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| Quality vs. Quantity | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 4 2007, 07:59 PM (458 Views) | |
| Megami | Feb 4 2007, 07:59 PM Post #1 |
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Squishy
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I don't know if this is going to turn into a roleplaying discussion or another Meg!speech, but I figured it was worth bringing up. From about halfway through Version 1 onward, SOTF has had a sort of... problem. See, from about that time onward, we've had some amazing roleplayers come into the limelight. Roleplayers that wrote colossal posts every time they posted. Roleplayers that created amazing characters and wrote engulfing storylines. It was around that time that all of a sudden, this enormous pressure was placed on all SOTF roleplayers. Pressure to conform to that style of writing. Pressure to be like those roleplayers. That pressure has, not surprisingly, carried over to Version 2, and that's sort of what I want this discussion to be about. I know that a lot of people here feel like they aren't "good" if every post they write isn't 3+ pages long. Thing is, length doesn't always mean quality. I have, quite honestly, read some things that were enormous that were absolutely horrible. Likewise, I've read some things that were enormous that were worth sitting down to read. That being said, short isn't always bad, either. Version 1 saw a lot of very short posts at the beginning, some of them only as long as a line. Sometimes, (while writing an action scene is a good example coming to mind) longer isn't always better. Think about it. Which would you rather read? A.) Jordan couldn't believe how fast this kid was. The boy lunged forward with the knife again, slashing Jordan across the forearm as he attempted to block the knife. Reeling in pain, Jordan took a step back in an attempt to evade another strike from his attacker. If he could just get to his daypack, he could get his gun, and that, for sure, would turn this fight around. Jordan did the only thing he could do at that point... took a running dive at his opponent, hoping to tackle him to the ground and immobilize him long enough to grab his bag. B.) Justin definitely hadn't expected that. The girl had looked so harmless, so innocent. Now though, as she charged toward him with the chainsaw, Justin could do nothing to defend himself from the obvious onslaught that was to follow. The blades whirling around on the chain caught his eye and he focused on them momentarily. They made him remember a better, happier time in his life. They made him remember his father, who was a lumberjack, and how when Justin was little, his dad used to take him on the job with him. He remembered the sound his dad's chainsaw used to make as it tore through the lumber of the trees. He remembered how happy he was to spend time with his dad on the job. And then, he remembered that fateful night when his dad died. He remembered seeing the headlights of the oncoming vehicle as it veered into their lane. He remembered his dad yelling and slamming on the brakes. He remembered his mom screaming. He remembered the squealing of the tires, the honking of the horns, the horrible noise of twisting metal and breaking glass as the SUV slammed into their small car. He remembered his mother screaming, the police sirens, his broken leg. He remembered seeing his father's face, his eyes glossy and lifeless, as the policemen and paramedics crowded around the car in an attempt to get their family out. It made him mad, now that he thought about it, that the driver of the SUV survived and his father died. It wasn't fair. His father was a good man. He brought hom a decent amount of money. He provided their family with as good a life as he was able. In Justin's eyes, his father was the most amazing person in the world. But... he had been taken away from him because someone had chosen to drink and drive. His thoughts faded back to reality as the girl continued to run toward him, still brandishing her chainsaw. Justin ducked and braced himself to be sliced and diced, but much to his surprise, it was the girl who let out a blood-curdling scream. Somehow, she had tripped over a tree root on her path to Justin and the running chainsaw had been tossed up into the air and landed on her. She looked like she was hurt pretty badly. Returning to his full height, Justin looked at the gruesome scene curiously. Part of him wanted to grab the chainsaw and finish the job. She had tried to kill him, after all. Slowly, he moved toward the gorey scene. Post A may be short, but to me, the action seems much more fast-paced than in the second post, where the character goes into a deep thought process that doesn't concern the fight at all. If somebody was running at you with a chainsaw, would you really stop and think about when your dad died? I guess that's precisely the point I'm trying to make. Longer isn't always better. Longer posts are often crammed to the brim with filler that, while it does help to flesh out your character, doesn't always fit in with the rest of the post. Still, short posts aren't always good. If you respond to someone's 500 word post with "Jessica raised an eyebrow and started laughing at Tony." it's probably going to really irk somebody. Plus, it doesn't give them much to work with. So, ideally, the thing to do is try to ignore the pressure to produce huge posts that SOTF sort of exudes and just do your own thing. Yes, short posts can be a disaster at best, but sometimes, longer isn't always better either. It's best to mix a little of both together. Posts that aren't 10 pages long are more likely to hold the reader's attention, just make sure they're more than 20 words. Write at the length that you're comfortable with. Don't compare yourself to other writers, because if you do, you'll always feel like you don't measure up. That, or you'll get a God complex where you think you're hot shit because your posts are three times the length of someone else's. Anyway, I just wanted to get this up and kinda see what other people thought. Do you all feel pressured to write enormous posts here, or are you comfortable writing within your ability? Quality versus quantity -- are longer posts always better, or would you rather read three short posts to someone's one long one? What do you guys think? |
