Seven Surefire Ways to Improve Your Roleplays
- By the Handler of the Honourable Republic of New Azura on June 29th, 2010.
I want you to pay attention to what I’m about to say. There is no discernible reason why your writing has to be laughed at or made fun of any longer! If you’ve had trouble accepting the criticism - deserved or undeserved - from other handlers, take the opportunity to examine your style of writing. Not a single handler in the history of NationStates can openly claim to be the perfect writer; we all carry room for improvement! Don’t be discouraged when you first start out, or even if you’ve had trouble acclimating yourself to the forum environment. If you’re looking for an easy way to improve your writing, then try using these simple steps. They’re quick to read and pretty easy to understand, and if you absorb the information contained in each step, it should help you improve your writing skills drastically. The following are seven surefire tips that will help you raise the quality of your roleplaying abilities!
1. Length vs. Brevity
One of the most important aspects of your roleplay is to ensure that it’s long enough to be considered respectable, yet brief enough not to bore the reader to tears. Ninety percent of all roleplays in the NationStates Universe can be classified in one of two ways: either a short response (typically less than two paragraphs) that is used quickly to advance a storyline forward, or a more concentrated “story” roleplay that takes more time. Dependent on the roleplay you’re making (or joining), the situation may call for a faster response, typically when partaking in roleplays with handlers who are more adept at technical figures and stats. A lot of times, newer handlers tend to write these short, quick roleplays to get into a thread and keep the story moving, without bothering to slow down and evaluate a few of the finer points of storytelling:
1. What is the main goal of the roleplay in which I am interested?
2. How does my nation fit into the environment of a particular roleplay?
3. What would an acceptable progression of events entail to make this roleplay successful on my behalf?
Examine these three points before jumping into or starting a roleplay. If you’re joining a roleplay that’s already begun, examine the quality of posts that have already been made. And by all means, remember that an hour’s worth of work on a detailed post is far better and more respected by your fellow handlers than a five minute job that was hacked out because you want to progress the story!
2. Game or Story?
When you’re preparing to jump into a roleplay, please consider the nature of the “game”. While some handlers enjoy playing “the game”, NationStates is really best suited as a medium for storytelling. The best roleplays are often created by a pair or small group of nations who have a general idea of where the story will go and how it will end. More often than not, spur of the moment roleplays that arise from some sort of IC dialogue or challenge end with no conclusion, poor writing, and the occasional intervention of a Forum Moderator to lock the thread. NationStates is certainly a game, but it’s also an online community featuring writers of various talents from around the world. Get to know some of the more experienced handlers in the forums and learn from them. Then, share ideas with your new friends about story ideas - share ideas, characters, and the like. Create a basic outline with as little or as much detail planned out beforehand as you feel comfortable with, then start the party. You’ll be surprised how quickly your roleplaying ability will improve with this simple step.
3. Storytelling
When you prepare to create an honest-to-goodness respectable roleplay, consider yourself in the role of a storyteller. Though some basic information may exist on the nations who will be taking part in your story, you and the co-authors will basically be charged with creating an entire universe out of your own imaginations. The language, the people, the customs, the scenery, everything is at your disposal. Far too often, people jump straight into the meat without bothering to even cook the potatoes! If you’re starting a roleplay regarding a war, don’t have the first shot of the war end up in the first paragraph of the first post! A lot of times, a conflict story between two adept handlers can go for pages at a time before the first shot is even fired! Though you don’t have to wait for two months to get to the action, you should at least provide some exposition for the event. Explain through dialogue why the situation is the way it is; what’s happening to who. Then, elaborate in your follow-up posts with an escalation. Increase tension and the severity of the incident while continuing the usage of good dialogue, ample imagery, and timing.
