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 Bob's Guide to RPing

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Bob
Big Three Demigod
Bob


Posts : 4552
Join date : 2010-12-12
Age : 28

Bob's Guide to RPing Empty
PostSubject: Bob's Guide to RPing   Bob's Guide to RPing Icon_minitime8/11/2014, 8:13 pm

So a lot of you know me by this point as either Bob, Admin Dude, or the guy that posts too much. I have been RPing for close to 6 years now and rising, and I love doing it, and so I'd figure I would give a comprehensive guide as, to teach others how to RP more specifically RP in depth and with a lot of detail so let's begin.

First thing one must know is that RP is a lot like reading a growing book and like all books should have minimal spelling/grammar mistakes for example look at this post (Totally wasn't made on the spot), "Bodwhent hom to see a movie with jeffery jake and veronica" Incorrect spellings, missing punctuation, non-capitalized proper nouns, ect. Be sure you look for all writing mistakes in your post before putting it up. Writing is an art and should be treated as such. Also make sure you understand how to use oxford commas or this could happen. Also this NSFW

Another thing to be know is tense and PoV etiquette. It's fine on the site for you too choose to pose in whatever tense or point of view you like, but it is polite to follow the original posters standards so you don't have two post side by side like this, "I jump on a pony." "Bob Jumped onto the pony behind Jessie." It makes everyone's life easier.

Okay Now those were the basics now I'm often quoted for having long posts, and I'm sure some of you wonder how I do it. Well I'll try to the best of my ability to show you my thought process when I post. For this let's start off with a fairly simple post with context, this would be in the beach topic, "Bob left his cabin and arrived at the beach." A simple 1-liner, but can be expanded to much more.

The first thing that pops into my mind when writing a post is pretext. By that I mean what happens before the character arrives where they are going to arrive at. In this case we already know Bob was in his cabin before the beach, so maybe explain more on that. What was he doing there? Asking a simple question like that can expand a post like so, "Bob was in his cabin sleeping. When he woke up he left and headed to the beach."

Now this is good so far but in the pretext maybe explain somethings about the cabin. What does it look like? What does it smell like? What does your character hear? Is it day or night? Can light shine though the window of the cabin? As well add in some actions as well. What did your character do? So now you can expand the post a little bit more, "Bob was sleeping in his cabin. Sunlight shot through the cabins window hitting Bob's face. He woke up and yawned throwing a hand in front of his face to block the light. He sat up and looked around, and saw he was the only kid left in the cabin. He could also hear people outside, showing that it was more than likely midday. With that, Bob left his cabin and arrived at the beach."

Okay Okay now we are getting somewhere. Now like reading a book you generally want to know what a character is thinking. It gives people a greater connection to the character, and makes the overall plot and characters more enjoyable to interact with. What is your character's thought process? Why do they want to go somewhere? What are their general feelings? Generally if you are doing direct thoughts you can italicize the thoughts to differentiate. Now back to this post, "Bob was sleeping in his cabin. Sunlight shot through  the cabins window hitting Bob's face. This made him wake up and grumble slightly as he was a real sleepyhead most of the time. He threw up his hand to protect his face from the evil sun as he yawned and sat up. What time is it? He wondered to himself. He couldn't see anyone inside his cabin which was strange. Was it really that late into the day? He thought to himself again confused. His suspicions were guaranteed as he could hear people playing and working outside. Oh brother, he had overslept again. He sat up from his bed and looked outside, to the see the sun was high in the sky, probably close to three. At this point it was too late for training of nay type so why not more relaxation? With that though Bob conceded that he would go to he beach and so, he left his cabin and arrived at the beach."

Now the post is becoming more structured but a lot of things are still missing. The first being of course what did he leave with? Surely not in his underwear. As well elaborate more on the cabin itself. Maybe tell what Bob is. Who is his parent? Such things can add greatly to a story. So back to the post, "Bob was sleeping in his cabin. Sunlight shot through  the cabins window hitting Bob's face filling it with warmth, but to a sleeping man such warmth was unneeded. This made him wake up and grumble slightly as he was a real sleepyhead most of the time. This wasn't the only thing Bob was though. Bob by his very nature was above a normal human, he was a being called a demi-god. This basically meant one of his parents was and is still a god. Bob's father in particular was a very strange one, his father was the Egyptian god of the dead Osiris. How his mother ever met up with such a guy only the gods know, but either way Bob was born more than just a human. He threw up his hand to protect his face from the evil sun as he yawned and sat up. What time is it? He wondered to himself. He couldn't see anyone inside his cabin which was strange. This was only strange because all things considered Bob's cabin was one of the most densely populated cabins, as the Greeks had stuck all the Egyptians into cabin. The cabin itself was alright, kind of old style Egyptian with hieroglyphics and sphinxes everywhere, and a heck of a lot of bunks for the kids. Because of the densley populated nature of the cabin it was strange to not see a single person in it. Was it really that late into the day? He thought to himself again confused. His suspicions were guaranteed as he could hear people playing and working outside. Oh brother, he had overslept again. He sat up from his bed and looked outside, to the see the sun was high in the sky, probably close to three. At this point it was too late for training of nay type so why not more relaxation? With that though Bob conceded that he would go to he beach. With that he found a pair of swimming trunks sliding them on. As well he slipped on his orange Camp Half-Blood shirt and a pair of sandals. He also brought almost out of habit his Stygian Iron short sword, and to protect himself from the sun he put a heap of sunscreen on himself and put on a cool pair of sunglasses, before he left his cabin and arrived at the beach."


