{The author of this blog is originally the player Bylah. This was re-posted by request, since it's such a valuable community resource and we didn't want it lost.}

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Hi guys. I recently broached the question of whether or not I should make a post, detailing some of the finer(and not so fine!) aspects of roleplaying and writing. Several people seemed to support the idea, so that's what this post is about.

First of all, know that in no way will any of this single anyone out. While I may use examples of what one should not do, by no means am I referring to someone in specific. Thus, should you see something here that you know you do, then chances are, you should re-evaluate how you write/rp/what have you.

Second of all, these are not rules set in stone. These are nothing more than guidelines and recommendations from someone who's been RPing online for over a decade. You don't have to do what I say. Hell, you don't even have to read past this point if you don't want to. Everyone writes and creates their characters different. These are just some of my methods and inclinations.

Last of all: this is probably going to be long - and will be added to when things come to me. I will try to keep things simple and to the point, but when I talk about roleplaying and writing, I can admit I get long-winded. If you don't understand something that I've put here, please, please, please feel free to ask questions.

This is meant to be a learning tool, and if you don't ask questions when you're confused, you won't learn. I will copy/paste questions into the post and answer them, so that everyone can benefit from these question.

I'll break this into sections and I will frequently use 'you' and 'we' and by that, I mean the Royal You and We; I don't mean anyone specific. I will also be primarily using TEF as the basis of the RP talk, because that's the setting/community we are in, but most of these guidelines can be applied anywhere.

Ready? Here we go.

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Common RP Terms

Mun - The Mun is basically the person behind the keyboard. Puppeteer, string puller, player, these are also all used, but Mun is the term I learned and it's the one I'll use the most in this guide.

IC - In Character. Basically, this means anything that is happened to your character, while roleplaying. It also means as a character behaving as they would in the appropriate setting. It also means simply the character itself. This is one of these really broad terms that can mean a lot. When playing in a chat room, one might say, "Okay, I'm going IC now", meaning they're about to start RPing. If you're about to do a 'scene' with someone, that would be considered 'IC'.

OOC - Out of Character. Naturally, this means the opposite of IC, but is just as complex a term. OOC might refer to the talk between two muns, or actions that your deer might do that don't necessarily count as a 'scene'. If you're goofing off in IMs, maybe with your deer, but they do actions that don't have a plot or pertain to their story, that would possibly be considered 'out of character'.

Scene - A scene is basically an RP session that pertains to your character's storyline. The actions of the scene affect their lives, their plot, their story.

Blending - Blending is when OOC knowledge/actions blend into IC knowledge/actions. This is generally a heavily frowned upon action, at that. An example is as follows.

I, L, the mun of Bylah, tell Moss, the mun of Nine, something in confidence about Bylah. Let's say that it's what Bylah really is. This is something that Bylah, himself, would never tell Nine. However, a few weeks later, Nine actually brings it up to Bylah. That's blending - when the mun of a character uses the knowledge that they know, that their character does not know, could have no way of knowing, in RP through their character. Nine would have no reason, no WAY of knowing what Bylah really is, but Moss knows. That's blending.
Another form of blending is would be...
I one day manage to piss Moss off. I mean, really make her angry at me. There is no reason, however, for Nine to be angry/upset at Bylah. However, if he was, for no legitimate reason aside from the fact that Moss is? This would be blending.
This latter issue is a common one, because people tend to carry over personal feelings into their characters feelings. Don't get me wrong, I understand that our characters are often parts of ourselves, but it's generally considered bad form to let the Mun's emotions heavily impact their characters.

Godmoding - Godmoding is when you impose your character onto someone elses. This can be as severe as cutting a character's head off, but also as simple as having your character grab someone elses. People generally have different views on this, and it's always best to contact the mun of who you're playing with, to see how they feel about actions imposed on their character.
Please remember that only you dictate what happens to your character. The character is yours and no one can tell you, "Oh, I killed your character" or "I just slapped your character" or whatever. If someone's character goes, "::Slaps Bylah::" I have all the right in the world to go, "::Or so she thought. The vast mass of tines snapped away, as Bylah jerked his head back in time to avoid the slap::". There's always a way around actions made on your character.

Another example of Godmoding: While forcing actions on another player is a bit of a nono, another use of the term Godmoding would be when a character is practically indestructable, with no weaknesses, no flaws, and no matter how much you attack them, they pretty much get out of it or ignore it or whatever.

Character Creation / Development

I want to talk about character creation before anything else, because the character is the most crucial part of any story. If you don't have good characters, your story will suffer for it. Character creation can be amazingly hard though. Here is how I generally go about making and fleshing out a character.

