I have been pondering for a bit now why people like to see walls of text on their RPs. I understand that having a lot of wordage may make the site look more active or something, but why do people like to add extra words in order to make their paragraphs longer?

People who have extra stuff in their rules. Instead of just writing "Do not steal" they follow it up with "stealing is bad and we don't like stealing and if you steal then you will pay. Please do not steal because we don't like it and we find it very disrespectful and we will give you a warning if you steal. If you steal again, we'll ban you for x days and if you steal a third time, we'll ban you forever. So please don't steal anything because it is the work of the individual authors. If you want to borrow something, please ask the original writer."

It's like . . . they feel that the rules aren't complete without some sort of in-depth explanation about why the rule shouldn't be broken and the moral consequences of said rule being ignored. And this goes on for every single rule instead of just one or two.

People who pad their text. Yeah, those who put in lots and lots of fillers in order to make their paragraphs look longer. Generally I find this In Character when they go on to describe everything their characters think even if it isn't relative to the topic at hand.

Personally, I don't want to read about the character's breakfast cereal or the nightmare they had three nights ago about an elephant wearing a pink tutu in Seattle--unless it pertains to the post. I'm not talking about long-winded writers who write a lot but actually make it all relavent; I'm talking about those who prance on for seven sentences describing something that doesn't matter.

People who squish together paragraphs. This is the hardest for me to deal with because it makes my mind explode. Pick up a book and read it. Usually, you will not find within a paragraph action, action, thought, action, thought, action, random strip of dialogue, action, thought. That's just absurd.

Do not bury your dialogue within your paragraphs. It makes it harder to read, even if you do bold it or italicise it or whatever. It doesn't make you look like a better writer--it makes you look like you're straining to think of something to say. In addition, if you're having dialogue in your post between your character and an NPC (non-player character), put the two separate voices in two separate paragraphs.

People who require 100 words for [eyes, voice, face, something random, likes, dislikes] in applications. I don't get it. I guess I'm more of a concise writer, and I'll tell you about my character's face in a sentence or two. Three if you let me add in the hair. I also like to use bullet points for likes and dislikes because if you start writing paragraphs about it, it becomes the personality section. Besides, not everyone knows why they like something. ;)



If you cannot tell, I do not like walls of text because I find them very difficult to read. You will also notice that I bold things and make small paragraphs for easier reading. It's incredibly hard for me to read stuff online, but I do try to do my best.

So here, if you are a person who follows one of the bolded trends above, please enlighten me why you do it. Or let me know why it is so popular. I'm not claiming to be perfect (or am I???) for every once in awhile I write massive paragraphs just for the heck of it, but I don't do it on a regular basis.

Ugh. I hate it when people don't break up their paragraphs. I don't care if they do it in the wrong place, as long as they actually have paragraphs instead of 1000 words in two paragraphs. I use short paragraphs myself and I'm used to writing with people who vary their paragraph length, so when I do write with those who include several different topics within one gigantic paragraph it makes me cringe. Don't they know the rule: when you change topic, change paragraph?

I personally love reading about unnecessary things. Mostly because I write with Panda and she writes the most hilarious things that I don't really need to know and almost never respond to. I'd never let her give that up -clings- As long as the interest factor is in there, I don't care how long someone chooses to write about their auntie's hair the night of the funeral that they didn't actually go to.

Sometimes having extra stuff in the rules is necessary. I like to know the consequences for breaking certain rules. If I inadvertently steal someone else's powers (because I'd never do it on purpose) I want to know how I'm going to be treated. However, there's a different between what you wrote and writing 'Please don't steal. The consequences of stealing are a PM explaining what you did wrong and a ban if it is repeated.'

Okay I'm done. I managed to reply in the reverse. Hooray!

With some characters, I might be accused of 'padding the text.' However, I don't do it to increase word count or beef up the post. I just write and usually while doing a reread/edit I cut rather than add.

