4. POSTING

4.1 Posting Mechanics

All posts should be sent to your unit's email mailing list, the WeaversFiction@yahoogroups.com, and the archiving address . If you can't post directly to the newsgroup, ask your unit admin to forward it for you in an NRPG at the bottom of your post. Many people who don't play the game follow these stories on the newsgroup. Always send posts to everyone on the mailing list, even if it has been sent for pre-approval to some people on the list, so that-- 1) the person will know it actually got posted, 2) the person has that post in the right order of posting (some people delete posts for approval after responding to them to avoid confusion), 3) there's a complete mailing list so people don't get confused about who got it, 4) there's a complete mailing list so people replying to the post with comments, without checking the headers, have their replies going to everyone, 5) the admin can check the headers and make sure you've gotten the whole list. **Note: many of the writing groups are now using a mailing list such as Yahoogroups to manage the roster, so you may only need to post directly to the mailing list, as that will also contain the archiving email address.**

Be sure to title your posts. Subject headers should begin with [DL-?], where '?' is the letter identifier of the Warren you're writing for. This is VERY important, since many players are on more than one mailing list. Follow the identifier with the title of your post. Example: [DL-K] A Day for Damnation

Non-roleplaying emails should have '[DL-?] NRPG' at the front of the title. Don't post non-roleplaying posts to the newsgroup, WeaversFiction Yahoogroup, or send them to the archive address. If you are commenting about a post, be sure to remove the newsgroup, WeaversFiction, and archive address from the list of recipients.

If you write a plot involving a character from another play unit, it is best to send it to them as well and include an NRPG at the *top* of the post explaining why they are receiving this post. The top is much preferable to the bottom or, worst yet, the middle of the post, as some people will not scan a post all the way to the bottom to determine if it applies to them.

If a plot in one unit involves another unit at great length, it is best to include that other unit in your header (i.e. a Daere post involving several characters at Telnor should be titled [DL-D/T] not just [DL-D]). If you have the mailing list for the other unit, send it to them. If not, ask the warren administrator to bounce it to the other list.

Cross-unit posts should *only* include the plot applicable to both units. If there is a great deal going on in your post that doesn't involve the other unit, either cut the post into two posts-- one with the plot for just your unit and one with the plot involving both-- or just send the other unit the applicable sections in a separate post. There is nothing more annoying than reading through a 15k post from another unit to find the 2 paragraphs that apply to your unit.

Though the archivist is on ALL mailing lists for archiving purposes, she does NOT read all posts. If you want to tell her something or ask a question, don't put it in NRPGs in the middle or bottom of posts. She won't see them. Put an NRPG at the *VERY TOP* of your post, calling for her attention.

Identify the timeframe the events are happening within your post. This can be done one of two ways:

1. Listing it at the top of the post or section (preferable). Example: [Day 1, Ophelia's office, after breakfast]
2. Including it as part of the story. Example: "After breakfast, he headed to Ophelia's office..."

Always sign your posts with your character name *and* real name. This is especially important when a unit first starts out so that people can place players with characters more readily. Likewise, character bios should always include the player name and email address so when they get collected into a biofile, they are all readily available.

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4.2 Layout rules:

Your line-lengths should be set to 75 characters or less. If you have longer lines, it makes your posts hard to read

Use standard ASCII if at all possible. Word-processor code, HTML, control characters and the like can make a post nearly unreadable.

Don't use tabs. Different systems assign a different number of spaces to tabs. It's better to use spaces.

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4.3 Rules and Etiquette

Interactive writing is a free-form gaming environment, but there are a few rules and guidelines to gameplay. Take these to heart:

Never kill, maim, make major life-changes (like having them become parents) in, or create backhistory for other people's characters-- PC and secondary-- without their permission.

Don't write someone else's character doing, saying or thinking something completely out of character without reason, and permission.

Don't write other players' characters' thoughts, human-dragon conversations, or private conversations to which your character is not privvy unless you know the character well *and* it forwards the storyline. Likewise, do not express other players' characters' opinions unless you KNOW that is that character's opinion.

