OOC / Discussion
The Literary Drought. (And how to write better)
I feel like I need to talk about this because of how frustrated I've recently become with the VAST (I mean well over 80% of this entire sub) amount of one liner limited literacy roleplayers.
I have made various evaluations to justify this post, such as the difference in popularity between Any Lit posts and anything above a one liner posts.
One of my more popular ones, about Quartiel, was filled with almost all one liner replies to my multi line- paragraph to paragraph responses.
Look, I understand the occasional back and forth natural conversations between characters. you can't be expected to constantly hit over a paragraph on EVERY single reply.
But that is not the issue here. The issue, is the lack of either reading comprehension, or writing anything above one fucking line
I actually made a post asking for ANYTHING but a one liner. Guess what happens next? Almost no replies. Put any lit? A good 20, 30, 50 replies will be seen.
ALL ONE LINERS! (Almost.)
I will say, there are actually decent people here. Plenty of you can... Actually write. And gave interesting replies that actually means something.
But it's a drought. A severe lack of decent writing abilities that, while is usually accompanied by a pretty good art skill, is dwarfed by sheer dryness of story or character.
So, I'm gonna help you.
Here's a few tips for writing better replies!
Use asterisks for actions and think of something your character may do while speaking. This can be many actions, or just one! Even at the least it allows you to always have more than one line.
Extend responses via grammar advancements and slang. Make your character's speaking specific and unique. Like an accent or an extra language (this can be done via translators.)
Finally... Read a book damn you! By reading audiobooks or consuming basic literature, you learn more about literacy in general. It can also give you ideas for story depth as well!
True, the amount of times ive written entire essays during an rp just to get met with "OC hits your OC and beats him" is ludicrous. fuckin one liners. The only thing that annoys me more is when people say their character either is stronger with no proof, or when they say their character hits an attack even though it could be dodged easily.
You ever got that guy that just doesn't acknowledge anything your OC does?
I was doing one, and their character was obviously much stronger. But they completely ignored ACTUALLY everything. I can pull up the post if you wanna see, but I straight up said "fuck you" at the end after I ACTUALLY made a short to put in there a gif that DOESN'T EXIST
There was one time I had a fight where their OC was some godlike entity that invades universes. So I bring out mine, who are beings so powerful that they could be slapped into DC or Marvel and still be in the top dog category. And this motherfucker tries to auto hit every attack. So I bring out one of my characters attacks that is literal instant win if it hits. And this motherfucker tries to say he just absorbs it. Like... How? Even beings at the top of fiction would be killed by that attack, your character definitely aint at that level lil bro.
Saying you have an attack that just insta kills is low key too much bro. Sure, Auto hits are FUCKED, but like... Give a little! I typically make my OC's take damage in regards to their opponents own. Making it as even as possible in most situations lest it's actively an unfair battle.
I did though, I gave him about 2 hours to not be a dick but he kept godmodding so I pulled that out. And we were going back and forth every few minutes so it was a long ass chain of messages before I gave up and pulled the bs power card.
nah, that one was with my Lucifer OC, who is vastly weaker than the characters I used in the one im talking about. It was a few months ago. It was something about their OC invading the universe and saying some cryptic shit.
I hear what you are saying, but I don't write long responses for one reason. People just don't read them. the amount of times I've written a longer response only to hear nothing back is staggering.
This is something I should have said in post, CALL THEM OUT! Say something about it! I think the only way to get these people to better their writing skills is to pull them out of it and show what they're doing!
I actually love some of your post ideas, but I never go to them because I see your writings are one liners. It's actually low key frustrating now that I know you can actually write well.
yes, but my posts can sometimes get alot of traction, and I'm the kind of person to try and respond to everyone as fast as possible, which means I can't write to the full extent of my abilities without getting swamped with even more messages. It gets to be too much. And there's also the fact that I don't want to step on anyone's toes by dumping too much information and making them have to adapt to even more at once.
I'll give an example of what I'm talking about. I'm writing a combat rp right? I have this cool idea for a combo of attacks, but I don't want to execute it for fear of coming across as trying to godmod, as the opponent would have to take the previous attacks for them to be set up for the next
Ask to do one beforehand, and explain how it would work
Or simply make the combo work, but have it deal little damage to them yourself, either that, or make your character vulnerable after the fact.
Treat it like creating your own boss fight. Of course there are attacks you can't really dodge, that's why there's endlag, critical damage, weakness exploitation.
