Viewpoint What are your "Cardinal Sins" of Writing?

[BakaTheIdiot]

A lot of us like to joke about things that turn us off to a Roleplay, but after reading what I consider to be one of the most monstrously bad short stories I've ever laid eyes on (it was for a class and I won't get too far into it for privacy reasons), I just need to know: what are the big no-no's in writing for you? Crimes so heinous that it will permanently taint your remaining reading for the duration of that piece? Mistakes or decisions so egregious that you simply have to stop? So long as you can back it up, everything is valid here.

My cardinal sins of writing, in no particular order:

1. Comic Sans
I'm willing to let a lot of writing choices slide in my life, but come on, aside from it being just ugly, it's super unprofessional. There's a reason RPN does not condone this heinous font.

2. Spacing out every single word in a sentence with a newline.
I was very tempted to structure it as described for a joke. But I couldn't stand it. It takes so much longer to read and has no impact whatsoever.

3. A lack of punctuation altogether.
I get it, we all miss a period here and there. It happens. But if you're giving me multiple pages of writing to read and not a single dialogue piece has any punctuation in it at all we've got a problem.

4. Willfully ignoring the plot so that you can pursue your own.
Some people want to do their own thing, and sometimes that can be really interesting and advance the goals of the party: it can be really engaging and exciting to take a trip through the mind of a character within a group. Every so often though, someone will make it their entire agenda to sprawl away from the plot at every turn, and make every single side adventure be about their character in the process. Such instances are especially common in Dungeons and Dragons, in my experience, but it can and does happen within group roleplays too - and it is a very quick tool to kill my involvement with it.

And that's more or less it. Curious to see what other people come up with.

 

[Murdergurl]

Barring obvious stuff like bad punctuation and piss-poor syntax, the biggest cardinal sin of roleplay for me is when the other person / or in the case of groups, the other players / take the previous post they are responding to and recap the whole thing and add their response at the end. It's irritating to me, because I feel like the other person is trying to avoid putting in effort, or is just being lazy... or maybe they bit off more than they could chew? But essentially, their contribution is minimal, and they are just padding out their post with a recap of what the other person just wrote.

Also, because I'm 99% a Group RP participator, when a player tries to sideline the roleplay story with their own character's personal agenda. Going off on a tangent and taking away from the central premise, even having the GM addressing it in the OOCC and causing delay and distraction. It's hard enough to keep these RPs going on their own without people selfishly sabotaging them because they want to bask in the spotlight.

Now, a good GM will give the PCs their due time and attention. But seeing people constantly hog the narrative is frustrating to no end.

 

[Jannah]

In no particular order:

-Lack of quotations around dialogue. I have even read novels that have done this, presumably as a stylistic choice, but it made them quite difficult to follow at times. Similarly it would drive me up the wall to see this done in RP's.

-Purple prose. Don't get me wrong here. I enjoy description and detail. However, if I have to go to the dictionary for every second word then the writer is probably doing something wrong. Reading should not become a burden. Then again, my style of writing is usually rather concise and to the point so this may very well be a me issue.

-Trying to make your own character the centre of attention to the expense of everyone else's. This is pretty self-explanatory. As RP is a group effort all characters should be able to share the spotlight. I once had a writing partner like this who was pretty insistent on making her characters more powerful and influential than everyone else's. It annoyed me, extremely.

-Trying to force romance into a story where it simply doesn't belong. Yes, I get that romance is a popular genre and theme to write about. I'm a sucker for it myself. However, some stories just work out better without it - not every story needs to have romance. Again, this is probably a me issue and personal preference.

 

[hopenalive]

Normally I don't have any big issues but I'll put my few.

I always talk to a person ooc before I roleplay. It lets me get a feel for them. If you do this for a while you will get. 'the feeling'. When you know a partner just isn't for you. (Not saying your bad I have issues with writing myself. Just not for me.) Not really a sin but I think you know the feeling. And ignored it but regretted doing that to.