The post itself is now getting somewhere but there is a big problem still prevalent by itself is is a horrid cluster of words. In order to make the lives of everyone's brains easier when you get large posts like this you should separate them into smaller paragraphs, "Bob was sleeping in his cabin. Sunlight shot through  the cabins window hitting Bob's face filling it with warmth, but to a sleeping man such warmth was unneeded. This made him wake up and grumble slightly as he was a real sleepyhead most of the time. This wasn't the only thing Bob was though. Bob by his very nature was above a normal human, he was a being called a demi-god. This basically meant one of his parents was and is still a god. Bob's father in particular was a very strange one, his father was the Egyptian god of the dead Osiris. How his mother ever met up with such a guy only the gods know, but either way Bob was born more than just a human. 


Bob threw up his hand to protect his face from the evil sun as he yawned and sat up. What time is it? He wondered to himself. He couldn't see anyone inside his cabin which was strange. This was only strange because all things considered Bob's cabin was one of the most densely populated cabins, as the Greeks had stuck all the Egyptians into cabin. The cabin itself was alright, kind of old style Egyptian with hieroglyphics and sphinxes everywhere, and a heck of a lot of bunks for the kids. Because of the densley populated nature of the cabin it was strange to not see a single person in it. Was it really that late into the day? He thought to himself again confused. His suspicions were guaranteed as he could hear people playing and working outside. Oh brother, he had overslept again. He sat up from his bed and looked outside, to the see the sun was high in the sky, probably close to three. 


At this point it was too late for training of nay type so why not more relaxation? With that though Bob conceded that he would go to he beach. With that he found a pair of swimming trunks sliding them on. As well he slipped on his orange Camp Half-Blood shirt and a pair of sandals. He also brought almost out of habit his Stygian Iron short sword, and to protect himself from the sun he put a heap of sunscreen on himself and put on a cool pair of sunglasses, before he left his cabin and arrived at the beach."


Alright now it is more readable and doesn't cause a serious headache just looking at it. Now by this point you can continue with the pretext, but for the time being let's look forward. So we now understand what happened to Bob before the beach and why he wanted to go there, bu now let's add stuff onto his journey to the beach and what he did when he go there. Again add the character's though process as well as logical actions. So let's expand the post from before, "Bob was sleeping in his cabin. Sunlight shot through  the cabins window hitting Bob's face filling it with warmth, but to a sleeping man such warmth was unneeded. This made him wake up and grumble slightly as he was a real sleepyhead most of the time. This wasn't the only thing Bob was though. Bob by his very nature was above a normal human, he was a being called a demi-god. This basically meant one of his parents was and is still a god. Bob's father in particular was a very strange one, his father was the Egyptian god of the dead Osiris. How his mother ever met up with such a guy only the gods know, but either way Bob was born more than just a human. 


Bob threw up his hand to protect his face from the evil sun as he yawned and sat up. What time is it? He wondered to himself. He couldn't see anyone inside his cabin which was strange. This was only strange because all things considered Bob's cabin was one of the most densely populated cabins, as the Greeks had stuck all the Egyptians into cabin. The cabin itself was alright, kind of old style Egyptian with hieroglyphics and sphinxes everywhere, and a heck of a lot of bunks for the kids. Because of the densley populated nature of the cabin it was strange to not see a single person in it. Was it really that late into the day? He thought to himself again confused. His suspicions were guaranteed as he could hear people playing and working outside. Oh brother, he had overslept again. He sat up from his bed and looked outside, to the see the sun was high in the sky, probably close to three. 


At this point it was too late for training of nay type so why not more relaxation? With that though Bob conceded that he would go to he beach. With that he found a pair of swimming trunks sliding them on. As well he slipped on his orange Camp Half-Blood shirt and a pair of sandals. He also brought almost out of habit his Stygian Iron short sword, and to protect himself from the sun he put a heap of sunscreen on himself and put on a cool pair of sunglasses, before he left his cabin to go to the beach.

Bob opened his cabin door to see a lot of people playing varies sports and other such fun stuff. Bob himself wasn't a very big sports fan, both watching and playing, but he could understand why people would like the activities. A few people waved to Bob as he looked around prompting him to wave back, but then he realized he forgot a beach towel. So, he quickly ran back into the cabin grabbing a towel, before running back out. He took in a deep breath of air before making his way to the beach. On his way he saw a very familiar face it was a satyr named Rezon. Oh boy was he a great guy. Two years ago when Bob had finally needed to come to the camp, Rezon was a close friend of his. Some strange monster attacked the two of them back then, but Rezon saved Bob's life and brought him to the camp.


"Hey buddy," Bob said with a wave. Rezon himself was a busy satyr so he gave his friend a quick salute and a smile before heading off to the woods. Finally though, Bob had arrived at the beach. There were a few kids there  in the water and playing beach sports. "Today should be nice," Bob told himself with a smile before laying down his towel and heading off towards the water."

Now this is a nice post. The final thing you could do for something like this is maybe add in adjectives, adverbs, and other such writing elements to make the post look more appealing. Now compare the post above to what the original would have been. "Bob left his cabin and arrived at the beach." That's 9 words compared to 626. With a little more effort the above post could even breach 1000 words. Now of course when you start posting long like this every post you do will not always be so large. But over time you will get better and you will start posting titans among posts.

Now the question may be asked, "This is only one example though what about [Insert other example here]" While very true each context is different the same process can be taken. Same with replying to a post just imagine the parts where you reply to the previous posts as the pretext now, and the rest everything afterwards. As well don't feel ashamed if you can't post at such lengths at first like I said it takes time, but you can get there eventually.
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