Writing Effective Starters: An Essay.

rpprompts:

Ever been stuck on how to get two characters to meet? Ever wonder why your starter is liked and forgotten? Ever seen someone else’s interesting starters and thought, man, I wish I could do that?

Here, we’ll teach you how to write a starter in four easy steps.

STEP #1: Engage the Other Character

The first thing you want to do when you want to write a starter is think about the characters in a social environment. Where are they? What are they doing? And most importantly, how is the other person’s character going to get pulled in?

You have to consider the actual contact between characters.Here’s an example of what not to do. My character walked into yours on the sidewalk. If you give me that on my roleplay blog, I will not answer it. No exceptions.

Why? Think about the last time someone bumped into you–in the hallway, in the mall, wherever you were. Did you stop and say ‘hello, my name is [y/n] and I think we should do [activity] and be friends?’ NO. The person probably mumbled a ‘sorry,’ you probably mumbled ’s'okay,’ and you both went off to do whatever.

That is an ineffective starter because, plain and simple, you didn’t pull the character in. You can go ahead and spend as many paragraphs as your heart desires describing the business of the city, what your character’s wearing, the weather, the atmosphere, whatever, but listen up: if you do not actively engage the other character, your starter is ineffective.

So what do you do? There are tons of options. Have your character speak directly to the other character. Have your character do something where someone else is able to jump in. The other writer is trying to put their character with yours, and they’ll work with you on this, just don’t leave everything up to them.

Going back to our example, instead of having someone walk into another character, have them stand in line and compliment the other person’s [insert literally anything here]. They can just make a comment about how long the line is taking. Now the character is engaged.

And other note, I’ve seen starters where one character is talking to a third-party archetype and the expectation is that my character will swoops in like a hawk and steal your character away from whoever they’re talking to. This is–don’t. Don’t ever. No. Bad. Shame on you.

Here’s a quick check-list to make sure your starter will work:

• is my character directly contacting the other character?
• is my character doing something that the other character can appropriately respond to?
• have I made it possible for someone to reply to my starter?

STEP #2. Check Your Writing.

This is a good tip for roleplaying in general, obviously, but it’s even more important for starters, especially if it’s an open, or the first time you’re making a starter for someone. I’ve seen a lot of starters from quality blogs that don’t even make sense because the writing is so inflated. Whether you’re trying to look good, do more than your ability, or think you need to try extra-hard, don’t. Just keep your starters natural. Don’t use words you don’t know. Don’t use compound sentences if you’re not familiar with the sentence structure. Don’t use crack grammar styles because you think it might be right. Stick to what you know, read over it before you hit post, and stay in control of your writing. It’s better to have a beautiful one-line starter than a long para that confuses other writers.

Re-read your starter before you post it and ask yourself these questions:

• is my grammar correct?
• are my words spelled correctly?
• are there any typos?
• are the actions clear?
• does I have any vague sections?
• will others be able to understand what I wrote?

STEP #3. Have an idea for your thread before you make your starter.

There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing a really generic starter with a writer I want to work with, replying, and then not being able to find a suitable plot and floundering into nothingness. There should be a “something happens” section in a thread. In creative writing, this is called “The Trouble.” The sooner you get your character into trouble, the better.

In a nutshell, you should have an idea for your starter planned beforehand. I’ll use an example from my roleplay blog. One of my characters is a librarian. So if my threads are lacking and I want to use her, I might go and make a starter that’s something like,

Eliza sat behind at her desk, trying to focus on a book instead of [insert stressor here]. When someone walked in, she smiled, even though she wished they weren’t there. “Hi, can I help you?” She hoped they said yes, since she currently had a bottle of alcohol hidden on almost every shelf and it’d be really awkward if someone were to find them.

This isn’t the best starter, but it comes with a plot. In fact, it comes with multiple plots. When someone answers this, their character can a) notice my character is really harried and start asking after her, b) think she’s being a jerk and give her attitude, c) answer her question with a ‘yes’ and continue to observe how frazzled the librarian is until something happens, or d) answer with ‘no,’ find a hidden bottle of alcohol, and watch the plot turn into a kaleidoscope of options that the writer can choose from.

