Spare Me The Chatter

This was originally written in 2003. I was a member of AvidGamers.com, and went by the nickname, Sparticus. Though most of this was written with that role-playing audience in mind, the principles were valid enough that I thought it deserved to be shared. – Kyle

You ever gone into a role play community that looks great, and has a good idea, and looks like it might be interesting? You like the colors, you like the pictures. You’re thinking, “Hey, I like this place. Where can I sign up?” Then you make your way to the role play, interested to see how you might be able to “jump in”. You go into the boards, you click on one of the current threads, and what do you find? Something like this:

*Runs down the hill* Hi. How are you? *Smiles.* Fine. *She looks at her feet.* He’s hansome, she thinks. *Tries not to blush.* Ha, she likes me he thinks. *Smiles back.* So you want to go for a soda…

You understand what I’m saying, right? How can anyone even stand to read that? Why not make it a story? Why not put the two writers’ characters into something a little better? Give them some depth! Give them a reason to be there! Let us know what the heck is going on with them! There’s got to be a better way to go about this then to pretend that this is a chat room where the other person is going to see your message and reply the next day. Now, it’s been said that the best way to do this is to start into detail. This is both true and untrue. A learning but talented writer will tell you that the more detail, the better. This is only partially true. Too much detail can really drive the reader away from the story. Yes, I know that it’s a groundbreaking concept and that I’m breaking all the rules, but hear me out. There is a time to detail, and a time where detail only hinders the story. Let me show you an example of what I’m talking about here, by illustrating the rewrites that I’ve done of the scene above:

Version 1

Josh walked down the hill, and noticed that she was still standing there. “Hi, how are you?” He said.

-

“Fine,” she replied, looking at her feet. She fought back a blush. He’s handsome.

-

Ha, she likes me. Josh smiled back. “So, you want to go for a soda?”

*****

Okay, that’s a sweet little conversation. We don’t really get a feel of who these characters are, though. It’s assumed that we’ll understand more about them later. Now, since we’re in Josh’s point of view, we naturally get his side of the story, and then the other writer adds their character’s thoughts and actions. If this was to be nothing but a cursory meeting, than this little interaction is fine for the role-play. It doesn’t hinder anything, and we get a small, brief look into the thoughts of the two characters. Now, what if these were to be a little more important? What if we wanted to reveal a bit more about the two subjects? Maybe there’s something a little different going on?

*****

Version 2

Josh crested the hill, his backpack hanging over his back. He’d walked this way hundreds of times, and he knew his way home better than anyone he knew. But this time was different. He noticed someone on kneeling at the bottom of the hill. His male instincts let him know that it was a young and attractive girl, about his age. He quickly made his way down to the bottom of the hill and noticed that she was picking up a few books. He silently leaned down next to her and helped her to pick up the rest.

-

Cammi was surprised to find someone next to her, helping her with her things. She was always so clumsy. “The Bookworm Klutz” is what she’d been known as back in high school. Always carrying a hundred books and lacking the necessary balance to keep from tripping over everything in sight. She didn’t get help often, back then. Her peers loved to make fun more than help out. So naturally it came as a surprise when she stood up, and the young man handed her the rest of her books. She stopped when she looked at him. He was a fairly good-looking guy. Pretty average, but not bad looking. She smiled at him, and said meekly. “Thank you.”

-

“It’s no problem,” he said, returning her smile with a grin of his own. “Glad to help.” Make a move, Branson, you idiot. Make a move… He’d always had problems with girls. He just never felt relaxed around attractive women. “So,” he said. “Would you like some help with those to wherever you’re going? Maybe get something to drink on the way?” Hey, he thought. At least it’s a start.

*****

Now, don’t we get a little more detail from that? We learn little subtle hints about things throughout each of the three posts, and even though you don’t consciously think about some of them, your unconscious mind is noting things down. What do we know about Cammi? She’s an attractive girl who studies a lot and doesn’t have really good balance, and she finds Josh attractive. She’s graduated or is no longer in high school. And Josh? We find that he’s a fairly good-looking guy who’s helpful by nature and is nervous around girls. His last name is Branson. He thinks that he and Cammi are the same age. We get those initial judgments, and then it is up to the writers to either confirm or deny those judgments. This helps to flesh out the character and brings a whole new level to the role play. We start to wonder what’s going to happen to these characters next. What began as just a simple conversation between these two post-high school people might very well end up in a romance, or an allying friendship, or may even cause them to become enemies. But because we start to relate with the characters we make them a little more real to us. This is what detail is for. Now, for those that are thinking “the more detail the better,” here’s a version that is akin to some of the animal role plays. It helps to illustrate my point that while some good detail helps your writing, too much is simply too much.

*****

Version 3

Joshua Frederick Branson walked slowly across the grassy knoll, slightly uphill over the crest of the hill. It was late afternoon, 5:47 and 32.46 seconds, according to his Timex digital wristwatch. There was salt-mixed sweat on his forehead likely squeezed from the pores on his forehead, and about a teaspoon of the liquid trickled down into his white and brown frontal lobes. His chocolate brown hair was damp, a little longer than usual since he hadn’t gotten a haircut in about a week. His pale skin felt a little clammy. He’d been sweating like a porcine since the degrees outside were about 104 Fahrenheit. He’d been walking for about three hours, twenty-six minutes, and thirty seconds, give or take a second or two. He was extremely tired, and his throat felt as if it was going to turn into the Sahara Desert in Africa. It had been an extremely long day at college, and Joshua wondered to himself why he’d ever even thought about taking twenty-four credits in a single semester. The blue, green, and white Jansport backpack on his back, each of the twelve pockets bulging with school supplies, felt as if it were filled with thirty tons of red bricks. His shoes…

[CHANGE THE CHANNEL]

You see what I’m talking about? If you write in this manner, you’re going to:

a) probably put some people to sleep, and

b) likely make a killing by selling your stories as sleep-inducers.

No matter what so-called high role-players tell you, very few people can stand to read this stuff. It just gets in the way of the action. Detail is a wonderful thing, but like all good things, you’ve got to control it, and use it in the way that it was meant to be used. You’ve got to make sure that you’re keeping the readers attention.

Now, this is by no means an easy task. Like all arts and skills it requires practice. The best way to get going is to just start and do your best. It will take some time to get to a point where you’re at the level you want to be. But I’m sure that if we all strive to do our best, and constantly push the limits of our skills, we’ll end up making higher role play the standard, and we can start putting together stories that are not only fun to read, but that will help us to enhance our own writing skills. And who knows? Maybe you might be able to transfer those skills over to something like a writing career, and start making money off of what you like to do for fun? Now that would be something, wouldn’t it?