For all of you that prefer long posts/write long posts: why?

[Ariel]

I think it's a great writing exercise to see if you can cut a given piece of text by half without losing its essence. If you can do that without too much trouble, halve it again. And then do it again.

It's a great writing exercise to halve a text while losing anything important, and if that's easy, do it again - and again.

A great exercise: halve a text, retaining its meaning. Repeat.

 

[Polarisia]

I'm in no way a long poster as my usual length falls around 300-600 words, and if I'm told to write a small scene, I can reach, say, 1500 words of happenstances. But I like to think it's because I have experience in novel writing, in which you don't insert monologues in between every movement of eyebrows and waving of hands, but quite the opposite. Instead, you cut, cut and cut some more, mercilessly, so the many interactions, actions, emotions that are actually important have space to breathe and blend and follow each other in harmony.

Sure, have your characters think, because most of us do, but in moderation. A lonely, moist eyes, runny nose girl can think a novel while creepily staring at the happy faces in a family restaurant, but standing before the cheating bastard of a boyfriend, one thinks in short words, or million of thoughts crammed into short words: fools, I'm a fool, he's a fool, fuck etc. or doesn't think at all, but screaming and looking-for-a-kitchen-knife instead.

I can't deny the fun in writing long-ass paragraphs of irrelevant shit to the readers, though I do cut it out afterwards, at the end of the day, roleplaying is, and should be, for fun, you do what's best fun for you. So, I guess everyone does what they like to do, which in this case is writing long posts, so it's, uh, kind of a useless opinion, but people above me already shared why they like it, so I may as well do the same.

 

[Ritual Lobotomy]

I rarely participate in similar discussions here on the site, but BOI lemme tell ya...

I am certainly one of those writing long or realtively long posts 90% of the time. 10% of the time, they are simply lacking content to write up on. Now, for a reason why I do write long posts in the first place... It is mainly to develop my characters.

Throughout the years of creative writing and roleplaying, I eventually understood that long and detailed biographies and character sheets are not my thing. I do not like to pre-make and prepare everything, and I want my characters to still be able to surprise me. Otherwise, simply describing their actions that were already described through their "Personality", or repeating details that are already known in their "Biography" is just not fun.

Physically, I move my characters through a lot. I can write up on how tall they are or what colour is their hair... everything that I can also present with an image. But are they left handed? Do they suck at running or are they unusually bendy for a bulky person? For the most part no one knows until I myself find out through my writing.

Mentally, the situation is the same, if not even more prevalent. I can say they are sarcastic or optimistic, or have suffered in life/had an absolute amazing childhood... But between trying hard to describe those in your character sheet retroactively and putting them into a live situation or a live memory within the roleplay itself, it makes a world of difference to me.

So yes, my posts are usually long because of the descriptions, inner thoughts, I often add details to the surroundings and/or new NPCs... plenty of things to exepriment with when you do not limit yourself to few paragraphs.

That being said, it is abolutely fine to write one or two paragraphs as well if you have nothing to add; if it seems redundant, or the posts you respond to are limited in time or action. Long post is NOT your guarantee for a good post.

In my opinion, it is good to try both and then either find the golden middle or choose which one you prefer. Sometimes it also depends on the roleplay itself. It all falls into "it depends" category in the end. Write as far as your inspiration takes you. That is the point. It is why I absolutely avoid roleplays with strict length limitations because "Geez, I don't know?!"

One day it can be one paragraph, the next day it can be ten. Do not insist on people to limit it all to exactly 3 paragraphs or demand they add "summary" parts to their posts. In the same way, do not insist on 6-10 paragraphs and nothing less than that, because it is almost certain that even the most "notorious" long posters simply cannot release high quality long posts ALL the time for various reasons. 1k+ words doesn't mean the post is good only then. On the contrary, as someone mentioned above, if you can do that all the time and progress close to nothing, then you perhaps should reconsider.

Those would be my two cents :) And if you yourself truly have fun with your writing, you will certainly find people that enjoy it the same way, that you can work with. I have my trustworty group for a few years now, and considering I do not participate in a lot of roleplays nowdays due to my obligations, the roleplays I am in with them are always exciting and full of surprises.

Anyway, since this is already too long (Go figure huh?), I will leave it at that. Value your posts no matter the length, and remember that on each one of you roleplayers, there are plenty of people ashamed to try it out, or simply doesn't have the mojo to write a single sentence, let alone a paragraph :P

Have a good day/night everyone!

 

[Astaroth]

Word minimums can suck my dick.

