***Shrimp's Guide to Character Info Pages

Character Information Pages
- The savior to all character-whores -

They go by many names, be it "Character Directory Pages", "Character Info Threads", or "Something That Helps Me Remember Who the Hell My Characters Are", Character Information Pages truly help not only you, but everyone else out immensely. You see, not only do character info pages showcase your amazing creativity, but they help others locate your characters in a single place.

Character Info pages tend to contain multiple posts, each one of them entailing a different aspect of your role-playing life, so to speak. Typical Character Information Pages tend to go as follows:

- POST 1 - THE INTRODUCTION -
- how do I start it? -

Now, the introduction to your Character Directory sets the tone for the whole entire damn thing. If you make it look good, it will entice people to stick around more, lurking around, learning more about your characters. But if it looks absolutely horrific (which almost never happens, but it might one day), someone may just speed through your whole entire thread (which you've worked on for days on end) to find out more about the specific character who they may be RP-ing with. Now, there are many ways to go about this:

The most typical and common way to go about this is to use song lyrics. Many people just take the entire song, and copy paste it. It looks great once they've coded it (for help on coding, please refer to Dee's guide - it's very good). Good examples include Glitter and Chase. Note that they incorporated the song to their own liking, using different coding methods, etc. Glitter uses the alignment tools, while Chase uses gradients. The result is two distinct introduction pages, even though they used a similar approach.

Some people take part of the song and use it to their liking. Lulu's is a great example of showing how simplistic an introduction can be, but yet still look absolutely amazing. Aya uses a verse at the end of her introduction, deciding to skip right to the point. Her use of gradients here is really well thought out. Phunke uses this technique too, utilizing gradients and horizontal/vertical text to her liking. It creates a really professional looking thread.

Wolf Tears uses Spanish to tell a story. She incorporates small information of her characters after each verse, combining multiple posts into one. Thundy does this also, except without any lyrics.

Damen wrote a poem. It's similar to the typical intro thread, but the fact that he hasn't used other people's lyrics makes it rather unique. He's able to create the type of atmosphere that he's aiming for easily. Luna also uses this. Her acrostic poem creates a very creative feel to the thread, as well as her use of blues, etc.

Skylar uses enhanced tables to create an extremely well-thought out thread. It's ascetically pleasing, and gives the feeling that he's writing this all out. It seems more... handwritten in a way. More personal (I don't know how to use tables, so don't ask me. However, This talks about them).

As you can see, there are so many ways to introduce readers to your characters. Try playing around with multiple ideas. You'll find something that you like, don't worry.

- POSTS 2 & 3 - DECISIONS, DECISIONS -
- no, seriously; what do I do now? -

Okay, so you've finally decided on a format that you like. You've made the introduction all nice and beautiful so practically everybody would wish that they were you. So now what? Do you just pack your bags and leave on a six-month hiatus to Aruba? No! Your next post gives you a whole lot of options.

Some people, like Lulu, Glitter and Luna write a Table of Contents. You all hopefully know what a Table of Contents is, so I'm not going to go into much detail. Basically though, it says what's going to be featured in each post.

Others, like Aya, myself and others (I could have sworn that there was more) jump into "Quick Information" of our characters. Basically, a few important bullets regarding appearance, personality, basic info, etc. are jotted down, giving a faint outline of the characters.

Yet, others such as Phunke (there's more people than just Phunke, I'm sure of it) jump right into the character descriptions themselves. The character descriptions will be talked about in the next chapter.

After the introduction, things become much more personalized; people can pretty much insert anything they would like in between character descriptions, thread trackers, etc. Some people like to give a little information about themselves, etc. It's all up to you.

The next few chapters will simply be discussing some things that are inserted into Character Info threads.

- THREAD TRACKERS -
- where the hell have you been young man? -

A thread tracker lists every single thread that your character has been in. It helps people if they want to read them, perhaps to see you progress as a writer? Thread trackers tend to have 3-4 sections: Active Threads, Inactive Threads, Dead Threads and Finished Threads.

Active Threads are threads that have been responded to recently, normally less than a month or so. Basically, it is what your character is doing right now.

Inactive Threads are threads that really haven't been responded to in a long time, greater than month at least. If inactive threads are put into the Post Museum, they are considered Dead Threads; threads which were never finished.

Finished Threads are ones which quite literally, have been finished. The plot has ended, perhaps the characters have went their separate ways, or maybe their storyline has developed in a new thread. Either way, nobody is planning to return to this thread. Finished threads can also be considered "finished" if nobody can respond due to a death, a reaping, or any other reason as to why they wouldn't be there anymore.

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This is the real deal.

Almost everybody has quick info. Some people have longer ones, some have shorter ones. Character descriptions are essentially the same thing. There's just a tiny bit more information, that's all.

Note however, that not everyone actually has these - and most people who do only have one or two finished ones. So you really don't need this. However, it's a nice addition.

Good examples of character descriptions are:

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Topaz Ross
Hadlee Winnows
Wyatt Menderson
Penny Cromwell
Arbor Halt
Charlie Darwin
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You see, they give information. Not a gigantic wad of it like a character bio, but enough to give a good amount of information to the reader. Each member takes a different approach to this - Phunke and Penny chose 1st person narration, Lulu and Aya chose third person narration, and Dee chose 1st person interviewing. It is very interesting - seeing how everyone used different ways to express their characters.
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Yep. This is the conclusion. So basically, a character info page involves much creativity. Express yourself, try out something innovating. Nothing here is incorrect (well, most things are correct, just stay on the PG-13 side please?).

So therefore,
Have fun (corny, I know, right?).

- FIN/END/DONE/TADAA/THE END THANK GOODNESS -

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