One liners. Now this is an iffy one. Sometimes I'm okay with it. Especially if you warn me. Normally I'll still rp but just give you lackluster responses and you won't be high priority. But I also understand that roleplaying with someone a lot better then you does in fact teach you. It taught me. Like you can find a hundred mistakes just in this text alone. But before all my good lit rper friends you could find a thousand.

When you take rp things out of rp. I will shank you for this. No I don't want to date you. No you don't have a crush on me you have a crush on my oc.

Also having issues with someone's ref it's a ref. Leave it be. I hate when ppl tell me they don't want to rp cuz they dislike my ref.

 

[Serenata]

No punctuation, poor grammar, and spelling. I will definitely agree with the topic starter. Mistakes happen and that's okay. What is not is if there's no period at the end of sentences or dialogue has no type of quotes or words are commonly misspelled. It just takes me out of it completely.

Dropping in topics or themes that clearly push the boundaries of comfort without discussing them beforehand to see whether, I don't know, someone is comfortable writing about it? I'm going to give an example. Racism.

No description of what I'm reading. Bland writing. If I can't get an image of the character or scene set up, that's it.

 

[Jannah]

No punctuation, poor grammar, and spelling. I will definitely agree with the topic starter. Mistakes happen and that's okay. What is not is if there's no period at the end of sentences or dialogue has no type of quotes or words are commonly misspelled. It just takes me out of it completely.

Dropping in topics or themes that clearly push the boundaries of comfort without discussing them beforehand to see whether, I don't know, someone is comfortable writing about it? I'm going to give an example. Racism.

No description of what I'm reading. Bland writing. If I can't get an image of the character or scene set up, that's it.

Yep. As someone who actually enjoys exploring sensitive themes like that in writing (as I believe it's a safe medium to do so) I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to discuss it beforehand. Same with anything, really, that could potentially be triggering. I have learned this from experience too. Like, I had a partner once who was not comfortable with rape being mentioned, like at all. She forgot to inform me beforehand and I didn't ask if she had any triggers. I was writing a character of mine who did have these triggering themes in her backstory. These came up in a post and then my partner just instantly bailed. I felt so bad, but it was a learning experience for us both.

Anyway, enough of a tangent from me. To add to my original post I'll say poor spelling/grammar. I get that not everyone is a native English speaker, but there's tools online to proofread before submitting. I'm not even expecting anything perfect either, just something legible and makes sense. I'm actually a pretty laidback RP partner.

 

[nerdy tangents]

Not sure how to describe it other then randomized characters. Where it feels like the person has a check list of cliche tropes for their characters, they throw those tropes into a random number generator, and your reading the result.

To the extent that the traits straight up contradict each other and it’s clear the person didn’t put any thought into the character at all.

That’s a hard no and I’m leaving.

Also people naming their characters things that aren’t real human names. I’m sorry Carrot is not a person name. I don’t care how quirky you want the character to be use some common sense.

Lastly this is less of a writing issue and more of a player issue but folks who don’t seem to want to roleplay so much as they want you to tell them a story. So their just like “uh uh what happens next.” to everything. Like your supposed to be telling me. I’m not sharing a fanfic one post a time.

 

[Serenata]

Yep. As someone who actually enjoys exploring sensitive themes like that in writing (as I believe it's a safe medium to do so) I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to discuss it beforehand. Same with anything, really, that could potentially be triggering. I have learned this from experience too. Like, I had a partner once who was not comfortable with rape being mentioned, like at all. She forgot to inform me beforehand and I didn't ask if she had any triggers. I was writing a character of mine who did have these triggering themes in her backstory. These came up in a post and then my partner just instantly bailed. I felt so bad, but it was a learning experience for us both.

Anyway, enough of a tangent from me. To add to my original post I'll say poor spelling/grammar. I get that not everyone is a native English speaker, but there's tools online to proofread before submitting. I'm not even expecting anything perfect either, just something legible and makes sense. I'm actually a pretty laidback RP partner.

You do? That's interesting. I've met, as mentioned somewhat above, people that have thrown in subjects like racism simply for the hell of it. To each their own I guess. Not my thing. Never will be.