Usually, I get ideas for characters from inspiration, but even when they are inspired, I often sit on a character for days. Personally, I have a very short attention span. If a character that's popped into my head manages to stay there for longer than a day, I know I may be on to something.

So that's the first important part: make sure the character is something that's more than just a passing fancy. Being really committed to a character is important because it sucks to find something shiny, only to find out it's just fool's gold, so to speak.

Next? Research. This is ridiculously important, so read this carefully. There are few things in this world that I can think of that's more annoying than seeing a character that hasn't been properly researched and developed before the mun has started to play them - and I can usually tell when this happens.

This is doubly important if you are playing a canon character - that is, a character that is from a movie, book, comic, etc. If you're going to play a character that has already been established, please do your research. I will never tell people they can't play canon characters - I do it very, very frequently. I do, however, also do as much research as possible prior to playing the character.

It's also important to not just rip off a canon character. In fact, that's another thing on the list of Stuff L Hates In RP. If you're going to take a picture of some hot anime guy, change his name and his eye color? That's not your character, it's really not. Just go ahead and say you're playing Vincent Valentine. I'd rather someone do a less-than-stellar job playing Vincent than say they're playing some guy named Marcus who just happens to miraculously look just like Vincent Valentine.

Now, I understand that some of us like playing/writing for hot guys because we all want our female characters to hook up with them - and don't give me that look. I know you do it. I do it, you do it, we all do it. So I understand that the uber evil, yet ridiculously sexy bad guy has to fall in love with your girl but please, make it at least realistic.

Don't make Sephiroth pick flowers, girls.

If you're playing an original character, research is just as critical there, too. Sit down with your character. Think about them. Where do they come from? Are they from a pre-established setting? Who were their parents? What are their hobbies? Do they have any quirks? All of these things are important.

No one likes to see the same cookie-cutter characters. I have tried my best to inject just a little something into all of my characters that makes them unique, that makes them strange. Bylah tells lies, has three tongues, loves innocent, young flesh and has fires in his belly. Yosef has two jaws, ten eyes, likes to chase anything and everything he can, and is generally like a chihuahua with shark's teeth. Sumias is stand-offish and aloof. She prefers to be alone, has eyes like cold, distant stars, and is remarkably short.

All of these little things make them unique even though, at a glance, they're all deer. But they're not the same deer. They have their own personality, their own quirks, their own habits that separate them, no matter how similar they look. Seeing the same characters over and over and over again gets very boring. I know it's easy to take what someone else has done, tweak it, and call it new, but try to break out of the box. Try to be innovative, original, and creative.

The saying goes that 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery' and some people think that this is a compliment. It's not. Flattery is insincere praise, you see - basically, blowing smoke up someone's rear end. So when you imitate people, even if you mean well, it's sort of insulting. It's basically like saying, "I can't be bothered to come up with something on my own, so I'm going to steal what so-and-so already has."

No one likes that guy. Don't be that dude.

Another important aspect of your character is consistency - something I've seen problems with in several RP circles.

Let's say that you've got an established character. Let's say that this character has a bio. Let's say that that bio claims your character is mean, cruel, aggressive, arrogant, and generally all around unlikeable. So how is it going to look when that character is seen picking flowers and giving out money to the poor?

When you make a character, it's remarkably important that you stay consistent to that character. I'm not saying they can't change - but if they do, their bio needs to reflect that. It should reflect that gradual character development that has taken place over time.

On the other hand: Your character's bio does not have to detail every teeny, tiny detail about your character. Yes, it should give the basics, but if you're going to have a bio that spells out every detail of your character, why are you bothering to play them? Some things should be discovered in play. Some things should be a mystery. For example: I'd sometimes rather not have an image of my character directly on their bio. I'd rather people learn about their appearance through RP.

I want to extrapolate of this a bit. You cannot have a character that has conflicting traits - okay, you CAN, but....only so much. It is ridiculous to have a character that is caring, friendly, and patient yet aggressive, misleading, and cunning. When you do this, it's oxymoronic, with emphasis on the moronic part. Characters need to be consistent. Otherwise, they just come off as Mary-Sues, even if they're male characters, because you've basically made a character that's trying to please everyone.