Some of my characters think a lot and, when I'm writing for RP, I kind of let the character say or do whatever they like. Some of my characters are much more reserved and don't ramble on about their thoughts as much.

I do prefer concise threads with the action/dialogue taking first priority though. Most of my posts are not padded in the least. Every once in a while I get a character who rambles on.

And because it's roleplay, I let them. Hey, I'm having fun writing it, and the people I've RPed with have told me they enjoy reading my posts. So I'm guessing it's not totally irrelevant and dull. If I was writing anything which I intended to publish, however, I'd be skinning the text alive of that kind of fattening, unecessary crap because it deadens the story.

I don't like paragraph squishing or people requiring a ton of words about hair, eyes, etc. Sometimes the extra description in the rules is necessary, depending. The example you gave is a good one because I find that completely redundant and kind of condescending.

Anywho, I think I'm guilty of overly-thought-driven posts at times but... not frequently (hopefully)

Okay. So there are studies, and people don't ever read everything (I really need to find it D: ). They scan in an 'F' pattern, so they start at the top left, read left to right, glance at some headers, scan down a bit, glance left to right, scan down a bit, left to right, and scan down a bit more.

But everyone goes 'tl;dr.'

I was actually considering joining a rpg and actually filling out a huge application, but as I started writing, my wtfery level went through the roof.

Who can write an entire paragraph about eyes? D8 Sooo I stopped there, since I would probably be IP banned if I asked if it was completely necessary. Since questioning long apps is bannable. o__o (I had my account deleted for enquiring about it, what.)

But anyways. As for ic posts, I hate reading long posts most of the time. I put it off, and put off replying to threads. I like to reply to short posts, since surprisingly, I have more to work off of.

Sure, I write about what my characters think about, but... if you're holding a conversation, you do not think of tons of things before replying. Realistically, you might discuss how much of a weirdo Stephen Harper is, and you might glance around the room, maybe think 'hey, that's a nice painting,' 'she's wearing a weird shirt,' and 'Stephen Harper is laem' before replying.

So I just find long posts unrealistic. #__#;

For me, I think a lot when I'm in a conversation, because my head is usually in three or four places at once. (And that's when I'm focused- if I'm distracted or bored, I can have ten or twelve varying trains of thought going.) So for me, it's not unusual for me to be thinking about a few things besides the actual conversation I'm involved in, and that thinking process generally gets incorporated into my role-playing.

I do, however, think too much, as I have been told numerous times.

While I agree that walls of text are awful (without paragraph breaks), I quite often read long posts; when I'm replying to them, obviously, but also sometimes just because they're interesting and I like knowing about the other plots on sites I'm on. And I know other people who do, too. So that can't always be true, right...?

And it would depend on the conversation! In some conversations, I space out and daydream between replies. Which probably isn't wise, but yeah...

(And I'm another with rambling characters. : P I think that I overdo it sometimes, though.)

It depends on the content/writing. Some people are amazing writers who can keep you interested the whole post. I live for posts like that. xD Then again, I'm an avid reader. I love reading.

I like things written properly, though. Broken up into paragraphs, when someone new talks a new paragraph, ect. The basic rules of writing.

Um, I'm guilty of adding explanations to our rules. I was absolutely sick and tired of being on sites that would abritrarily make up new rules with no explanation as to why that rule existed or how you'd be treated for breaking it, so I was determined that my site wouldn't be like that. I wanted to be upfront with my members.

Also, even though most rules should be common sense, that doesn't mean that everyone is going to understand what "don't steal" means. As a doller, I've encountered a lot of people who are new to or unfamiliar with the dolling community and they don't understand what "don't steal" means in that context. Similarly, people who are new to roleplaying (my site caters to new rpers) don't always immediately understand what roleplaying rules mean, so I've found it's best to elaborate.

Having said that, I am working on setting up our rules differently, so that there's a short list compiled as a menu, kind of like one of those faqs where you click on the "Don't steal" and are taken to a section that explains the rule in greater detail.