 

[hopenalive]

Not sure how to describe it other then randomized characters. Where it feels like the person has a check list of cliche tropes for their characters, they throw those tropes into a random number generator, and your reading the result.

To the extent that the traits straight up contradict each other and it’s clear the person didn’t put any thought into the character at all.

That’s a hard no and I’m leaving.

Also people naming their characters things that aren’t real human names. I’m sorry Carrot is not a person name. I don’t care how quirky you want the character to be use some common sense.

Lastly this is less of a writing issue and more of a player issue but folks who don’t seem to want to roleplay so much as they want you to tell them a story. So their just like “uh uh what happens next.” to everything. Like your supposed to be telling me. I’m not sharing a fanfic one post a time.

I don't agree with the name thing. Their are irl people named crap like apple.

Even if this doesn't affect me. (Her name is Rose Ann lovely.) I feel like that can be unfair and shouldn't be a cardinal sin, but rather a turn off that may add up to why you ghosted.

But in the end it's you opinion and this is just how I personally feel.

 

[nerdy tangents]

I don't agree with the name thing. Their are irl people named crap like apple.

Even if this doesn't affect me. (Her name is Rose Ann lovely.) I feel like that can be unfair and shouldn't be a cardinal sin, but rather a turn off that may add up to why you ghosted.

But in the end it's you opinion and this is just how I personally feel.

I mean if someone sincerely told you their characters name was Carrot Linguine you wouldn’t call them on their bullshit?

You might as well say your characters name is Kal-El Superman.

Unless your in a very specific setting those are nonsense words. It doesn’t matter if technically they could realistically be put on a birth certificate.

I’m not writing with someone who is so desperate to make their character stand out they toss random words together.

For the exact same reason that I’m not writing with someone who just picked traits at random to make up their character sheet.

It shows a lack of forethought in writing that is an automatic no for me.

 

[Jannah]

You do? That's interesting. I've met, as mentioned somewhat above, people that have thrown in subjects like racism simply for the hell of it. To each their own I guess. Not my thing. Never will be.

Yea, I try to be understanding and respectful of people's comfort levels. Anyway, I have a tendency to go on tangents so maybe it wasn't my place to even respond to your take on this. It's just a bad habit of mine that if I have something to say then I need to say it. Apologies if I offended you here.

 

[Serenata]

Yea, I try to be understanding and respectful of people's comfort levels. Anyway, I have a tendency to go on tangents so maybe it wasn't my place to even respond to your take on this. It's just a bad habit of mine that if I have something to say then I need to say it. Apologies if I offended you here.

No need to apologize, I wasn't offended. I was surprised but you actually explained how/why you write stories with those themes. Not only that, you make sure to go over it with potential partners to see about their comfort.

 

[Jannah]

No need to apologize, I wasn't offended. I was surprised but you actually explained how/why you write stories with those themes. Not only that, you make sure to go over it with potential partners to see about their comfort.

Alright. Tone is just sometimes difficult to read through text.

 

[hopenalive]

I mean if someone sincerely told you their characters name was Carrot Linguine you wouldn’t call them on their bullshit?

You might as well say your characters name is Kal-El Superman.

Unless your in a very specific setting those are nonsense words. It doesn’t matter if technically they could realistically be put on a birth certificate.

I’m not writing with someone who is so desperate to make their character stand out they toss random words together.

For the exact same reason that I’m not writing with someone who just picked traits at random to make up their character sheet.

It shows a lack of forethought in writing that is an automatic no for me.

I still don't agree. A name is a name, I have seen well written characters with weird name like Irish jaguar. It was a human yes, not an Irish jaguar.

So yeah, I would realistically rp with carrot linguine.

Most of my oc names are weird.


Thisus ekanish, Is one of them. That's just two coughed out strings of letters.

Brazinwine, His name was stuff I just threw together.


I mean- at first wasn't all names just some crap someone said had meaning at some point?

I get that you don't like well thought out characters. But I think a funky name and an unoriginal character should be separate.