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Misa Achtland Ayako Okogamine Kevin De la Torre Melissa Angelicchio | |
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| Shiola | Feb 4 2007, 08:16 PM Post #2 |
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IDDQD
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As i'm quite new to this community myself, I do find the pressure to write huge posts, but recently I have found my comfort zone, the place I really can make the posts be worthwhile. It really comes down to what the character is doing at that moment, really. If you have nothing better to write than "Oliver walked up the hill towards the lighthouse", then it would be a good idea to flesh out the character, give some greater imput on their thoughts than one usually would. However, as you said about writing a action sequence, it does not make sense to have the character suddenly lapse into this deep thought about his or her life before the island. Also, one could write a sequence like this that would flesh out the character without having to have them remember anything at all: ---- John was suddenly aware of the kittens appearing from out of the closet. More and more of the kittens appeared, swarming around the house until the floor was a thick mat of fur. Fear dug deep into John's heart. For these were no ordinary kittens, these were IKEA kittens. Vicious in every sense of the word, their fur is like that of fire. Their tounges evaporate everything they touch, and their claws are made of steel. ~~~ John opened the fridge. It was a good fridge, good for keeping things cool, like milk. He loved that fridge, loved it with a passion *Long writing about fridge* And so, he drove off in his car, confident the fridge would run once more. ~~~ John was overcome by the kittens, and in one full sweeping motion, they licked his face. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" And with that final cry of pain, John was dead. ---- As you may notice, i'm not in the right state of mind. Basically the point I'm trying to make is that it doesn't always have to be the character remembering something, just the reader peering into what happened in the past of a certain character, then coming back to the present. |
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V7: Erika P. Stieglitz Tyrell K. Lahti Caroline S. Ford Henry A. Sparks | |
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| Xaldien | Feb 4 2007, 09:05 PM Post #3 |
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A dream imporium
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I've tried, on many occassions, to write a full huge ass post, thinking that's what was to be expected... but I really couldn't do it. It didn't flow very well. Except for the few times where I posted concerning families and such. But, it's really just all about finding your comfort zone when writing. Although uncessarily long posts ARE indeed an eyesore. |
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| Cyco | Feb 4 2007, 09:19 PM Post #4 |
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Suicidal Maniac
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I take forever to write anything, long or short. |
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| lovebirdjo | Feb 4 2007, 09:25 PM Post #5 |
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Chainmail and butterfly kisses.
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I'm neutral to length. Some of mine are ungodly in length, some are pathetic. All depends on what's being given by the other poster and what's going on in the mind of my character. I'm finding it hard to be both characters with Sam and Lee-Ann probably shouldn't have taken Sam so quickly. Anyhoo, back on topic. My comfort zone is ever-changing. I try to please all audiences. I have a bad habit of overusing certain words, however. Plus, my dialogue is almost non-existent. I hate having dialogue take up too much space in a post. I agree with the aforementioned folkses, though. I get my posts up when I can, but sometimes they just suck when it comes to length and depth. Just write a little, wait ten minutes, and come back to bulk it up slightly. I do that with most of my posts, and sometimes it's still small. Honestly, I don't mind shorter posts. Do whatever you guys want. Makes no difference to me. |
![]() G007 ~ Sierra Manning | >> // >> // > But I Might Die Tonight < | Pepper Spray
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| laZardo | Feb 4 2007, 09:52 PM Post #6 |
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^This is not what a Laz looks like^
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I like to keep my posts "efficient," as in as much quality AND detail as I can balance out, but I'm still green with envy over the State-Of-The-Union-grade posts that the veterans commonly post. I still wonder how they manage to make their paragraphs at least 5 full lines long where I can barely manage 3. On the contrary though, it sometimes irks me that despite my best efforts I had to cede a kill to someone who still typed online like a n00b. I won't name names (and it definitely isn't Cyco, nosireebob.) |
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Unfucked: Cisco Vasquez (V4) Proper Fucked: Harris Van Allen (The Program), Rashid Hassan (V4) Fucked Soon: Carlos Lazaro and Eliza Patton | |
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| Ares | Feb 4 2007, 11:31 PM Post #7 |
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V3 World Heavyweight Champion
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I have a horrible problem of rambling on for ungodly amounts of time if I allow myself to do so, so I try to keep my posts short enough so they aren't an eyesore, but just long enough to express the detail of the situation at hand, or thought of a character. Granted I'm still a rookie on the site, but its whats working best for me, and I'm enjoying the threads. |
| Is in... | |
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| Jotun | Feb 4 2007, 11:48 PM Post #8 |
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...Schmexy Dwarf? Eh, you play the hand you're dealt...
