Collective Writing Forum
Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 10:15 am
Okay so, I’m sure a lot of AAO-ers have problems with their writing abilities, since there’s a lot of limits we have as amateur writers. We all want to get better, but in a very casual RPing community like AAO, we can’t really do as much as we really WANT to, since there’s not as many motivations to take chances.
Basically, I’m asking if anyone wants to be in a writing group dedicated to pushing writers to be better writers. I’m going to say this: While fun is a priority, we want to keep the focus on improvement. That means as soon as you start RPing, your writing is open to criticism, which is generally posted in a thread about your character or you in general.
What I’m proposing:
1. Large RPs heavily based around world building (This is partially debatable, depending on the nature of the RP). While the bases will be set by GMs, RPers will be given the liberty to add concepts and ideas to the rps. How this will go about is free to be decided by the GM of that world.
Along with being large, the RP will be a lot more clear and specific, with threads sometimes being specifically for one on one interactions with no one intruding on conversations. This is mostly to write RP interaction the way we want it. Things like who will be interacting in said thread will be decided before hand, of course.
For example:
One forum area is based around a certain setting. Inside that setting is various other smaller RPs, that can be anything from interaction between two characters to an event with people in it.
2. Stricter rules. At the start, the RPing may be lax, but we will eventually get stricter, perhaps asking for at least one post a day, and more than one paragraph per post. Rules will depend on the GM in question. This means no speed posts or things like Pokerp’s famous TR and WP spam sessions.
3. Eventually breaking the motivation problem a lot of writers on AAO have. A lot of the problems caused by AAO’s RP group is that we have severely lowered activity due to lack of motivation. What we want is to slowly learn how to RP without having a large amount of motivation, or figuring out how to get motivated better.
What the players should expect to have to do.
1. Be completely willing to post often. We want an active group here, so you have to be willing to dedicate a fairly long amount of free time to this project. Eventually we may impose a consistent challenge of having at least 400 words in each post and a post each day. I will do exceptions to this rule in order to include those who want to RP and improve, but can't do it every day. The 400 word limit stays however.
2. Being ready to put a decent amount of effort in each post. We all want to have fun, of course, but a large focus is also on improvement. We also want characters to show a decent amount of effort and be shown to taken serious by their writer.
3. Be willing to listen to critique. What will happen most likely is that we will have a section for critiquing a writer’s style of writing (If they want it.). Extremely Important: This includes HARSH criticism, you can't complain about harsh criticism unless it's deliberately insulting you for no reason, in which case it is not criticism. If you refuse to accept criticism, or tend to act childish when you receive it, don’t join.
And now, for GOALS:
1. Generally improving. We're going to all work together to craft a fun and interesting story together to the best of our ability.
2. Overcoming personal boundaries with writing. As I said, we need to get past comfort zones and write things that we aren't used to. This will be done in multiple ways most likely, such as maybe one RP dedicated to assigning you a concept for a character and having you expand on that.
3. Having some goddamn fun while doing it.
Now, with the bare basics laid out, who’d be interested in this?
And WARNING:
This group will be SEPARATE from AAO with different rules. So there will be no direct links posted on AAO, only this thread to gauge interest. There may be obscene things like swearing involved.
This thread is the bare basics of what I want to do with this idea. I'm only posting it now so I can gauge interest.
Basically, I’m asking if anyone wants to be in a writing group dedicated to pushing writers to be better writers. I’m going to say this: While fun is a priority, we want to keep the focus on improvement. That means as soon as you start RPing, your writing is open to criticism, which is generally posted in a thread about your character or you in general.
What I’m proposing:
1. Large RPs heavily based around world building (This is partially debatable, depending on the nature of the RP). While the bases will be set by GMs, RPers will be given the liberty to add concepts and ideas to the rps. How this will go about is free to be decided by the GM of that world.
Along with being large, the RP will be a lot more clear and specific, with threads sometimes being specifically for one on one interactions with no one intruding on conversations. This is mostly to write RP interaction the way we want it. Things like who will be interacting in said thread will be decided before hand, of course.
For example:
One forum area is based around a certain setting. Inside that setting is various other smaller RPs, that can be anything from interaction between two characters to an event with people in it.
2. Stricter rules. At the start, the RPing may be lax, but we will eventually get stricter, perhaps asking for at least one post a day, and more than one paragraph per post. Rules will depend on the GM in question. This means no speed posts or things like Pokerp’s famous TR and WP spam sessions.
3. Eventually breaking the motivation problem a lot of writers on AAO have. A lot of the problems caused by AAO’s RP group is that we have severely lowered activity due to lack of motivation. What we want is to slowly learn how to RP without having a large amount of motivation, or figuring out how to get motivated better.
What the players should expect to have to do.
1. Be completely willing to post often. We want an active group here, so you have to be willing to dedicate a fairly long amount of free time to this project. Eventually we may impose a consistent challenge of having at least 400 words in each post and a post each day. I will do exceptions to this rule in order to include those who want to RP and improve, but can't do it every day. The 400 word limit stays however.
2. Being ready to put a decent amount of effort in each post. We all want to have fun, of course, but a large focus is also on improvement. We also want characters to show a decent amount of effort and be shown to taken serious by their writer.
3. Be willing to listen to critique. What will happen most likely is that we will have a section for critiquing a writer’s style of writing (If they want it.). Extremely Important: This includes HARSH criticism, you can't complain about harsh criticism unless it's deliberately insulting you for no reason, in which case it is not criticism. If you refuse to accept criticism, or tend to act childish when you receive it, don’t join.
And now, for GOALS:
1. Generally improving. We're going to all work together to craft a fun and interesting story together to the best of our ability.
2. Overcoming personal boundaries with writing. As I said, we need to get past comfort zones and write things that we aren't used to. This will be done in multiple ways most likely, such as maybe one RP dedicated to assigning you a concept for a character and having you expand on that.
3. Having some goddamn fun while doing it.
Now, with the bare basics laid out, who’d be interested in this?
And WARNING:
This group will be SEPARATE from AAO with different rules. So there will be no direct links posted on AAO, only this thread to gauge interest. There may be obscene things like swearing involved.
This thread is the bare basics of what I want to do with this idea. I'm only posting it now so I can gauge interest.