But they all have story's. (least mine do.) Brazinwine's wife died. But he always had this love child science project of his so he used her eggs to aid that project resulting in Ezra Hinton creating the start to my whole story.

 

[Lorsh]

Thisus ekanish, Is one of them. That's just two coughed out strings of letters.

Brazinwine, His name was stuff I just threw together.

i like these, could u spit out more and PM me

 

[nerdy tangents]

But they all have story's. (least mine do.)

That is the point I was making. They don't have a story. The people who make these characters will freely admit they pick random words/traits out of a hat. There is no thought put into it. There is no deeper meaning. It is literally "I had ten minutes of free time so I slapped down a series of words and called it a day."

I know because the first thing I ask these people is "oh that's cool why did you pick the name Carrot? Is it cuz they have red hair?" And they will literally say "oh I didn't think of that, we'll go with that reason." Like I'm basically inventing backstory for their character because they couldn't be bothered to do it themselves.

THAT is why it's a cardinal sin and not a pet peeve. I'm not here to write out your character for you. If you can't be bothered to put any thought into it then we're done.

 

[hopenalive]

That is the point I was making. They don't have a story. The people who make these characters will freely admit they pick random words/traits out of a hat. There is no thought put into it. There is no deeper meaning. It is literally "I had ten minutes of free time so I slapped down a series of words and called it a day."

I know because the first thing I ask these people is "oh that's cool why did you pick the name Carrot? Is it cuz they have red hair?" And they will literally say "oh I didn't think of that, we'll go with that reason." Like I'm basically inventing backstory for their character because they couldn't be bothered to do it themselves.

THAT is why it's a cardinal sin and not a pet peeve. I'm not here to write out your character for you. If you can't be bothered to put any thought into it then we're done.

Like I said story and name should be separate.

 

[Serenata]

I mean if someone sincerely told you their characters name was Carrot Linguine you wouldn’t call them on their bullshit?

Carrot Linguine...

 

[nerdy tangents]

Carrot Linguine...

It was so ridiculous. It wasn't even a fantasy roleplay he was literally supposed to be an Italian kid moving to Illinois for the plot. Furthermore it wasn't like everyone in the family had weird names. His parents had ordinary names like Phillip and Susan. It was very clearly they wanted their particular character to have some weird name and just picked a random vegetable.

 

[Serenata]

It was so ridiculous. It wasn't even a fantasy roleplay he was literally supposed to be an Italian kid moving to Illinois for the plot. Furthermore it wasn't like everyone in the family had weird names. His parents had ordinary names like Phillip and Susan. It was very clearly they wanted their particular character to have some weird name and just picked a random vegetable.

I thought you were using that as an example. Wow. Didn't think someone would actually do that. Yeah, I'd nope out of that too.

 

[Lorsh]

The stupidest name I ever came up with for a character was Susan Fugit (few-git).

 

[nerdy tangents]

I thought you were using that as an example. Wow. Didn't think someone would actually do that. Yeah, I'd nope out of that too.

Well Linguine isn't the actual last name, they just smooshed some letter together. But yeah the first name was literally Carrot.

 

[Jannah]

I've seen some bizarre names, yes, but for the most part the ones I've seen have fit the setting (and no, I don't mean certain ethnic names that people outside of that ethnicity would think of as weird, but names in English that are just random words thrown together).

 

[GojiBean]

Hi all.

Let's try to keep things on topic, please.

This thread was created around the question of what our personal opinions of "cardinal sins of writing" are.

Turning this into a conversation about other things unrelated to that central question is effectively the same thing as thread hijacking, which is bad roleplayer etiquette.

If you want to turn this into a discussion between you and someone else directly about unrelated material, please take it to DM's instead.

Thank you!

 

[Omnitheon]

The biggest no-no in writing is to not have a plot - or rather, to confuse setting up the plot for the plot itself. It's the #1 way to waste your reader's time. Of course in writing, you need to do some scene-building, but readers aren't here to observe the scene, they're here to see the conflict unfold.
Remember: Plot is when something happens but is met with an obstacle, not the place where the obstacle appears.