Respect other people's storylines with their characters. If they write that their character's arm is broken and may never work right again, don't write in your post that it was simply a sprain or a simple fracture. Likewise, do not start a sexual relationship with another player's character without permission. This includes not only long-term relationships, but also one-night stands, mating flights, seductions, and rapes. These are sensitive topics. Treat them with respect.

Be careful of interrupting a 'tag' if the event is a private climactic event between two characters-- interrupting such a tag may show disrespect for others' storylines.

There are many topics which can make for strong and compelling storylines. Some of these are somewhat adult in nature-- sexual relationships, rape, assault-- or are on sensitive topics-- prejudice, religion, incest, alternate sexualities. Please be aware that there may be writers in your unit who are dealing or have had to deal with these topics and may be disturbed by their inclusion in an escapist past-time. Please also be aware that there may be minors reading your posts. We are not suggesting that these topics never be dealt with, but that they be treated with respect, both for the subject matter and your fellow players. Try to avoid graphic depictions of sex or violence unless it is truly needed for the plot of your post. Some units may have been specifically created or set aside for minors or the admins have stated that graphic posts are not appropriate. Posts to these units should not, under any circumstance, contain graphic materials. If in doubt about your unit's policies or the appropriateness of the post you are writing, check with your admin before posting.

Legal and policy decisions at the warren that should be made by admin characters should be written by the admin, not anyone else.

Don't intentionally cross-post someone. If you had a different idea or you think they crossposted something from earlier, work it out in email, not in a post.

Don't play lone hero. Allow others to get into the action.

Interact with the other PCs. This is interactive fiction, after all. If in your last post your character didn't interact at all with the other PCs, or interacted only briefly, you should probably have him/her interacting with the other PCs in this one -- unless he/she is stranded on a desert island alone or with only NPCs or something. And please remember to interact with *different* PCs. Yes, the romance between George and Martha is fun to write, but you need to be interacting with Joe and Bill and Bob, too.

If you are going to be gone for a long period of time, warn your fellow players and admin if possible. You should post at least once a month, preferably more often. You may be written out after one month of inactivity. Your warren administrator should warn you first.

Always wait *at least* a week for others to respond to your post before following up your own post. It is generally not good etiquette to write a post directly following your own, however, if the person you have 'tagged' is unable to respond, or has not responded in a reasonable time frame (and you have tried to contact that person via email) then it is permissible to do so.

If someone is needing you to post before they can proceed with their storyline, do so as soon as possible. If there is some reason you can't post and there is a thread dangling waiting for you to pick up, write and inform the involved player(s) as soon as possible.

Helpful suggestions and questions are allowed. Insults are not. Highly intellectual insults, such as calling someone anal-retentive or microcephalic or stating their characters are 2-dimensional, etc. are still insults. Take everything with a grain of salt. You can't see facial expressions online, so you can miss those subtle visual cues that tell you someone is joking, saying something tongue-in-cheek or making an innocent remark. Always assume the best.

What is written always has precedence over something you had planned to write but hadn't written yet. Because of this, it is best not to plan ahead too much, or if you do, not to get upset if those plans get waylaid by someone else's post.

Sometimes a crosspost occurs or someone's character is badly miswritten and the admin or affected player will ask that people not post to that thread until it can be worked out. Not honouring such requests may exacerbate the problem. Please be patient.

Violation of these guidelines can produce a spectrum of responses:

Mild violations or first offenses usually produce a polite reminder, and if it's a writing problem, the problem will be written around without alteration to the "offending" post. Don't take this too hard. It happens to everyone. We're not out to get you.

Serious violation will produce a public reprimand, and your post may have to be rewritten, retracted, or written around.

Chronic serious violations can result in the player being asked to leave the game.

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4.4 Basic grammar/writing guidelines:

Always put a . ? or ! at the end of each sentence, as appropriate. This includes the last sentence in a paragraph and sentences in quotes or < >.

Always use quotation marks or some other indication of speech and mental speech. The standard in DL, though there is a lot of variance, is to use " " for spoken speech and < > for mental communications. Be sure to use these at the beginning and end of the quote.

