Need some help with my RP skills:)

Hey Gaby! My name is Rosetta and I’ll be your RP Tutor! I’m glad you came to tutoring! We’re here to help you figure out how to make your RP posts even better.

The first step in that, of course, is understanding what you need help with. Do you need help with describing the setting? Or describing emotions? Or moving the plot forward? Or characterization. It’s okay that you aren’t so sure what you’re missing right now, but that’s what we’re going to figure out together. I’m glad you mentioned you’ve written a post already and you’re reading other posts around the site.

So, to help you see what you’re missing I want you to complete an exercise for more. I want you to find three posts on the site. From each of these posts, I want you to pull out a specific quote that you like and tell me why. Does it convey a good description? Good emotion? Good characterization? Then for each post, tell me something you liked about it overall.

Then, can you also find a post YOU write and pull out a quote you liked that you wrote and why. Then, pull out a quote you think needs some improvement and why.

Finally, if you can, tell me what you learned from this exercise. What did you and the other writers on the site have in common? What did they have that you liked that you’re missing? Good luck and let me know if you need me to clarify anything!

Hey Gaby!

Thank you so much for responding. I think you did really well this is exercise. For future reference, know you can put all of your responses into the same post, so you don’t have to post and hit reply so soon!

Anyway, I’m glad you were able to get more acquainted with writing on the site as well as get more acquainted with what it means for your writing. I want to address each of your concerns individually because I think once we can master each of these concerns, they can all work together to create a cohesive post. So, let’s talk.

1. You mentioned wanting to use the English language better. I’ve linked the following articles/pages which I hope will help you with some tips as well as words you can use! Of course, I think the best way to improve if through practice, but I hope that helps.
English tips
More tips
Word you can use!
2. Now, let’s talk about not being erratic.
So, you feel like you can’t stick with one central idea in a post and you just keep going. Sometimes, I would say that’s okay! It’s great to let your character’s thoughts flow. That said, it’s also good to go into a post with an idea you’d like to convey. For the thread you linked, I felt like the idea you were looking to convey had to do with your character’s thoughts about the reaping. Now, I want to talk about emotion because I think you can anchor a central idea a lot in emotion. If the topic is the reaping, there can be a wide range of emotions your character may be experiencing—and there are a multitude of ways to express that emotion.

When you want to convey an emotion, I implore you to consider show-not-tell, a device you can use to create a cohesive post as well as get your point across! If your main point is to discuss the reaping, you character may feel fear as their central emotion. However, to get more of our post, it’s better to show that they’re feeling fear, than tell it. When you’re afraid, how does your body react? You might shiver or your heart might race. Rather than say, “the thought of the reaping caused her fear,” you might write, “the thought of the reaping made her heart skip a beat.”

Now, you’ve shown one emotion, but it’s perfectly acceptable to move off of that central point and emotion to address any other relevant one. For example, in your rainy post, you mentioned confusion. You can easily go from your character expressing fear to them discussing watching the Games and subsequently feeling confusion—not necessarily saying confusion though. How do you express confusion? Perhaps your character “furrowed her eyebrows, wondering how tributes may be considered ‘monsters’ if they were just children.’” That way your thoughts remain within your central idea—the Games and Reaping—but you’re able to move the thread along and put out emotion.

I know that was a lot to throw at you, so let’s practice it. Remember our steps?
First, you want to establish what the central idea of your post is. Then, you want to think about what kinds of emotion your character may experience from this idea. And then show that emotion and any accompanying emotions. Here’s your exercise:

I will give you three ideas I want you to convey in a short blurb each (5-6 sentences or more if you need) along with the emotions a character of your choice will be experiencing with this idea. Please remember to show the emotion. Don’t just tell me how they feel! If you need any additional instruction on how to do this, please PM me! Here are your three ideas:

Your character’s friend just died in the Games
Your character’s crush just asked them on a date.
A close family member just stole a lot of money/possessions from the family and is now nowhere to be found.