But, I don't think elaborate rules is necessarily bad, although the example you laid out is a bit silly. xD

I gave that example because I've seen rules like that. I don't want to actually post someone's real rules because that's just unnecessary, for lack of better words.

I, too, give explanations to rules when necessary, but I write it as concisely as possible. There's nothing wrong with explanations--it's when people start writing just for the sake of writing that it gets irritating.

-gasp-

Blasphemy!

We're RPers, Dec. We all write for the sake of writing :p Otherwise we'd do drama.

Writing for the sake of writing and spamming under the guise of writing for the sake of writing are two different things. People seem to be under the impression that writing lots is the same as writing well. It isn't. Most books on editing have a rather clear statement that 'less is more.'

Let's face it. We aren't stupid. We're writers. We write. It's what we do. We also, if we know what's good for us, read. We read lots, we read widely. We never, ever read as much as we wish we did.

But if what we're reading is waffle, spam, and retreading the same path for the Nth time, it's not really reading. It's slog. We are okay with reading 'there will be consequences' and leaving it at that. Those of us who aren't really should be following more of the rules.

In terms of rules, we read for the meaning. We read the rules like- ALLEGORY TIME!- dogs, searching for the bare bones of meaning. We don't want fluff. And we don't want the bones to be larger, because they're harder to chew on that way. Let's face it, 'Don't steal' is the same bone as 'We don't want any plagiarism, stealing of ideas, or otherwise claiming credit for something that isn't yours', except the second one is inflated to about ten times its usual size. That means it takes ten times as long to get through, ten times as long to digest, ten times as long to accept as a rule.

Don't pad. Don't waffle. Follow the Checkov's Gun rule- if there's a gun in act 1, it had better have been used by act 3- and cut what doesn't need to be there. Short sentences cut. Long sentences bludgeon. That's how it works.

*headdesk* Owned, man. Nice one, Emma. x.x

Though I think Novelist basically said what I was trying to say. :p

Quality vs. quantity, innit.

Yess. I did own you Dec. Feel owned -put on leash-

However, I completely disagree with you, Novelist. You might not like to read fluff, but I enjoy it. I don't enjoy reading badly written things, but that's regardless of length. If I came across some rules that were badly written (to the point where they made no sense/were offensive) it wouldn't matter whether they were short or long; I'd be gone.

Padding and waffle works for me. If I'm with a good writer who feels inadequate if they write less than I do they're going to pad and I'm probably still going to enjoy it (while trying to reassure them I don't care about length) and some of my favourite writers in both RPing and novels waffle. And I love it. I love to read unnecessary things.

This is turning into a superfluous description of a rule xD This has been discussed so many times here. I know I've participated in at least six of these discussions.

Everyone has their own standards and preferences and saying that one thing applies to everyone (in writing) is inaccurate!

Fair enough. (And I admit, I like to read a bit of fluff now and again, too. So long as it's entertaining)

What I'd like to see, instead of continually restating the rule, is giving examples- in the Vampire sourcebooks, they use really, really wierd examples, and it helps to explain the rules. For example, True Faith, which boils down to a roll you make to repel vampires and almost all other unusual creatures, has this as the example- an extremely successful businessman brandishes his credit card and uses True Faith in Money (faith that he can buy his way out of anything) to repel a vampire. It works. That's good fluff. That's fluff that adds a new meaning to the rule (and explains how it applies in an unusual situation) and describes it.

It's like saying Chutzpah is a noun form of "Brazen", but a special kind of brazen that isn't really brazen but is something else, versus Chutzpah is what the kid who kills his parents, and then asks for clemency because he's been recently orphaned, has. One's just a retread. The other is good fluff that tells us more than we'd know without it.

Whereas restating the rules in various restatements simply reads like an endless retread of ground we've already covered at least twice already, so there's no real need to retread the same ground that we've already coverd by restating a restatement. (deadpan ironic face)

Quality over Quantity any day.