Each speaker should have his/her own paragraph.
Not:

"I don't know," he said. "Yes, you do," she replied.

But:

"I don't know," he said.
"Yes, you do," she replied.

This applies to both spoken and mental speech.

A subject change or change in location or mood should probably be accompanied by a new paragraph. Changes in location may also be accompanied by a "Time" indicator (see above).

Either leave a blank line between paragraphs or indent each new paragraph. Or do both. Stay consistent within the post.

If you have something like "he said" after a quoted statement, put a , (comma) inside the final quote mark and a period at the end. If the quote is a question or exclamation, put the ? or ! inside the final quote mark.
Not:

"I came as soon as I could" he said.
"I came as soon as I could." He said.
"What are you doing" he asked?
"What are you doing," he asked?
"I can't stand it anymore" he said!
"I can't stand it anymore," he said!

But:

"I came as soon as I could," he said.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I can't stand it anymore!" he said.

If you have something like "he said" before a quoted statement, put a , after the "he said," and your final . ? or ! inside the final quote.
Not:

"He said "I came as soon as I could".

But:

He said, "I came as soon as I could."

Be sure to put an occasional referent to who is speaking in long dialogues. Each quote doesn't necessarily need one, but if you go too long a reader can lose track of who is speaking. As well as the useful "he said/asked," you can also just describe the person doing something (He tilted his head. "I don't understand.") or use another speaker's name in the quote ("Darlea, I value your opinion.").

Use third person (he/she) not first person (I). Your character is not you. There are occasions where a post is made more powerful by ignoring this guideline, but care must be taken as first person can sound very stilted.

It's generally best to use past tense. Occasional use of present tense for one post can make it very powerful, but this gets old quickly. Don't switch tenses a lot in a post. This gets confusing.

Just because you use third person doesn't mean you need to write from an omniscient perspective. In general, your writing will be more powerful if you get into your character's head and describe what happens through their senses and thoughts.
Consider:

Reolden woke up in a strange bed when Trendal nudged him awake.

versus:

Something was nudging him. Reolden rolled over, nearly falling out of the bed that was much narrower than the one he was used to. His muscles protested after his night on the much harder matress. He put out his hand and met a warm, leathery surface. Then he remembered. Trendal.

This requires some thought. For instance, you may consider someone who is 20 to be a young woman. But, if your character is 15, he probably won't think of that 20-year-old as a 'young woman'. Likewise, *you* may know something about another character that your *character* doesn't know. It can be difficult to write your character doing something that would be inadvisable if they knew this about the other character, but you need to think about what they would naturally do given the information they have. And, if your character doesn't know Lori is an assassin, she should probably not be described so in your post, even just in passing-- not, "The assassin smiled up at him," but, "The pretty girl smiled up at him."

If you know you're a horrendous speller, run a spell-checker or have a friend that spells well read through your post before you post it, if possible. Watch for homonyms (words that are spelled differently, but sound the same)! These can produce some hilarious results if you aren't careful and ruin an otherwise serious post.

Some common homonyms and writing errors to watch out for:

Then (time indicator) vs. Than (comparative)

To (preposition, "I went to the store.") vs. too (adverb or "also"-- "This is too much," "I want to come, too.")

Have (verb) vs. Of (preposition). Most of the time, this mistake occurs after 'could' or 'should'. It's "Could have" or "Should've" not "Could of."

There (place, as opposed to Here) vs. Their (belonging to them) vs. They're (They are)

Its (belonging to it) vs. It's (It is)

Here (place, as opposed to There) vs. Hear (something you do with your ears)

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4.5 Style Guide

Posting style can be usefully discussed using the following three axes:

Re-active vs. Hyper-active

Solitary vs. Inter-active

Plot-driven vs. Character-driven

In each of these, the aim is for moderation.

While some posts will, out of necessity, need to be weighted one way or the other on any of the three axes, over the course of play, posts should even out. Persistant imbalance will prove problematic for the writer and unit alike.

