satindesire
Queen of Geeks
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2005
- Posts
- 13,101
If you're tired of the same repetitive sex scenes and wooden romance plots that never seem to go the direction you want them to, I invite you to take a gander at this thread, where I will share with you the knowledge and experience that I have gathered as a long-time RPer and RP mentor.
First of all, for those of you who popped in and don't really know what "RP" is, RP stands for Role Playing.
These days, there are several kinds of RPing, and the type I'll be talking about is the text-based, turn-based partner RP.
A lot of people use this medium as a sexual means of masturbation fodder, but to be more specific, I'll be addressing nonsexual, or at least plot-driven RP that is written for the intention of enjoying a storyline that progresses(much like in a novel) rather than written for the intention of enjoying a specific sex scene.
Being a Great RPer...The basics
In becoming a good writer, starting from the beginning is a good place to start. Improve your writing skills. Practice writing well, with as few mistakes as possible. If you don't know how to spell a word correctly, look it up and practice it! A spell check on your browser will help you with this, although don't allow this to make you lazy and complacent.
Visit some sites or read up on proper grammar usage and the use of punctuation, if that's your weakness.
Whatever flaw is holding you back from allowing your reader to truly lose themselves in the story, find a writer you enjoy reading, and practice emulating them.
In time, through emulation and practice, you'll develop your own style of writing.
***********************************
Thoughts about "Story Driven" RP
RP to me is like creating a journey, losing yourself in the carefully constructed fantasy of deep character progression, intense conflict, emotional situations and resolution. RP isn't always giant swollen genitals thrusting at each other in the dark...it's about slaying monsters, both literal and figurative...about conquering demons, both the kinds with horns and the kinds of demons that mankind can only see when they look into a mirror. However, to truly lose oneself in such a story, the skill and care put into the story matters just as much as the story itself.
Writing a compelling RP can be just as difficult as writing a best-selling novel, and just as rewarding!
WRITING ROMANCE
More than any other situations, I get asked for advice about how to write compelling Romance scenes.
The first mistake many RPers make in writing romance is expecting too much from the scene or trying to direct the flow of action too aggressively. Pigeonholing a "scene" is the very farthest away from Romantic that you can get. You've already got expectations of the plot moving in a certain direction and that's the worst way to write...to try and drive a scene rather than allowing the characters to move on their own violation.
The very first thing you need to learn is that you're not the director in a movie when you RP. You, for all intents and purposes...ARE that character.
You have to stop trying to force the RP to go a certain way and allow yourself to get swept up in the action, truly lose yourself in the character and channel them from the heart. When you fall in love with someone in real life, you don't try and force a romantic situation with them (Hopefully!). Romance in it's ideal form is about allowing the emotions of the moment catch you and take you away, and that can happen in what some might consider unlikely or even mundane places.
You can use this realism to your advantage, and turn the mundane to the extraordinary, and this juxtaposition creates emotional interest in the plot. Idealize the mundane and turn it on it's ear. Allow the reader to see the beauty beneath the grime of reality.
And at it's heart, this idealism is the very basic message of RP...it's realistic and logical to a point, and your idealized nirvana as well. Striking a balance between the two will be one of the biggest challenges you'll face as a RPer.
Visualization
Writing RP is vastly different from a movie because movies depend on sight to set a tone, whereas we, unfortunately have to depend on text to tell our brains what to visualize.
There's no epic scene music or sound effects to direct us how to feel, we have to do that ourselves, through elegant writing. When we RP, we need to write with the intention of eliciting an emotional response from our partners, not by force but by gentle guidance. For example, let me show you a bit of a scene about one character realizing that she's fallen in love with another character.
Romance can and often does happen in unromantic or at least traditionally speaking, not often romantic locales. Use this to your advantage, for realism's sake.
She could feel the thrumming base, like a primordial heartbeat, down to her very core. The club was smoky with artificial fog and heavy with the scent of lust and sweat, a dark flavor on her tongue like an old lover's caress. She drank in the sight with relish, relaxing deeper into the plush velvet cushions of the booth, the twining, writhing bodies on the dance floor pleasantly blurred as her third whiskey decided to make it's way into her bloodstream.
She spotted him like a light in the corner of her vision, swimming into focus with the hazy blur of vapor trail that spoke of the third whiskey being perhaps too many. She felt listed, her smile crooked and foolish. Her heart started to beat with a strange intensity as he neared the booth, club lights glinting from the thin steel frame of his glasses like a camera flash.
His steps were strangely slow, although she was only partially aware of this in some rudimentary part of her brain that was gratefully more immune to alcohol's embrace, and he moved like a caged lion in between the dancers, his own steps intense with purpose.
A smile cracked his face like lightning, she blinked, staring up at him when he finally stopped in front of her like an animal caught in headlights. Sinking into the cushions with an odd elated dread as she realized with a finality that drove the alcohol from her system in one sickening swoop...that she had fallen in love with him.
When you allow yourself to truly fall into a character, you bring up all the emotional memories of your past that you use to create the same emotive responses for your characters. I can remember how I felt when I fell in love, and I can use those emotive responses in my character to tell the story of her emotions. Instead of saying, "She felt nervous because he was walking towards her." I can write this in a way that SHOWS the emotion, instead of TELLING the emotion.