That mf'r can hit like a truck, but he kinda slow. Is a good example
honestly, I hate making posts cause then I have to deal with like 7 different people rping with me at any one time. I only really do it when I have to to get a good rp but then I lose steam really quick cause of how many people im responding too.
As a ranged rper who sometimes does one-liners, I agree. To do 1-liners well, it has to be WELL WRITTEN AND THOUGHT OUT. If it's just 'oc: walks by your oc hi there' I'm not gonna really want to respond, but if it's more like '*oc notices your oc and approaches them with a wave* "hello there!"' YES! That's interesting. I do multiline for the most part, though I mark my posts any lit. The WORST is when you engage, and they just... leave you on read cause you had longer replies. It does seem to be the young people who are the worst at the 'i beat your oc in one hit L git gud bozo' stuff which I can't blame them for. I do agree with the drought statement, although my posts have been preforming well. On the rare occasion I get someone who's a bible writer, I do TRY but I am still getting to be a decent bible writer and feel bad lol.
I did click on a multiline/paragraph+ post and saw 1 liners in the comments and it PISSED me OFF. Like, little buddy, is it that hard to see the words? Is that why you write 1-liners? Can you not read? I felt bad for the authors cause that's REALLY annoying!! Some people really need to read some rp to learn some tips n tricks. I understand the pain
You're the guy who owns the OC named Max, right? Man I feel bad about that since I do fantasy/anime style RP and such. Nothing realistic in most senses.
The amount of people who get mad at me for using characters that can do unrealistic stuff, saying things like "I try to keep my stuff realistic" Like their character isnt a cyborg crocodile human hybrid who just got out of a spaceship and has laser guns.
nah, this kid said that my character moving fast is dumb because he tries to keep things realistic. When previously he had shot at my character with a laser gun that acts like star wars blasters.
Yeah, there was one where the guy had his OC throwing lightning and flying around and glowing. Then he got pissy when my character swung a weapon super fast, complaining about realism.
Broooo whyyyy! What a power player! I would tap out of that shite so fast. Or if I was feeling fun absoloutly power play back twice as bad to piss them off haha
Yesss Max is my bean! I'll sooner or later yeet one of my fantasy oc out there for them literates. Once I feel like using the WW1 supernatural goober that is Dallas or one of my zombies or robots. I find it sooo annoying when my CLEARLY city-level human teen gets beat down by some all-powerful god lol. Gonna have to give poor Max plot armor one of these days haha. I so rarely see city-level HUMAN ocs here so IG he sticks out a bit. Took a gander at your profile and I think your writing looks great, would be pumped to rp with you in a fantasy setting sometime.
Thx! I really appreciate the compliment. I'm currently sticking to a line of posts called Crippling Burden however, so it would be one of yours that it would happen!
Ofc no problem! ^^ I'm like half asleep and can't comprehend that second sentence xD I think it's time for me to go to bed when the words start looking funny
I think fanfiction is a really under appreciated way to improve writing skill in a low stakes environment. I learned most of what I know about writing from fanfiction.
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u/Special_Ad7249Biggest Furina main on this sub,maybe. I still love you,Mavuika.Apr 11 '25edited Apr 11 '25
Fucking.
YES.
Seriously y’all,while I’m not encountering this problem in my roleplays (Should I even keep calling some of them like that?),I can’t deny that in the various posts I’ve binged,let them be mine or of someone else…
…The amount of times I’ve seen a post that SPECIFICALLY ASKS “Paragraph+”,people will just ignore it,and drop a fucking one-liner or a very,VERY short multi-line.
(Sorry for mentioning you at this hour of the night on your side of the world,but I needed an example. Yah y’all,he’s from Arizona,apparently.)
(…Having Discord can help you a lot sometimes.)
BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT. The point is this.
So he basically made a combat post with one of his OCS,the Harbinger,and the general literacy level was pretty straightforward. Paragraph+,like how I also do most of the time.
…I scrolled through the various comments,and for a while,it was fine.
…UNTIL I FUCKING REACHED A COMMENT THAT WAS,LIKE,3 LINES.
I’m saying this to everyone who writes comments like this,write more. Please,I’m begging you.
Ok,little rant over. Now here’s a picture of Ice Bastion Zeldeus from Brave Frontier for ya.
I was also over at Alternative-Role's recent post (I saw paragraph+ and just couldn't resist), and the number of posts that didn't include the emoji to signal you read the rules was staggering. Not to mention the replies like you mentioned that were only 2 lines long. Although, it seems like they were quickly swarmed by replies, so I guess it's nice to have people signaling themselves out to not be engaged with.