Re-active Vs. Hyper-active
A re-active post is one that simply responds to a post before it, usually in a plain and unimaginative manner. It doesn't develop the plot or the character. It doesn't add to the situation or take anything away. It is simply there - an innocuous piece of prose that says nothing, demands nothing, and leads nowhere. Especially notable in this are posts that are nothing but a quote of a previous post or posts with an occasional character reaction sentence stuck in after every paragraph or two.

A hyper-active post, on the other hand, changes everything. In the extreme, a hyper-active post would create new characters, new obstacles, new races, new worlds, new threads, new everything. It doesn't settle for the status-quo, but injects lots of things for people to deal with. These are the posts that every unit admin dreads because it means sidetracking from the plot in order to deal with all the new developments.

The middle road would be one in which the writer takes what has gone on before and uses it as the foundation on which to add something new and consistent. A good post should develop plot, character, and such, but not at the sake of continuity. Plot twists are fine. Plot alterations or detours are problematic.

Solitary Vs. Interactive
A solitary post is one which involves only one's character. They touch on no one else in the Unit, except maybe NPCs. They generally are character-building pieces, and are fine as such, but, as a rule, they don't develop the plot much.

An inter-active post touches on many player characters in many facets-- whether through dialogue or action or both. The writer develops relationships, creates conflict, develops characters, and, very likely, advances the plot. The problem with a post that is too inter-active is that it can involve other people's characters beyond the other writers' comfort zone. If you are unsure how a character might react in a situation, it is better to let the character's player decide than take a chance and be wrong. When writing an inter-active post, don't resolve all the conversations or situations. Leave room for the other writer to respond.

The middle road of these poles would be one in which the writer, while concentrating on his or her character, contacts a few player characters on the way. Note that in this medium the player characters are the featured players and should take precedence i n consideration over NPC's. The interaction with the other characters should be in the idiom and style the charcters' players have already set out. The character development that is done should be concerned mainly with the writer's character, and not others.

Plot-driven vs. Character-driven
Character-driven posts develop the character to the exclusion of the plot. The plot only serves as a foil against which the character can unfold and become. This leads to some interesting characters, but leads nowhere for the rest of the players.

In a plot-driven post the character is secondary to the story that is being told. The story encompasses the whole of the writing, and little or no attention is given to developing the character through the post. The story, not the character, is developed . The character is simply an observer or conduit for the writer. The problem with this is that it leads to flat, unimaginative characters who stand like paper cut-outs before whatever confronts them.

The middle road is, of course, to develop the plot as well as character. The plot can be developed through the character, or the character can be developed through the plot. Both are possible and equally valid. The idea is that neither the plot or the ch aracter are to remain untouched. Each should change when they come in con tact with each other and help the writer write. Indeed, a well-developed character suggests many plot pathways to the observant writer. Likewise, good plot development can't help b ut impact upon the character who is in the midst of it. In good writing character and plot dance an intricate dance of interdependence.

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4.6 Summaries and Timelines
(This section written by Tree.)

Many years ago the admins started doing somewhat more detailed timelines. This has helped keep cross posting to a minimum. Cross posting simply means through the course of the writing that a character ends up physically in two places at the same time, and this just isn’t possible in our fantasy realm.

Summaries are very important for whomever is doing the timeline.
Some simple tips to remember are:

The proper or "be kind to the Timekeeper" Summary Format is the Day #, time of day and a brief description of the character or characters action.

If there is more then one thing going on in a post make brief separate lines for each event as the summary descriptions are just copied out into the timeline. (The idea is to make it as easy as possible for the person catching up the timeline.)

ALSO, if you send out a post and forget the summary it’s ok, you will not be roasted and toasted, I promise. :D Trust me we all forget occasionally, but if you see that you have forgotten please just whip one up if you can and send it through nrpg (w/out the post). It doesn’t need to be fancy or anything. The summaries are very helpful for the updater. It is a tedious, sometimes nerve wracking job and the summaries save them a lot of time making them more inclined to keep the timeline updated regularly.

