I would like to see story structure fit the nature of the story better. That would allow more RP's to be completed, and a more interesting character evolution.
What the heck do I mean?!?!
Many of the big RP's that I have observed here are the kind where an OOC gets posted, and a IC gets posted and then everyone writes fairly long posts. For some kinds of stories that is awesome and fits perfectly. But for some kinds of stories its not perfect.
See longer isn't always better, and that's not just my opinion its a simple fact of storytelling. Some major writers set themselves mandatory word reductions. So after the rough draft they do a word count, and remove a minimum of 10% of the words. Entire careers have been built on a faster, more energetic style.
And it fits some kinds of stories better then others, for example action scenes can often be improved by using multiple very short sentences to communicate the speed and pressure of the event. Not all action scenes, and certainly not all the time, my point is that its a technique that goes entirely unused here.
There are secondary structural problems. All stories, whether you mean to or not, or want to or not will follow a 'scene-sequel' model. Period. There's no other option, if your writing your writing scenes and sequels. Stuff happens (scene) people react (sequel). That's how everything happens in all stories that make any sense, because that's how humans experience life.
The length and depth of the scene-sequel is how a story is paced, and so forth. There's a lot of art to this, and its probably the most advanced part to writing. The issue is not all scenes should be five paragraphs, and certainly not all sequels. Let me give an example.
Lets say the Hulk and Batman are fighting, and its an RP here on Comic Vine. So the Hulk starts the fight, and there's a scene (action) describing how he rips concrete chunks from the ground and hurls them at the dark knight while bellowing in rage. Now the Batman RPer responds, but because this is a major RP he feels compelled to write a post that's around 750-1,000 words.
So first is his sequel (reaction) to the Hulks attack. He's gotta really stretch this out, majorly long. So he has to toss in some stuff about how his parents are dead, and how angry he is about criminals, and how his whole life is messed up and how his parents are dead, and his training, and his last adventure, plus his reaction to the Hulks attack, and also his parents are dead. (His parents are dead, by the way.)
So then he responds with his scene (action) where he evades the attack and throws some electro-batarangs at Hulk. He has to stretch this one out too, so instead of a short and terse moment of intense action its a two hundred word description of his equipment, and a lecture on martial arts, plus then he just throws the freaking batarang already. (His parents are dead.)
Then! Hulk replies. He's got the same problem as Batman, he's gotta write a really long post about something that is better suited for a short post. So we get lots of descriptions about how angry he is, and.. he's really angry. He's really freaking angry. (He's mad, by the way) Then he does something that's probably fairly simple but along the way he has to describe the coffee shop across the street and the exact shade of green of his toenails because he has to boost his word count.
Now my point here isn't that long posts are bad, or that long posts in battles are bad! Neither is true, and there are examples both here on the vine of very interesting long battle posts, as well as real life books with very long actions scenes that are amazing in quality.
My point is that always using the same structure for everything even when it isn't needed is bad. Really long posts scare off newbies, and cause a lot of people to drop RP's they are in because they don't feel like typing another novel every couple days.
They also can restrict character growth, because by the nature of long posts you get longer scenes and sequels.. and thus FEWER scenes and sequels. Most character interaction requires short scenes and sequels. Bob says something, Jane hears him, reacts, and says something back.
Seriously, go look at the major RP's and see how many lines of dialog to lines of everything else you have. I'd bet about 40 words per five hundred are dialog. While that's fine for certain types of events its not fine for every major event in the Vine universe. Hard to have some kinds of character development with that kind of ratio. Some types of RP are best with the long posts, some are best with short posts, and some are best with medium length posts.
Further more it scares off newbies. They look at those post-novels and go... dang... I don't want to have to do that to be part of this universe. Its intimidating to them. It creates a high barrier for entry, and it also is the cause of many RP's dying out. People just don't feel like the payoff is worth the effort.
Lastly, and this is something I doubt anyone will ever say out of fear of being rude. Its boring. Not all the time, some times its amazing, but obviously when the wrong technique is used over and over and over and over and over and over for a really long long long long long long long time people get... bored. And they stop reading, no matter how nice or well intentioned, or interested they might be.
So I would like to see the tradition of long posts in all major RPs (and the idea that all RP's are 'serious' or good unless the posts are long) to die and be replaced with the use of judgement in post length. Some posts DO need to be long. Some need to be short. Sometimes there must be a long post, then a short post, then another short post then a hugely long novel of a post. But it shouldn't always be the same every time.
Scene and sequel length should be variable based on the needs of the post, and I'd like to see a move in that direction.
Log in to comment