Literature Recommended reads for observing other role play writing styles?

[Guardsman]

Curious if there is any material that shows off how to write better posts. I get a bit tired of using so many 'hes/him/his' or structuring my action sentences in similar fashion with different nouns.

 

[Kazami42]

You could do it by name, put it all in present or past tense.
Or write it all in first person, and use present tense.
Some people hybridize and may use one for a single play, and another for a different one. Then there is those unicorn types that like stuffing all of them at random points of the work.

I don't think it's a good idea asking for RP examples to read through, unless you're into reading whole RPs, or scowling the random creation subforum. That takes longer than is necessary for the subject at hand. Though I suppose you could directly find a user you know and ask them about it.

Personally, I don't view repeating on this medium type as bad. People are going to go into many RPs they're interested in, and end up exhausting any or all styling at some point. Unless you're Into inventing up personal pronouns just get by it. Then I assume it would be limited only according to imagination. IE zur, zurs, zhe. Zis, Zim, ze. Works all the same. Then if you want it exotic, you could probably do broken binary. "0, 01, 101. [He, his, him.] 1, 10, 010." Etc. Not legit but it'd work.

 

[Jace Quin]

Based on your post I'm not really sure what exactly you are struggling with but I tend to agree with Kazami that trawling through others' roleplays is not going to be the most efficient way to learn what you want to know.

Could you post samples of the type of sentence structure you are trying to break out of? Maybe people could offer you re-writes of it as examples of how to do it differently if that would help.

 

[Onmyoji]

I think just general reading should do the trick. Not roleplays, but fiction books and books on writing.
Maybe there is an author you like and you'd like to write in a similar style? Read their books and try to analyze how they structure their sentences, the chapters, introduce the action.
And then apply to roleplaying.

 

[Guardsman]

I think just general reading should do the trick. Not roleplays, but fiction books and books on writing.
Maybe there is an author you like and you'd like to write in a similar style? Read their books and try to analyze how they structure their sentences, the chapters, introduce the action.
And then apply to roleplaying.

Been having some trouble finding a fantasy series to get into. Is there any popular one's that get mentioned often here?

 

[Crayons]

Been having some trouble finding a fantasy series to get into. Is there any popular one's that get mentioned often here?

What kind of thing do you like? How long do you like your books?

I might be able to recommend something but Fantasy is a big genre. So the more I know what you like the easier it will be.

Btw there is nothing wrong with using he/him a lot. They are useful words.

 

[Guardsman]

What kind of thing do you like? How long do you like your books?

I might be able to recommend something but Fantasy is a big genre. So the more I know what you like the easier it will be.

Btw there is nothing wrong with using he/him a lot. They are useful words.

I am not the biggest fan of angsty romance these days. Well made intrigue tends to grip me. The monogatari series was a great read if that says anything about me.
Thank you, I think I just have a peeve of repeating myself and it shows up when I realize how often I use ' he '

 

[Crayons]

I am not the biggest fan of angsty romance these days. Well made intrigue tends to grip me. The monogatari series was a great read if that says anything about me.
Thank you, I think I just have a peeve of repeating myself and it shows up when I realize how often I use ' he '

What is the Monogatari series? What did you like about it?

There are certain words that you will use all the time because they are basic building blocks of the English language. He, she, I, and, but, because, the, a, go, are, etc. And you can use those as much as you like without anyone noticing. If you start repeating rarer words and phrases a lot, like "dilapidated" or "ephemeral" then you can start worrying about it. XD

 

[Rosewood]

You can use referential pronouns if you get tired of using he/she. You can also use your character's name or refer to them in another way. Something like "the first-time rogue climbed up the ladder, feeling like every creak was a gunshot in the dead of night."

Basically try mixing it up based on what makes sense and what you've used recently.

As for reading material, try Matthew Stover's Acts of Caine series. Fair warning: it's brutally gritty and dark, low fantasy. Not in an edgy way but in a Game of Thrones way, only taken further. Rape, torture and a protagonist who is...less than good are all treated as normal and given the setting that makes sense.

You have been warned.

 

[peritwinkle]

Every roleplayer has a different style that can't inherently be right or wrong. Therefore I wouldn't really recommend reading other roleplays for the purpose of shaping your style, but more for inspiration on characters, plot, scenes, etc.

If you're into novella style roleplays (3rd person and detailed) I still recommend reading books or short stories in the language you want to write in since those depict that style most accurately. Particularly for fantasy roleplay inspo: the Grisha series and Six of Crows. The dialogue keeps you on your toes and action scenes are very well written. They stand as reference for almost every scene I've written in the past two years.