Always use names of the characters in your summary descriptions as much as possible. This keeps the other writers informed as to who and where all the players are, especially theirs. That way when they scan through the timeline they can place their post accordingly.

Timing

Remember a warren is a big place so walking from one place to another usually takes more then a few minutes. (This is partly why the riders fly all over when they can.)

Patrols are usually in 4 hour shifts. Some warrens have patrol schedules, with wings patrolling on specified "Days". (Check with your warren Admin if you are not sure if yours does.)

If a person was going to go by wagon or coach to one of the towns it will take them several hours. If they travel the whole warren: plan on a night at an inn along the way.

Meals in the dining hall will average about 45 minutes to an hour even if they use the buffet as it’s a main communal place with lots of people milling about.

Different types of trainings will also consume time. Hours, to even all day, depending on which slavedriver Wingleader you get. *grin*

When you see FLUID TIME pop up in a post, or in the timeline this type of time is usually a reflection of something that is ‘outside’ the normal time of the warren, and is usually a reflection for the writers' information. And I’m saying ‘usually’ loosely, as sometimes it’s different, (but not often).

Time of Day

REMEMBER, even though all of the units use pretty much the same ‘time of day’ sequence shown in the chart below, their day calendar will be different from each other.

Now this list was originally made to help keep everyone all on the same wavelength or close to it. Since the writers here are very diversified in that we are located all over the world, in different time zones and different cultures, (ex. in Germany they eat their main meal of the day around 12- 2pm. I on the other hand, am on the West Coast and our main meal is usually around 5-6pm.) And Dinner to one, might be called Supper to another and done at a completely different time of day. So for universal order a set daily time schedule "to the Warrens" brings some order to the day.

Following is an example--- If you were to state that your post was Day 6 Mid Afternoon we all would know that is approximately within the times listed below putting us all in and around the same time area. This is not engraved in stone and I'm sure there will be slight fluctuations. But this really helps to keep things straight and keep our crossovers to a minimum. Remember your own day is spread out with doing things, so the same would go with your character's.

Remember though, a lot can happen in the course of just a few hours……

O Dark Thirty 12:01 AM to 4 AM (for us Military types) or Wee hours of the morning

Dawn 4 AM to 6 PM

Early Morning 6 AM to 9 AM

Mid Morning 9 AM to 11:59 PM

NOON 12:00 PM

Early Afternoon 12:01 PM to 2 PM

Mid Afternnoon 2 PM to 4 PM

Late Afternnon 4 PM to 6 PM

Early Evening 6 PM to 9PM

Late Evening 9 PM to 11.59

MIDNIGHT 12:00 PM

Rules regarding the Warren Timekeepers:

1. There will be no hitting, pinching, biting or kicking of said person. UNLESS YOU WANT THE JOB! At which time said Timekeeper will gladly dump it in your lap!

2. At NO given time is it allowed to sic your dragon on the Timekeeper. Retribution will be swift and without mercy!

3. All written complaints will be filed accordingly in the circular file next to the Junior Queenrider's desk!

4. AND stating the time as ‘one hour before an event’ without putting the actual time of day of the event in plain sight is a definite NO NO! This could result in bodily harm if you ever happen to meet said Timekeeper in person. :D

…..and on a more serious note…..

4. ALWAYS, ALWAYS use the timeline when posting your time! If there isn’t a recent one available ask your Admin. DO NOT if at all possible use the times on the posts. The rule to time any event, such as a battle, hatching, etc., is THE FIRST POST LAID, IS THE FIRST POST PLAYED, and sets the pace for the timeline. That means that all other posts will be adjusted to fit the timeline by the time set by the first post not the other way around. This is why it’s so important to use the timeline for dating your post. It keeps the flow of the scenario moving and everyone on track. The reason for this is it only takes one off time in a post to throw the timeline out of whack which has a tendency to frustrate said Timekeepers. Trust me a testy Timekeeper is not a pretty sight.

……and last but not least……

This isn’t a paid job and done in our spare time, so please be kind and make it as easy as you can on he/she who volunteers their time for this.

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