Quote:
Originally Posted by Orklord
This is really enlightening everyone. I appreciate your thoughtful responses.
I've found writing as a player in 3rd person to be challenging if I don't hint or cheat towards the emotions and motivations of my PC. When you write third person, how do you cover that without explicitly writing their thoughts? Short text examples would be most helpful to me, esp if they're snippets of AP.
|
I find that writing the character's thoughts, in conjunction with some visible facial expressions or body language, to be the best approach to writing in 3rd person. Mind you, this requires trusting the other players you're playing with not to metagame, but I can't recall ever having that problem since I've started playing PBP.
The problem with holding all your cards close to your chest (IE. keeping your characters' thoughts private) is that all intra-party development gets regulated to visual and verbal cues. This works in real life, where we can actually
see and
hear these cues, but in text, it loses a lot of its nuance.
It's also helpful for helping flesh out pre-existing character relationships, in-game, since the players don't have the benefit of having first-hand knowledge of the characters' past relationship with one another. For example, I recently began playing in a Star Wars game where all the PCs are adopted siblings; this makes for a cohesive character party, but reading my fellow PCs' backgrounds and personality profiles doesn't give me the same knowledge about those characters as my own character would have, having actually known them for X number of years. So, we end up writing out things in our narrative that helps flesh out the relationships in-game, to make up for our personal deficiencies.
Quote:
With the addition of Ira to the room, Khlignar spoke up as he finally wrapped up the last of the receipts. "I know we're not busy, but that doesn't mean you all can just loaf around the bar."
He placed the paperwork into the drawer, stacking it neatly in the back corner, making room for new receipts for the next hour of the shift. "Adhri, go see if you can cool down Dorn before he breaks something. Z, I know we have that silly little camera running, but we still need perimeter walks to clear out the trash. Grav, Tendal, you can go with him. And while you're out there, see if there's any chance we can set a string of cameras around the building; preferably hidden, so we don't have to worry about them getting stolen."
Even though he was among the youngest in their little family, Khlignar had an air of authority about him when he was on shift. Whether it was an entitlement due to his position as accountant, or something more innate in his character, he often brooked no argument. Of course, that didn't mean his siblings always did what he said, but it was an exercise they had grown accustomed to.
Khlignar leaned his elbows on the bar and looked at Ira. "And what is it that brings you down to grace the common folk with your presence?" The Mon Cal's perceptive, fishy eyes bored through the crippled girl. He knew the contempt she held firmly in her mind, from her actions to the look on her face, even if he didn't know the exact thoughts that drove them.
|
Quote:
...
Then Khlignar puts the siblings to work and Ira has to restrain herself not to smile. Not that the mon cal's snide remark didn't annoy her but secretly, she was glad that he did such a good job at keeping her 'brothers and sisters' busy. After all, she wasn't their nanny and Khlignar had his way with them, something that Ira notably had not. At least not without creating considerably more friction. Regardless, Ira was inclined to reply in kind and so she says: "To make sure you say what you just said." The girl smiles at her fish headed brother and brings her chair around. It doesn't fit behind the bar, so she makes do with positioning it next to it on the empty end. "We don't have an infinite chest of cameras though that we could draw from to get a perimeter set up around the building." She adds then, getting down to business. "It is eerily silent outside though." Ira confirms, suspicion in her voice. "Did you hear anything from the patrons?"
|
The first post is one made by me early in the game. Having already indicated earlier that my character handles the bar's accounting, this post builds on that by giving all the players the idea that my character feels he has the right (and the duty) to keep his siblings productive while they're on-shift, even if his attempts to assert himself are met with much eye-rolling. Additionally, it's noted that his relationship with Ira is slightly antagonistic.
The followup post is only a portion of the post created by Ira's player (I clipped the top part of the post, because it was irrelevant to this example), but this section that I've quoted shows the player building upon both narrative tenants set forth in my previous post.
This sort of narrative back-and-forth creates subtext behind characters' actions that is difficult to replicate when you only work with the typical verbal and visual cues. It also makes it a lot easier to play silent or brooding characters without resorting to clipped, uninformative posts.
... Ok, this post has gone on for a lot longer than I'd originally intended lol. I need to learn to shorten my thoughts a bit, I think xD