Post here in a single post! Good luck!

Hey Gaby!

I apologize profusely for the delay. I want to go through and address all of your concerns and questions the best I can. This session is about you! Let’s talk about the exercise.

I loved how powerful the memories were in all of these, especially the first one. You used past memories and feelings in order to convey emotion which is an incredibly powerful tool. I’m going to refer to a lot of this as abstract ideas. Abstract ideas are those that name qualities as well as ideas that aren’t grounded in reality. See here:

There is only blood now, blood everywhere. It floods the screen and pours out, covers me. Red shades grow darker and darker every second and turn black eventually. It's like someone pressed a button to turn off the sun, the atmosphere, my mother's voice. I don't feel, don't see, don't hear. And I am not sure if I want to.

As you can see, that sentence conveys strong emotions and feeling, but isn’t factually sound. That’s no problem! The key is mixing abstract concepts with concrete in order to convey the most amount of emotion within a realistic sphere. Concrete concepts are those that are real and tangible and give your readers insight into what’s truly occurring around that character.

The night surrounds us and the bush we curl under. 

 And this erratic heartbeat thumping in my ears.

I especially like the second quote. It is a concrete concept: a rapidly beating heart, which indicates emotion. Here, within the context of the rest of the blurb, it means your character is happy!

Other concrete concepts you should sprinkle it: setting (what do they see, smell, hear, taste, etc), the way your character’s body is physically reacting (is their heart beating fast?), and how others are actually reacting around your character. We’re going to return to this exercise later, after I go through your other concerns. Overall, you did a great job. I just want to be able to visualize what’s going on more in the post and not just what your character feels about it. Concrete concepts will give me that visualization and the abstract will bring in the emotion.

Now, I took a look at those two threads you gave me and I saw that you had a ton of concrete concepts! I was able to visualize what your character was doing, but not so much how they felt about it, which leads me to believe we should work on putting those two concepts together: setting, physical, concrete presences and abstract emotion.

Within that, you also mentioned how you feel as though your posts are short with some characters. I’m going to sum that up to characterization. Characterization is how well-developed your character is and how well you know them! It seems like you know one character more than others and the way to get to know characters more is through writing with me! So, from here on out, please only write characters you want to get to know better within this tutoring thread.

Finally, naming threads. Personally, I simply use song lyrics which seems to be a trend. Or maybe quotes that inspire you. It’s up to you!

Exercise time!

Let’s do some practice with concrete vs. abstract. Remember: Concrete are clear, realistic ideas. They’re nouns. Abstract concepts are those that are less so. They’re descriptors. They describe the noun. Concrete is very specific; abstract less so. It’s a bit confusing, so feel free to ask for clarifying information. So, I’m going to give you an idea and I’d like you to express both the emotions your character would feel (more abstract), how their body might physically react (concrete), and the setting (concrete) in about 3 sentences each. Here’s an example:

Situation: Your character woke up in a cage.

Emotions: She felt as though her entire body was heavy, as though she were under those bars herself. She felt horribly frightened, as though she were trapped in a dream. No matter how hard she pinched herself, she couldn’t free herself from the nightmare.

You understand that is scared, right? But, she isn’t truly in a dream, nor is she under the bars. Those are abstract ideas to connect to emotion.

Body’s physical reaction: Her heart began to race rapidly. Chills swept up and down her spine. Her stomach felt tight and she instantly began to feel nauseous.

Those are ways to describe the emotion in more physical terms. That’s how one may physically feel when scared.

Setting: The bars were thick, extending far up over her head and were cold to the touch. The rest of the room surrounding the cage was dark and grimy. When she breathed out, she could see her breath.

Can you see the room now?

Now, it’s your turn! Here are your three situations:

Your character accidentally sets their kitchen on fire.

Your character is walking to the Reaping.

Your character gets lost in the woods.

Please let me know if you have questions!