|
Post by Alice Liddell on Aug 22, 2010 12:13:19 GMT -5
Thank you ^^
|
|
|
Post by Maxim Horvath on Aug 22, 2010 13:33:34 GMT -5
I like the idea of having a minimal post count, and about 200-250 sounds right to me. It’s very annoying to spend ages on a post, only to receive barely a sentence or two in response (especially when you’ve been waiting ages for it). I must ask though Maxim (and welcome to the site by the way if you’re new ^^), how is a minimum sentence count less stressful than a word count? If anything one should think that it would be more stressful, because you have to count it yourself whereas word count is done automatically. There are many instances, particularly in fast-moving scenes like battles, or even simple conversations, where a word count of 200-odd words is simply crippling. Have you recently looked at what two hundred words looks like? It's a fairly large chunk of text. Now, I completely support the idea of posts that are well-thought out and well-written, and of a roughly equivalent length to what you are responding to. I ABSOLUTELY support this. But really, how are you supposed to manage a 200 word response to a character coming up and saying hello? The point is that you really can’t, without resorting to endless, extraneous exposition of surroundings and inner monologues and descriptions and when that isn’t done excruciatingly well, it gets very dull and bogs down the flow of the story. One of the biggest rules of writing that they throw at you in all those ‘How To Write’ books is ‘if you can say it in one word, don’t use three’. Seriously, people don’t want to read about how Alice sighs oh-so-gently in mild dismay as she languidly raises her hand to reach for her estranged beloved with tears glistening in her pale sapphire eyes and trickling down her moon-pale cheeks. It just does not work, and that is the type of writing you tend to get when you enforce a word count. A sentence count, on the other hand, is slightly more flexible. That paragraph above is 224 words, but you can see that it’s been padded. It drags on a bit and feels slow. This is not desirable in combat scenes or other places where you want to maintain tension. A short sentence count gives you a chance to indicate what’s happening and reply with less stress than a word count, which tends to lead to freaking out of ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t have enough words! Let me go back here and here and here and pad it out so I can make that count!” Stressful. Very stressful. Also, keep in mind that while eight sentences is short, it’s also a <I>minimum</I>. We will always encourage more than the bare minimum (I hope), and most of the time, a decent post will be twelve or more. A sentence count is more flexible and less stressing, with less risk of being cluttered with extraneous nonsense. As I believe I mentioned before, I’ve been on two sites for nearly three years where we’ve had a 8-sentence requirement, and we’ve almost never had trouble regularly exceeding that minimum- and our core group has been role-playing there for the entire time period. 90% of the people who joined in the first month are still there. Combat scenes tend to have shorter posts, but that keeps the story, which is the important thing, moving along. And now that I think about it, slightly shorter posts in combat scenes have the slight advantage of reducing the possibility of godmodding by mistake. Oh, and yes, with a sentence count you do have to count it yourself, but how hard is it really to go through and count eight periods/question marks/exclamation points? Particularly considering the fact that once you hit eight, you can just keep writing if you aren't done saying what you want to say yet. As I said- it's a MINIMUM and you should do more if you can and it doesn't impede the story. I do apologize if I seem to be coming over a bit strong on this subject, but I've been banned from forums for word-count problems before and it's a sore point with me. I pride myself on clean, tight writing that doesn't dribble on all over the place, and while I always try to give good-sized posts, I hear the phrase 'word count' and I seriously start to twitch. 'Word count' feels stressful, and I don't like stress when I role-play. I RP to get away from stress.
|
|
|
Post by Alice Liddell on Aug 22, 2010 14:15:42 GMT -5
You make an excellent point here about writing fulfilling fight scenes. I've experienced the difficulty of writing fight scenes a post at a time on several occasions; however I generally find that it's possible to find a happy medium between exposition and action. Rather than distilling the tension and action in a post through an influx of extraneous adjectives and adverbs, I find it works well to detail the character's emotional response to the things happening to them, as well as their reasoning for whatever their next move will be. That way you can turn a brief moment into a reasonable paragraph, and although it may cause the fight to lag slightly for the readers, it's a lot more interesting to read than just: "Bob dodged the kick and then tried to punch Harry."
I suppose the reason I don't find it stressful is because I impose a word count on myself even when it's not mandatory. I always try to ensure that my post is at least as long as the one before it, as an act of courtesy to that RPer so they don't feel that they wrote a longer post for nothing. I can see however how it could be seen as stressful, though I do still stand by my point that there's not much difference between a word count and a sentence count. After all, you may not have noticed it, but this post is both exactly eight sentences long, but also over 250 words long ^^
|
|
|
Post by EILONWY ---* on Aug 22, 2010 17:09:16 GMT -5
The other thing about word counts, is that there is a way to write about a character meeting another for the first time. How did they get there? What were they doing earlier? What are their plans? What do they, see, smell, hear, or feel? How did they find the other character? What are they wearing? How are they feeling? What's the weather like? What is the characters first impression of the other? What are they thinking? Stuff like that can easily be included and would not drag a regular thread. Perhaps, in threads with fighting, the limit could be reduced to a hundred words or something. However, I think that imposing a word count is the best way to make sure that there is at least something to write about. And again, it looks/makes the site feel more "professional". That feeling attracts members, something I'm thinking we want.
|
|
|
Post by Judge Claude Frollo on Aug 22, 2010 17:45:44 GMT -5
Wow a whole bucnh of good points guys, Word counts don't really bother me since I tend to write way over 250 words in a post anyway xD so I am absolutely fine with whatever we decide to do about that Sometimes I find that being to descriptive in posts bores me and I tend to get distracted by something else but I suppose it really depends on teh writer, what Ive noticed through Rping here and on other sites with so many talented writers is that we all have our own style of writing which is a diversity I enjoy ^^ Thanks for answering all mys questions Elisa, I await further orders now ^^
|
|
|
Post by Maxim Horvath on Aug 22, 2010 18:08:54 GMT -5
If we're all writing longer posts anyway then why do we even need a mandatory word count?
|
|
|
Post by EILONWY ---* on Aug 22, 2010 18:38:02 GMT -5
So that future members know that we have standards. And again, to attract new members.
|
|
|
Post by Belle on Aug 27, 2010 5:20:28 GMT -5
I'm with Emz, I'm not too fussed about a word count as I usually try to fill it out anyways, so I'll go with whatever you guys decide. However, I don't think you should be too strict about it, and certainly not ban someone, unless they are only doing one sentence replies and stuff like that. I always get low muse so sometimes my posts might be a little shorter than others, but as long as the quanity and standard of writing is good, it shouldn't be too big of a deal.
|
|