tfcrp roleplaying tips - making your responses longer hello people! here's a little project that will hopefully help you with your writing and roleplaying skills. now, i say that this is for tfcrp, but it could easily be modified to fit almost any roleplay. now, the title is misleading. you don't just want to make your responses longer, you also want to make them more meaningful and just become more enjoyable to rp with in general. there are billions of thing i could touch on-- character personality, writing relationships, grammar rules, and writing style being a few of these-- but that would take me hours and there are so many online guides to all of these things. this project is going to be specific to lengthening and making the content of your rp responses more thoughtful and interesting. i find that there are four main ways to add to the non-dialogue part of your responses. (excluding dialogue tags because i could talk about those too for hours) 1. external scenery this is an easy one. external scenery is when you would describe the area around your cat. it's not a particularly dynamic type of response, but it's good for starters or when you just typed a long piece of dialogue and don't want to make something actually happen. this would be describing the trees, the moonlight, or the weather. for example, "the trees swayed in the leaf-fall breeze, crisp air floating across the forest with the zing of leafbare on it. the sunset colored leaves looked almost out of place on the barren brown of the forest floor. their crackling was all that could be heard as he padded through the woods. yes, it was a good day for walking." see, not that complicated. just describing the world around your cat in sensory words. 2. external action this is a little more complicated, but all the more useful in a response. this would be making something happen to your cat, from the outside. maybe a fox attacks, or they hear an odd noise in the trees. maybe a shape appears on the moor, or a thunderstorm starts to roll in. whatever it is, you want this to be something the other person can take and use to have an actual event happen. it's also really useful because it keep the rp going-- no one want to talk for 200 comments, unless it's a really interesting conversation. this helps avoid generic conversation rps that ultimately go nowhere. 3. internal thoughts this is pretty self-explanatory. what is your cat thinking about? are they sizing up a potential enemy? ruminating on their last conversation? getting a wave of nostalgia? something to note for this is that it shouldn't ever just be alone in //thought//. instead, try "he studied her expression, reminded peculiarly of the last conversation he had with [other cat]. the two were utterly different, but something in the way they held themselves reminded him." or "he wondered if this cat knew how to fight, or if they wanted to. he wasn't really in the mood, but he would defend his territory, if necessary." this is useful to give explanation behind character's words or actions. 4. internal movement this would be when your character is doing something-- shifting their body position, standing up, or changing their expression. when adding these, you want to be descriptive and interesting. don't just say "he sat down". give me something to think about and remark on-- and remember that rping is all about giving the other person freedom to play off of your response. there's not much a character could say to "he sat down", but if i were to write, "he shifted back on his haunches, relaxing into a sitting position that radiated lazy arrogance. his fluffy tail curled unconsciously around his forepaws, hiding the slight scarring there." can you think of a response to that alone? then it works. it also gives some context, because i could also say, "he sat back reluctantly, tension still coiled in his body like a predator-- ready to strike at one wrong move from the other cat." those two responses give totally different visuals and ideas. this has gotten too long. um, that's it! there's my medicore advice! feel free to ask questions!
take everything here with a grain of salt. also, a ton of this is opinion. there are also so many other ways to develop as a rper, so don't feel like the options i give are the only ones! not proofread at all lmao expect typos. i wrote this in like 15 minutes, so it's not that good. also combine these things, don't just do one of them. and add dialogue, please. i'm just talking about non-dialogue stuff because i see a lot of short responses that don't have any non-dialogue things.