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I write until I'm satisfied, or stumped but with a presentable product. Usually the latter. |
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| Nealosi | Feb 5 2007, 01:38 AM Post #9 |
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Level 80
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You've all lost me... Metaphorically speaking, of course. |
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I eat alone in a desert with skulls for my pets, I rate the days 1 to 10 with lead cigarettes. v4 Jeremy Ressler Catherine Cowie Haaziq Muhammad Sayf | |
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| I'm a Cactus | Feb 5 2007, 02:00 AM Post #10 |
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do you want to go to war, balakay?
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SOTF v1 completely burnt me out. I don't know if I've got much left, if anything. |
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--- The Future The Past Meanwhile... | |
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| Megami | Feb 5 2007, 10:54 AM Post #11 |
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Squishy
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@ Adam: I sort of feel that way too, you know? I know my posts with my V1ers weren't much longer -- in retrospect, they were probably shorter than what I write now. Still, something just feels off. I don't feel like I'm connecting with my characters. I know when I write, I'm telling a story about them, but to me it's coming off as something like "So, you know what this lady at work did today?" It feels very impersonal. I can't really say it's because I'm pushing myself too hard, because Lord knows I'm not an every day poster and haven't been for a long time. If anything, I have trouble finding the time to post, and I'm thinking that maybe that's what it is. Anybody else having that problem? |
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Misa Achtland Ayako Okogamine Kevin De la Torre Melissa Angelicchio | |
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| La Skellette! | Feb 5 2007, 11:44 AM Post #12 |
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Unregistered
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I'm probably in the minority here, but I do feel that at a certain level Quality= Quanity. No offense to anybody who does this, but I think that if I was keeping up with a character whose posts where almost consistently 300+ then I will care about said character a lot more than a character who wrote fifty words for every posts. It's just truly a question of effort, really. If I look at someones long post -and I believe it sucks- , but I see that they're at least putting some effort into it. Someone with a fifty word post that I hate? They in all honesty look like retards to me. |
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| Xaldien | Feb 5 2007, 11:53 AM Post #13 |
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A dream imporium
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But, then there are some of us who, at this point with our characters, don't really have enough to write 300+ with. I mean, with Andi, I'm pretty sure I'm at a point where I could, albeit it has to do with flashbacking back to his family, but Chiaki and Kristey... when it comes to those two, I have yet to find enough about the two to write so much about. Yet. Plus, I'm a pretty bad writer as is, so to that I say "Cut me some slack" haha. |
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| Megami | Feb 5 2007, 12:19 PM Post #14 |
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Squishy
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I don't think anybody is "bad", persay. People have different writing styles, different methods, different ideas and whatnot. Some people prefer to straight out tell you that their character is sad or upset, some like to show you. I'd like to think that I'm pretty good with imagery and drawing my reader into the scene, but my dialogue? Absolute garbage. I know how (un)articulate I am in everyday speech, so it doesn't make sense to me for a teenager, younger than I am, to be especially well-spoken. Like I said, the roleplaying "level" varies greatly here. Some people aren't comfortable trying to write colossal posts, and while pushing yourself to improve is never a bad thing, because nobody's perfect, don't overdo it, you know? And, don't feel like you HAVE to write 10 page posts or you aren't good. Honestly -- and I say this as a pretty lengthy poster myself -- I get bored when posts are too long. |
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Misa Achtland Ayako Okogamine Kevin De la Torre Melissa Angelicchio | |
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| riserugu | Feb 5 2007, 03:29 PM Post #15 |
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ᶘ ᵒᴥᵒᶅ
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@ Meg I feel the same way, it's like -- I'm writing about the same amount I did during V1, but it's almost turned into a chore. I enjoy my characters, yeah, but I'm really not connecting with them the way I did with my characters during V1 and thus it sometimes makes it harder for me to write for them. @.@ |
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