just doesn't work that way.
I keep a monthly thread tracking post in Joshua's journal for several reasons:
1) To have quick and easy access to my past threads should I need to check something / want to reread threads
2) To keep track of my activity (and make it easier to respond to activity checks |D )
3) To see how much my RPing has changed and grown
I'll just talk about all the non-characterisation aspects, because I think I've covered enough of that in the previous post.
My old logs were not good.
That's all there really is to it. It's a habit I brought over from Gaia, and while the whole 'show not tell' thing works really well with comment spam/journal style RPing, it just reads as really awkward and clunky in logs. I remember struggling a little with the logs because I had to constantly come up with non-boring ways of describing outward actions. Thankfully, I didn't resort to elaborate purple prose to do it :|
I guess the turning point on that was when I received a suggestion to start putting, like, other stuff in my logs, since I guess my tags felt boring? I can't remember what was said anymore since it was so long ago.
And so began my struggles to grasp what was going on in Joshua's head.
About August? Whenever we had that HMD post anyway, it was mentioned that Joshua came off more naturally in journal posts than in logs. And I guess that's when I realised I'm trying to improve my logs, yes, but clearly it wasn't working well enough (in my opinion). And while asking crit on my writing is all fine and dandy, I know that it can be hard to crit people because not only can it be hard to see that there is a problem, it's also good to help come up with solutions as well (as well as the potential wank issue).
I'm sure you guys can already tell I learn best by following examples and mimicking them. And there are plenty of good examples that I've had the pleasure of playing off against. The logs I enjoy reading the most are the ones where I can really feel the 'voice' of the character coming through when I read them (and those are often formatted in a way that is easy on my eyes too ; A; ). Part of the reason why I enjoy reading journals and commentspams is that they are basically pure, undiluted voice. And I feel that it's easier to bring out a character's voice in journals and commentspam. Which is why I really respect the people who are able to bring out character voice in logs, and use their logs as examples to improve mine.
Because that's what I want to achieve. I want people to be able to feel Joshua's and Bidoof's voice in my logs, not just in journal entries.
I was going to say more, but I can't find a way to say it coherently.
I didn't start out as being particularly good at RPing.
This is important, because sometimes it feels like players have this expectation that they should be omg amazing!!!1! from the beginning. And I think that's an unreasonable expectation to have of yourself (or of other people), because for the vast majority of people, it just doesn't work that way.
I keep a monthly thread tracking post in Joshua's journal for several reasons:
1) To have quick and easy access to my past threads should I need to check something / want to reread threads
2) To keep track of my activity (and make it easier to respond to activity checks |D )
3) To see how much my RPing has changed and grown
I'll just talk about all the non-characterisation aspects, because I think I've covered enough of that in the previous post.
My old logs were not good.
That's all there really is to it. It's a habit I brought over from Gaia, and while the whole 'show not tell' thing works really well with comment spam/journal style RPing, it just reads as really awkward and clunky in logs. I remember struggling a little with the logs because I had to constantly come up with non-boring ways of describing outward actions. Thankfully, I didn't resort to elaborate purple prose to do it :|
I guess the turning point on that was when I received a suggestion to start putting, like, other stuff in my logs, since I guess my tags felt boring? I can't remember what was said anymore since it was so long ago.
And so began my struggles to grasp what was going on in Joshua's head.
About August? Whenever we had that HMD post anyway, it was mentioned that Joshua came off more naturally in journal posts than in logs. And I guess that's when I realised I'm trying to improve my logs, yes, but clearly it wasn't working well enough (in my opinion). And while asking crit on my writing is all fine and dandy, I know that it can be hard to crit people because not only can it be hard to see that there is a problem, it's also good to help come up with solutions as well (as well as the potential wank issue).
I'm sure you guys can already tell I learn best by following examples and mimicking them. And there are plenty of good examples that I've had the pleasure of playing off against. The logs I enjoy reading the most are the ones where I can really feel the 'voice' of the character coming through when I read them (and those are often formatted in a way that is easy on my eyes too ; A; ). Part of the reason why I enjoy reading journals and commentspams is that they are basically pure, undiluted voice. And I feel that it's easier to bring out a character's voice in journals and commentspam. Which is why I really respect the people who are able to bring out character voice in logs, and use their logs as examples to improve mine.
Because that's what I want to achieve. I want people to be able to feel Joshua's and Bidoof's voice in my logs, not just in journal entries.
I was going to say more, but I can't find a way to say it coherently.