 

[Franklin]

Audio books are a great way to soak in the sound of literature. Also, I get my learning from lectures over the internet. I am a nerd. I spend my days listening to lectures about plot structure, vocabulary o or sentence structure. Although, with my wealth of research and experience I am always still learning. We are all still growing. There are great app's out there that help with prompts on how to improve your work. Such as grammarly. I use Audible for my books. The greatest courses for my lectures. Most of these have monthly fee's but they are rather manageable. Those are my suggestions. Role play's you may actually catch some bad habits. I have over the years. It's hard to break them. So these are my suggestions.

"Style" Is something you will develop over time and perception varies from writer to writer. There is no right way to go about it.

 

[Melpomene]

Everyone has a different style and method they go about writing. I can not recommend any one book or roleplay to base yourself off of because they all have different styles.

Truthfully, the best thing you can do is get your feet wet. Find books with writing styles you like, but be wary because novel style writing does not always translate over to rp. Quite frankly, this is a question with no right answer.

I actually don't think books will help you as much as just throwing yourself out there. While reading certainly helped me with my writing (which I am currently doing professionally), I would say just writing helped the most. So go out there, use the wrong verbs, make mistakes GET MESSY!

And have fun you'll write your best when you are having fun.

 

[Gowi]

The biggest problem many new writers have when reading books is trying to replicate an author's style rather than learn from it to make their style better.

 

[Malphaestus]

You do not learn how to write better through manga or light-novels.

Books, and a goal in mind are all you need to become better. That and creativity. The book serves as reference, and creativity for the practice you'll need to expend towards your goal.

If you're lazy, you can always pause at each instance of "he/him/his." English is a superfluously rich language, plenty of other words and tangentially relatable sentences exist for your hands to write.

If you want to be even lazier- cannot bother to read books- then there is always the Creativity section.

 

[Blemmigan]

Everyone has a different style and method they go about writing. I can not recommend any one book or roleplay to base yourself off of because they all have different styles.

Truthfully, the best thing you can do is get your feet wet. Find books with writing styles you like, but be wary because novel style writing does not always translate over to rp. Quite frankly, this is a question with no right answer.

I actually don't think books will help you as much as just throwing yourself out there. While reading certainly helped me with my writing (which I am currently doing professionally), I would say just writing helped the most. So go out there, use the wrong verbs, make mistakes GET MESSY!

And have fun you'll write your best when you are having fun.

I've got to agree with this (though I'm no professional writer). Reading is good, but writing is better.

Write. Write badly. Write nonsense. Write for the sheer enjoyment of it.

I'd say that, in role plays, so long as people can understand what you're describing and they can read it clearly (so that they can reply), then it doesn't matter if the rest of it falls short. Nobody's proud of everything they've ever written, after all. You're going to write some stinkers along the way.

That's all fine! Making mistakes is fine. Trying out new styles is fine. The most important thing is experience, which just means keep going. You'll pick up favourite habits and writing styles and sentence structures as you go.

If you're really worried about certain habits in your writing then you can always ask for feedback on specific pieces. Though, that said, your own writing can often seem repetitive and bland if you've been looking at it for a while. In reality, you can get away with repeating a lot of common words without the reader even noticing: if you stop and read something slowly, you may be surprised how many repetitions you didn't notice. Similarly, trying to avoid those common words by replacing them with something else can just make it sound stilted, because when reading it your mind catches on all the more unusual words that it's expecting to skim over.

Probably badly explained. I guess one example is "said" when writing dialogue. There are all kinds of charts and lists of alternative words (exclaimed, demanded, wondered, shouted, snarled, reasoned, etc etc etc). But if you were to read a dialogue where every reply was accompanied by a different word, it just sounds weird. You can get away with a lot of "said". It's similar for pronouns.
If you write something that seems too boring or repetitive, it can help to come back and read it the next day. Or if you change it, save a copy of the original in a document, or in a thread in your private workshop here. Even if you still don't like it, it might be easier to pick up on the good aspects with a fresh pair of eyes.
It's good to save things you've spent time writing, though. If the piece turns out to be bad, you can learn from it. If it turns out to be good, you can steal things from it for next time.

Also, if you're worried about repeating sentence structures over and over- try writing a few paragraphs where you break some rules. Use short sentences. Mix them with long ones, ones with lots of commas, that have no right to be as long as they are, and are just on the cusp of becoming obnoxious. And start sentences with conjunctions. Anything. Add extra words in order to complicate and slow down the reading of a simple sentence. Remove them to rush it.
Then read back through what you've written and see what those things have done and whether they help to make it feel less monotonous. Or, if it's too much, then try less of it.

All of this is stuff that you'll get a feel for the more you write and the more things that you try. And while copying the styles of other writers will restrict you in the long run if it becomes your go-to, it can be fun to try it for a while, and feel the difference in what it does to your writing.