Now, let’s say you want to write a one-line starter. This is a more nuanced thing. It’s easy to write “Hey, want to hang out?,” stick a .gif and a #open+rp under it, and wait for replies. I do it all the time. This starter is fine: the grammar/spelling is correct, it engages the other character, it’s good, right?

The problem comes in with the next few exchanges. When someone replies with “sure,” an a .gif, and you’ve kinda just typed up your starter without thinking about it cuz your threads are dead, whatever whatever, you run the risk of either sitting there like ‘uhhh’ or having a dud thread that leads to your character and the other character standing in an undefined white room like 'what do you wanna do’ 'idk what do you wanna do’ until someone just drops it.

So don’t do that.

And some of you will say that you’re just letting the other person use their ideas. To this I say, no. No, no, NO, no no. You can’t just post your generic open hoping that someone else will have an idea. If the other person had an idea, they’d make their own starter.

This ties in with the example I used earlier: don’t have your character walk into someone else’s and expect the other writer to just pull some plot out of their derriere that smells like rainbows and perfection. It doesn’t work that way. You come up with something. You’re the one making the starter. That little thing that says 'source’ next your blog name means it was you. Own it.

If you want to post a one-line starter that says 'hey, wanna hang out?,’ you should have an idea of what your character’s going to do. Whether that’s going to smoke a blunt, getting coffee, or taking a free class in underwater basket-weaving at the local oyster club is up to you.

Ask yourself these questions to avoid these pitfalls:

• where is this thread going?
• does my character have a clear idea of what’s going on?
• is there a plot here?
• am I trying to dump the plot work onto whomever replies?

STEP #4: Have an accessible setting.

If you want to get replies to your open, don’t give someone a setting that their character wouldn’t be in. I cannot count how many times I’ve seen really, really good starters that I can’t reply to because of the setting. It’s nice to make a post like 'omg why are you in my house,’ but, shocker, most people don’t just walk into other people’s houses’. Another big one I see all the time is when writers say something like 'no one’s around.’ If no one’s there, no one’s there.

Now obviously, accessible starters are on a case-by-case basis. Maybe a stranger wouldn’t be in someone’s house, but their significant other would be. Setting is something to play with and enjoy, but you should still keep it in mind. Don’t force other writers to finagle around with their characters to put them in some bizarre place just so they can answer your starter. Put your character somewhere other people will be–instead of in the middle of a forest where no one is, put them just outside of a campsite. Instead of writing 'no one’s around,’ talk about how your character assumed no one was going to be there. Don’t stick your character in random places just for the hell of it and pray to the roleplay gods that someone will bend over backwards to make it work.

By the same token, I see a lot of starters without an established setting. Don’t do that, either. It’s OK not to have everything hammered down in the original starter, but have some idea of where your character is. Your character doesn’t exist in a little white room. Put them somewhere, and put them somewhere that makes sense.

If you need to test your starter’s setting, ask yourself these questions:

• would other characters be here?
• have I cut off other characters?
• do I have an actual setting?
• if no, do I have an implied setting?

So there are your four steps. Engage the other character, have proper grammar/spelling, have a plot idea in mind, and take care of the setting.

Final Remarks. 

Make it easy for other writers to answer your starter. Don’t stump them or expect them to pick up all the work. It’s great if you write a half-page starter with beautiful extended metaphors and 5 Shakespeare references, but it’s all a waste if your character’s on the moon, the reader’s lost in your hyperbole, you didn’t use quotes, and your character’s busy talking to the Queen of England.

Before you click post, ask yourself these questions:

• does this make sense?
• if someone sent this to me, could I answer this?
• if someone sent this to me, would I want to answer this?
• does this look promising?
• am I praying to the roleplay gods that someone replies to this instead of doing some basic footwork to get replies?

And that’s all from me, folks!