Ah, the glorious wall of text, how cumbersome you are. How effective an indicator of inefficient role player and all-controlling god moder alike. How we scorn thee, yet how you fill us with nostalgia of the time when we, too, were drawn in by your siren-sweet lure of endless gilded prose, for how else were we to convey the depth of our characters? If not by mountain of adverbs or page-long emotes, how were we to describe precisely what our actions were? For who in the many endless worlds of role play would not wish to know how many boogers brave Felodious had harvested from his heroic proboscis or at how much length dear Amelenieghertevuincie the half-elven-one-eighth-gnome-one-fourth-half-ogre-two-fourths-drow had learned to pluck her first chord upon the-
Had enough yet?
Nobody wants to read your poetic ramblings, or mine, or for that matter, even their own. You have a nice vocabulary, we get it. You know your grammar, and that's fantastic. You know every detail of your character down to that chip on his left bicuspid. You have all your ducks in a row! Good for you! There is, however, one thing you missed: your audience.
In a forum role play, a page-and-a-half-long response can be okay in the beginning because there are no visual elements and there's a whole bunch of set-up you need to do. We may get to that in a later post. MMOs and chatbox role plays, on the other hand, are very fast paced. By the time you're done typing your flowery prose, the person you were talking to has wandered to the other side of the city because they thought you were ignoring them. Leniency will of course be granted to newbies and those who type slower than others, but nobody will have any pity for you if you make them wait 10 minutes between each part of a 4-part emote.
"But how do I let them know all the details?!" you cry. It is a good question. The thing is, we don't need a paragraph of description to understand what you mean. You have a good vocabulary, right? (Hint: Yes) Use it! You could say "Felodious scratched his head with fury as a thousand lice found shelter in his flowing golden locks and, finding his life's fluid to their tastes, bit down upon his scalp," but it would be much easier for everyone if you'd just said, "Felodious scratched his head vigorously. If an onlooker were to study him closely, they might spot a louse or two." Both of them convey the point (Our dashing hero has lice and is seriously not happy about it), but while the first option beats around the bush until the bush begs for mercy, the second simply tells you what's going on. Let's try another one.
"The sword that our dashingly handsom hero, Felodious, bore into battle shone like the smiles of angels and had not a single nick or scratch. Its blade was crafted of the finest elven blued steel that could be obtained and its hilt boasted golden floral decorations and tiny yet vibrant gemstones of ruby, emerald, and sapphire."
OR
"Felodious' sword was well polished and well tended. It had a blade of blued steel and its hilt was decorated with gold filigree and an assortment of small gemstones."
Your audience may not see the same mental picture of your character that you do, but they can fill in enough blanks from a general description that they can get a good enough idea, and considering that you'll only interact with most people for an hour or two before promptly never seeing them again, that's really all they need.
In a forum role play, a page-and-a-half-long response can be okay in the beginning because there are no visual elements and there's a whole bunch of set-up you need to do. We may get to that in a later post. MMOs and chatbox role plays, on the other hand, are very fast paced. By the time you're done typing your flowery prose, the person you were talking to has wandered to the other side of the city because they thought you were ignoring them. Leniency will of course be granted to newbies and those who type slower than others, but nobody will have any pity for you if you make them wait 10 minutes between each part of a 4-part emote.
"But how do I let them know all the details?!" you cry. It is a good question. The thing is, we don't need a paragraph of description to understand what you mean. You have a good vocabulary, right? (Hint: Yes) Use it! You could say "Felodious scratched his head with fury as a thousand lice found shelter in his flowing golden locks and, finding his life's fluid to their tastes, bit down upon his scalp," but it would be much easier for everyone if you'd just said, "Felodious scratched his head vigorously. If an onlooker were to study him closely, they might spot a louse or two." Both of them convey the point (Our dashing hero has lice and is seriously not happy about it), but while the first option beats around the bush until the bush begs for mercy, the second simply tells you what's going on. Let's try another one.
"The sword that our dashingly handsom hero, Felodious, bore into battle shone like the smiles of angels and had not a single nick or scratch. Its blade was crafted of the finest elven blued steel that could be obtained and its hilt boasted golden floral decorations and tiny yet vibrant gemstones of ruby, emerald, and sapphire."
OR
"Felodious' sword was well polished and well tended. It had a blade of blued steel and its hilt was decorated with gold filigree and an assortment of small gemstones."
Your audience may not see the same mental picture of your character that you do, but they can fill in enough blanks from a general description that they can get a good enough idea, and considering that you'll only interact with most people for an hour or two before promptly never seeing them again, that's really all they need.
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