4. The Story
Okay, so you’ve come to the conclusion that you want to create a good story, and not something that a child could come up with. Good for you! Now, one of the first things you want to do is to establish (what else) an actual story! This encompasses three major points. First, you should figure out what you want to write about! There are plenty of good examples posted already on the boards, but I challenge you not to read them yet. Instead, use your imagination to come up with something unique that will be your very own. Have a general idea of what type of story you want, be it an adventure story, a love story, an action piece, or even a spoof thread. Second, you need to create the universe in which it exists. If you’re doing a character-driven roleplay about a city cop, dream up some of the more memorable aspects of your fictional city, like landmarks and spots that can serve as background locations. If you’re doing a war story, try to envision the terrain that your troops will be fighting on. Plan out several different locations ahead of time, since your story will likely be taking you in different directions. Finally, you’re going to want to create a basic outline of your characters. Flesh out the primary details about your protagonists and/or antagonists - who they are, what they’ll be doing, etc. Don’t try to mold your characters in with your background, but rather, let the two flow together. It’s okay to experiment with unusual concepts like a Brooklyn-style thug in a tropical setting. Far too often, story ideas are so generic, that most roleplays feel sanitized and unimaginative. Don’t be afraid to come up with a character who has flaws!
5. Characterization
Once you’ve established the basic premise of your story, it’s time to flesh out your characters more. Almost all of the characters in roleplays these days are cut-and-paste from other stories. People rely too often on caricatures of ideas from other sources without probing their own imaginations. Get creative with it, and hash out something that’s purely your own creation. Give your characters complete workups! Understand little nuances about them, like what they look like and how they act. By all means, develop backstories for the character in your own mind! Even if you don’t use them in the actual roleplay, it can be an invaluable source when trying to craft that epic roleplay. At the end of the day, what you want to have are characters who a reader can draw their own mental picture of, believe it or not. If you get your reader to start envisioning your roleplay ideas in his or her own thoughts, you’re on the right track. When people can already guess where your characters are heading ahead of time, you’re in trouble.
6. Dialogue
Unless your subject matter is a stump, you’re probably going to need some dialogue in your roleplay. It can be a challenge to use dialogue successfully in a story. Don’t be afraid of the challenge, though! When you create dialogue, try to have a verbal conversation take place in your head between the characters involved. Make it be like real life: when confronted by your foreign minister about an approaching attack fleet, your main character’s first response in real life wouldn’t be to take out a pen and start scribbling orders. There would be some type of emotional response! Examine the following example with me for a clearer picture of this.
Bad Dialogue:
Davis spoke: “Sir, an enemy naval fleet is en route to Mycountrya!”
The President responded: “Get word to the naval commanders in that area, and launch our missiles!”
Good Dialogue:
Foreign Minister Mitchell slowly let the phone slide from his hand, causing an audible thud when the receiver hit the table. The President was concerned: “John? What on earth is wrong?”
“Sir,” Mitchell spoke quietly, “We just received word from our fleet commanders. An enemy fleet is approaching Mycountrya from the south. It’s a large fleet, sir.”
The President’s face drained, creating a deathly gray pallor across his features. With a trembling hand, President Morgan slowly steadied himself on his desk, trying not to collapse backwards into his chair. An invasion fleet… heading to Mycountria!”
“My God,” the President lamented. “We’ve got to put out an alert to our military commanders! Contact Central Command, and have my councilors in my conference room in ten minutes! I‘m not about to lose this country without a fight!”
Even this example is a far cry from what’s possible when you put thought into what your characters are saying. Don’t be afraid to demonstrate emotions with your characters, either! Not every central character has to be a knight in shining armor or a rough and tough military grunt who graduated from R. Lee Ermey’s Boot Camp. Experiment, and don’t be afraid to add a few flaws here and there!
7. Imagery
One of the final things to remember is to constantly pad your work with detailed imagery. While your universe has been given a basic establishment during your brainstorming, you should always remember to add basic details when writing your roleplay. For instance, don’t resolve yourself to roleplaying two cops talking in a diner without describing the diner! If they’re in a restaurant, have them eat something while they’re there! If they’re on a battlefield, describe the sights and sounds, even the smells if you have to! You don’t want the reader to picture your universe as this yawning void where it’s business as usual. Imagine your setting as a world unto itself, needing items, places, and things just like our own reality does. This will help improve your writing drastically.
There you have it: seven clear steps that will help improve your writing abilities. While things like grammar and sentence structure are important, these steps can be used as a virtual primer for your growth as a writer. Granted, not everyone is blessed with an abundant imagination, and learning how to craft more fluent stories will take some practice. But if you keep at it, and learn from past mistakes, you’ll become a respected handler in no time. Soon enough, you’ll be helping new players create their own writing skills before you know it!
If you have any questions about these points or other trouble spots in your writing, post them here and I or someone else will help you as best we can.
haha.