SHOWING emotion is critical for elegant and interesting RP. Not only does removing the obvious create heightened interest for the RP, but it also alienates the characters just enough to allow the reader to visualize themselves in the character's shoes.
***************
More entries coming soon.
First of all, for those of you who popped in and don't really know what "RP" is, RP stands for Role Playing.
These days, there are several kinds of RPing, and the type I'll be talking about is the text-based, turn-based partner RP.
A lot of people use this medium as a sexual means of masturbation fodder, but to be more specific, I'll be addressing nonsexual, or at least plot-driven RP that is written for the intention of enjoying a storyline that progresses(much like in a novel) rather than written for the intention of enjoying a specific sex scene.
Being a Great RPer...The basics
In becoming a good writer, starting from the beginning is a good place to start. Improve your writing skills. Practice writing well, with as few mistakes as possible. If you don't know how to spell a word correctly, look it up and practice it! A spell check on your browser will help you with this, although don't allow this to make you lazy and complacent.
Visit some sites or read up on proper grammar usage and the use of punctuation, if that's your weakness.
Whatever flaw is holding you back from allowing your reader to truly lose themselves in the story, find a writer you enjoy reading, and practice emulating them.
In time, through emulation and practice, you'll develop your own style of writing.
***********************************
Thoughts about "Story Driven" RP
RP to me is like creating a journey, losing yourself in the carefully constructed fantasy of deep character progression, intense conflict, emotional situations and resolution. RP isn't always giant swollen genitals thrusting at each other in the dark...it's about slaying monsters, both literal and figurative...about conquering demons, both the kinds with horns and the kinds of demons that mankind can only see when they look into a mirror. However, to truly lose oneself in such a story, the skill and care put into the story matters just as much as the story itself.
Writing a compelling RP can be just as difficult as writing a best-selling novel, and just as rewarding!
WRITING ROMANCE
More than any other situations, I get asked for advice about how to write compelling Romance scenes.
The first mistake many RPers make in writing romance is expecting too much from the scene or trying to direct the flow of action too aggressively. Pigeonholing a "scene" is the very farthest away from Romantic that you can get. You've already got expectations of the plot moving in a certain direction and that's the worst way to write...to try and drive a scene rather than allowing the characters to move on their own violation.
The very first thing you need to learn is that you're not the director in a movie when you RP. You, for all intents and purposes...ARE that character.
You have to stop trying to force the RP to go a certain way and allow yourself to get swept up in the action, truly lose yourself in the character and channel them from the heart. When you fall in love with someone in real life, you don't try and force a romantic situation with them (Hopefully!). Romance in it's ideal form is about allowing the emotions of the moment catch you and take you away, and that can happen in what some might consider unlikely or even mundane places.
You can use this realism to your advantage, and turn the mundane to the extraordinary, and this juxtaposition creates emotional interest in the plot. Idealize the mundane and turn it on it's ear. Allow the reader to see the beauty beneath the grime of reality.
And at it's heart, this idealism is the very basic message of RP...it's realistic and logical to a point, and your idealized nirvana as well. Striking a balance between the two will be one of the biggest challenges you'll face as a RPer.
Visualization
Writing RP is vastly different from a movie because movies depend on sight to set a tone, whereas we, unfortunately have to depend on text to tell our brains what to visualize.
There's no epic scene music or sound effects to direct us how to feel, we have to do that ourselves, through elegant writing. When we RP, we need to write with the intention of eliciting an emotional response from our partners, not by force but by gentle guidance. For example, let me show you a bit of a scene about one character realizing that she's fallen in love with another character.
Romance can and often does happen in unromantic or at least traditionally speaking, not often romantic locales. Use this to your advantage, for realism's sake.
She could feel the thrumming base, like a primordial heartbeat, down to her very core. The club was smoky with artificial fog and heavy with the scent of lust and sweat, a dark flavor on her tongue like an old lover's caress. She drank in the sight with relish, relaxing deeper into the plush velvet cushions of the booth, the twining, writhing bodies on the dance floor pleasantly blurred as her third whiskey decided to make it's way into her bloodstream.
She spotted him like a light in the corner of her vision, swimming into focus with the hazy blur of vapor trail that spoke of the third whiskey being perhaps too many. She felt listed, her smile crooked and foolish. Her heart started to beat with a strange intensity as he neared the booth, club lights glinting from the thin steel frame of his glasses like a camera flash.
His steps were strangely slow, although she was only partially aware of this in some rudimentary part of her brain that was gratefully more immune to alcohol's embrace, and he moved like a caged lion in between the dancers, his own steps intense with purpose.
A smile cracked his face like lightning, she blinked, staring up at him when he finally stopped in front of her like an animal caught in headlights. Sinking into the cushions with an odd elated dread as she realized with a finality that drove the alcohol from her system in one sickening swoop...that she had fallen in love with him.
When you allow yourself to truly fall into a character, you bring up all the emotional memories of your past that you use to create the same emotive responses for your characters. I can remember how I felt when I fell in love, and I can use those emotive responses in my character to tell the story of her emotions. Instead of saying, "She felt nervous because he was walking towards her." I can write this in a way that SHOWS the emotion, instead of TELLING the emotion.
SHOWING emotion is critical for elegant and interesting RP. Not only does removing the obvious create heightened interest for the RP, but it also alienates the characters just enough to allow the reader to visualize themselves in the character's shoes.
***************
More entries coming soon.