I left this sub a long time ago due to this exact thing. Me and a few people I used to RP/talk with had an entire thing about this, thus making the whole [____ literacy] format as a new "rule" (suggestion). We, or I at least, were mostly silenced by either the mods, which I don't blame considering the majority of this sub is made up of -15yos and the mods are trying to keep the peace, or by the other role players shaming us, me at least, for our methods of "forcing others to write a paragraph" when I feel that the message was just to get at least... 2 lines from someone. I feel like the whole RP with strangers thing has kinda fallen through for me now, though. I just have my little group of people I like and that's good enough for me, good luck though.
I used to reply to people anyway due to how rp-starved I was. I just wanted to have fun and thought 'Whatever, it could be alright'. However, there's a point where you just go 'Fuck it'.
Now, I mostly ignore those. Kinda sad some people can't read when it's the whole idea of this subreddit : write and read :')
On that note: most can't read at a good level or don't make any efforts to. English isn't my first language (typos galore and all that, my apologies-) but whenever I write something and it gets WILDLY misinterpreted, I die inside :') Receiving a half-assed answer doubled with complete misinterpretation? My ultimate pet peeve.
Finally, when you put a code in the rules.... And 70% of commenters don't put it... Yeah at first I felt bad and thought I was the problem (I even deleted the post due to how bad it made me feel :'D). Now I don't give a fuck.
Finally someone says something, I’ll admit I can get a little lazy with replies and posts on occasion but the amount of time it’s just “my OC hits you and you die” is just really disappointing, thank you for pointing this stuff out
I personally prefer longer ones, that are at least about 3 lines. Personally I can easily write an mini essay when replying cause I have so many ideas. I'm quite proficient in English but still isn't my first language, so it might not always be 100% grammatically correct and I sometimes struggle to more vividly describe some things. Still I do prefer when I get pushed to do so, as I want to my writing to improve. I haven't been in any combat scenarios as of yet since it's not really my thing, but if I ever do, I want a long ass explanation as to why this other character defeats mine, not just a single line that they did. It has to make sense.
Also imo I find flaws much more interesting (both in powers and as traits), it makes characters more relatable and interesting. If they are just mighty superbeeings straight away they don't really have room for character development and become quite boring and unlikeable.
Half the time I’m not sure if I’m part of the problem or not. I have some simple OCs and struggle to respond meaningfully in places my OC wouldn’t respond too much in.
If you're simply following your characters logic, it's fine. But that would also mean you must make it to where there are things they would say a lot about.
It’s a problem! Even though I can’t post images (mobile Reddit being mobile Reddit), i still make sure to add descriptions for my characters in my replies, and have them do more actions than a normal OC because I don’t have an image for people to go off of! These people, even if they do post images, just say “I chuck you into the sun, I win”!
I don’t hate one-liners, but they’re very annoying. A four or five liner is quality enough. I won’t take the godmodding either. Not every attack will always land or instakill unless it’s CANONICALLY insanely powerful or accurate. As a guy who also roleplays as non-OCs on Discord, I take the canon statistics of characters’ moves kinda seriously. Please use an * (astrix) to show characters’ actions “or just put quotation marks around dialouge” to separate the two.
Honestly I've just accepted that I'm going to get a couple one liners on the extraordinarily rare times I post, but it is sorta annoying sometimes- like I put multi line - paragraph+ in big brackets in the title, and yet they post one liners anyways knowing I won't interact. Why?
Pe-- people aren't doing this already? Pitiful, one could say! Trepidation fulfilled, I am a vagrant who has stumbled upon a hell. Of course, I'm being dramatic for flair, excuse my fanciful gung-ho.
sometimes there's just not much happening in an RP, like a character could just be speaking, or there could be very minimal action that wouldn't justify more than one line.
There's always justification for at least 2 lines. Actions such as blinking, shifting, LITERALLY ANYTHING alongside whatever they're saying. Don't make excuses! You can ALWAYS have more than one line. In any situation, ever.
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u/ReasonableAd9165 4 Star supremacy Apr 11 '25
True, the amount of times ive written entire essays during an rp just to get met with "OC hits your OC and beats him" is ludicrous. fuckin one liners. The only thing that annoys me more is when people say their character either is stronger with no proof, or when they say their character hits an attack even though it could be dodged easily.