I used to be one of those people who was alllll about length because of people posting crappy oneliners in my roleplays. I was a snob, honestly. Got in with the "literate" crowd and everything. Eventually I joined a site for "literate" players that was a stickler for paragraph and sentence per paragraph minimums. Each post had to be at least 10 paragraphs, 5 sentences or more apiece.

Do you know how much tedious crap I had to write just to meet that? It wasn't fun to write, and no fucking way was I reading the gobs of filler that everyone else was churning out either. People started summarizing their posts at the bottom and half the time it was 10 paragraphs of nothing happening. My elitism was crushed out of me real fast.

Now, do I never write long posts anymore? Absolutely I do! My intro posts in particular tend to run long, and sometimes there's just a lot going on. But I realized that the oneliners weren't crappy due to length. They were crappy due to the fact that they weren't adding anything, the same way those novels of filler and fluff weren't adding anything.

I don't care how long posts are as long as they are fun to write and to read.

 

[Hope]

It's not about how much you write, but the quality of what you write.

Some people write long, lengthy posts merely to show off how intellectual and creative they are. However, as any writer worth their salt knows, (or whom have worked with a professional editor), one should never write 100 words for what they can say in 50. In fact, the slashing of manuscripts is a prominent part of the writing process and the only people who escape it are the unpublished or self published authors.

That being said, no words should be written that do not move the story forward. As this is a roleplaying forum, one must have their partner(s) in mind when writing a scene or making a post. If you don't give your partner enough to respond to so they can also move the story forward, the story dies. If you don't believe me just take a stroll through the graveyard.

Let me make my point clear so there are no miscommunications here.

When simplifying a sentence:

"You're too kind," she said, will always be better than "you're too kind," she said as a blush crept up her pale cheeks. Adverbs will be the death of any good story and they should be ripped out promptly and thoroughly.

You are an asshole partner if you just got a response a paragraph or two long that clearly lays out the scene, what is happening in the character's mind, their motives, and where the story is going and you respond with nothing more than a piece of dialogue. Everything you put down must be with the purpose of moving the story forward or it should be cut. (Unless you're purely into smut. In which case, have at it.) Though, even in smut the story must progress or you're going to have some pissed off characters with a serious case of blue balls.

To summarize, write quality content and be a thoughtful partner. Don't be a dick.

 

[The Mood is Write]

Another note I have on the length preferences:

I know that I like to have a bare minimum for my RPs, and that minimum is USUALLY a small handful of sentences. I want my 'minimum requirement' to help prompt people more than I want to limit who plays with me. To me, writing is fun, and there's joy to be had in figuring out what information my partner might use.

One-liners aren't taboo, though! Sometimes you want to say that your character is still unconscious, or still ignoring, or just being a little shit. This is important content to include in a post, but if they're only continuing a previous action, and nothing new is being added, then a one-liner is perfectly acceptable! It can also act as a signal of 'hey, we should talk'."

So... that's my take on minimum requirements, too. 8D

 

[47Haven]

Habit nowadays.

I used to post like, one paragraph of the character's thoughts, movement, action, and the like, followed by a line of dialogue spoken to the other character. Back then it was quite the weird thing, because while I do write on that first paragraph, my partner can pretty much just read the spoken line, and just write from that, and it'll be fine.

It wasn't until I do meet someone who loves write a long story, 2000 word minimum they said, and I felt that I need to up my writing's quality as well, because it felt like they were trying THIS hard, so I at least need to try a bit harder. It just grew from there I guess, I now average at around 600 words, two paragraph and one short paragraph, but could reach 5000 if needed, especially if I'm controlling two character that is interacting with each other (so basically, RPing with myself), and once I reached that threshold, writing anything less than three paragraphs felt lacking.

By no means that this is a requirement for my partner either, but I do prefer longer post just because I enjoy reading, and also typing I guess. I just feel like longer paragraphs can convey a lot more details (duh). I also like peppering the long paragraph with subtle hints as well, nudging the character's development, or the relationship development, forward. This is more of a treat for the writer, than something that the character could've felt or seen though, because me personally, I love finding those little nudges in the post, making me squee and happy inside, so I try to give that feeling to others as well.

Personally, I write in three paragraphs as more of a representation of the human mind. First paragraph would usually contains stuff that the character felt or thought regarding the response the partner's give, second paragraph would contain the processing part of that feeling and thoughts, and then the third part is the action and dialogue that my character give. This way, I could develop my character, the world around the characters, and give something to respond as well, and to look into if perhaps my partner would like to employ 'face reading' or 'gesture analyzing' part of their character.

By the end of the day though, I usually just let my hand and mind do most of the work. The post ain't done when the imagination ain't finished flowing.