Writing/Reading Process

That title may confuse people. You may be asking, "What does reading have to do with what I write?" Well, that's pretty simple: when you've finished writing your bio, your short story, your poem, your whatever...someone is going to read it. It might be you. It might be a family member, a person in this community. Either way, it's going to be read...
...or, at least, someone is going to attempt to read it.
Now, I'm not saying that anyone here has to have a degree in English. I also understand that there are a great deal of people here who's first language isn't English. However, for those of you whose first language is English...there are simple rules that we all pretty much learned by third grade that you should abide by. They are as follows:

1. You always capitalize the word I. I don't care if you're writing a poem, I don't care if you're writing out lyrics. It's always capitalized. Always.
2. You always capitalize the first letter of the first word of a sentence. Now, in poetry, sometimes people make this mistake:

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

As you can see, the 'on' is not capitalized. Why? Because it's not a new sentence. Same sentence, just the second part is on the second line. Any time you use a '.' to denote the end of a sentence? The next word better be capitalized.
3. There is a difference between 'your' and 'you're':
Is this your sweater? = Possessive use.
You're going to the store. = Contraction of 'you are'.
The same applies for 'there', 'they're', and 'their':
Let's walk over there. = There denotes a place.
They're going to the movies. = Contraction of 'they are'.
This is their car. = Possessive use.
One more, as it's problematic: Where, we're. were.
Where are you going? = Denotes a destination.
We're going to the movies. = Contraction of 'we are'.
Were you going to say something? = second person singular and plural and first and third person plural past indicative of 'be. --In other words, it's the last were that doesn't mean 'we are' or 'where is that'?
4. There is a difference between a 'city' and 'Atlanta'. Proper nouns such as specific people, places, brand names and ideas are to be capitalized. Always.
5. When you use "...", you only use three periods. "..." is known as an ellipses and it is, by far, one of the most incorrectly used grammatical tools I've ever seen in RP. When you use an ellipsis, it needs both a start...
...and a finish, like this. It's generally used to finish a thought, sort of like a cliff hanger. It's also popularly used to suggest silence on the part of the speaker.
I repeat: three is all you need. Anything more is excessive. This rule also applies to "!" or "?"'s. If you used "!Exclaim!!Exclaim!!!" in your writing, it's not only bad grammar but it's very distracting to the eye and disrupts the flow of what's being read.


Now, I don't expect everyone to know every rule where grammar is concerned. I know I certainly don't know every single solitary comma rule, but these are basic rules that most kids learn once they've gotten out of grade school and there's really no excuse for people to ignore them.
The same applies to spelling. I'm not saying that everyone has to be capable of spelling supercalifragilisticecspealidocious - but just about every word processing program in the world now has a spell checking function. If it doesn't, there are several online services(such as Google's GoogleDoc) that will spell check things for you. If you're serious about your writing, there is no legitimate reason for there to be misspellings in your writing.
If nothing else, if you're not sure if something you've written looks good? Send it to a friend. Show your parents, your spouse, your whatever. I'm sure there are plenty of people on this site that would be more than happy to spell check/proof-read something for you.
Which comes to my next really, really big point....

Criticism

This can be hard to talk about. No one likes having their mistakes point out - not in artwork, not in writing, not even in speech. However, it is imperative, if you want to become a better writer and roleplayer, that you have to open up to being criticized. I'm not saying you should stand aside and allow yourself to be cut down by someone who just has absolutely nothing nice to say, no, but if you really want to improve your writing skills, it is a good idea to be open-minded and really listen to what people have to say.
Several months ago, someone had written a story here - I can't remember when or even who this was, but when I very politely asked them if they wanted some constructive criticism, they never replyed to me - and I took that as a 'no'. People have to understand, however, that when people give you honest, constructive criticism, they generally don't mean anything bad by it. They're just hoping to offer insight.
However, you should keep in mind that when you ask for criticism, there's the possibility that they're going to say something you're not going to like. They may have something about your work, whether written or drawn, that while you might like? They do not. However, it's not fair of you to attack them for their opinion, when you specifically asked for it.
On the other hand, even if someone offers you criticism, you can take it with a grain of salt: you don't have to abide by what they suggest.
Then, you then have criticizing. We've probably all done it - or considered doing it, considered telling someone something about what they did and how they could've done it better. A lot of people don't take well to criticism, no matter how honest or heartfelt it is. It's my policy to always ask someone if they want criticism first(unless they've made it known they want it). If they say they don't, I keep my mouth shut. If they say they do?
I am polite and to the point. I don't insult people and I don't assume that they should know what they've made a mistake about. I make sure that while I'm pointing out what they did wrong, I also point out what they did right, because no one wants to hear nothing but negativity. It is possible to give polite critique on something, without coming off as a mean person. You want to encourage people to do better, not discourage them by pointing out their flaws.