Roleplaying tips and tricks

Something I found that should help everyone here.

A good dialogue writer is someone who's able to put voices on paper. They should be able to craft a story and help move it along not just with actions, but with the words of their characters. It isn't enough for Johnny "The Dream" Extreme to just "talk“ in this day and age of role-playing, especially in a fed like RWF, you have to make your wrestlers sound as compelling as possible. Their voices and musings have to virtually leap off the screen. Now, how do you do that? Well, in order to learn to talk, you gotta know how to listen.

LISTEN.

Take time out of your day to listen to people speak. You'll find that more often than not, a conversation isn't made up of declarations and statements so much as reactions and questions. When trying to receive and give out information, people are always making sure that the other person or people understand what they're trying to say. There has to be a logical flow in the tone and structure of the conversation, and the characters are your best tools. In other words, strive for reactive dialogue. The characters should be talking TO each other, not AT each other. It's an art form to be able to make people believe that the characters they're reading about are actually listening to each other. For example, if a character who's usually quiet is babbling on for a long time, the other character should react accordingly. Are they surprised? Impressed? Weirded out? Same as if the character usually talks up a storm, but decides to stick with short, clipped statements. Dialogue is more than just the words – it's how they're presented, how they're interpreted, and how they're reacted to.

Good characterization = good dialogue.

If you want good dialogue that doesn't come across as forced, you have to know how your character sounds. For example, the way Chris Mackison talks is pretty much exactly how I sound in real-life. I didn't want Mackison to come off as too much of an arrogant boss when I created him, because he was based off of me. He had to be grounded in reality as your typical cocky, funny, "South Park fan“ the kind of guy who you know plays X-Box Live and reads comics in addition to performing as a pro-wrestler. I didn't see a whole lot of that kind of gimmick in wrestling when I first started e-fedding, so I had to rely on myself. Everything, from his pop-culture references, to his less-than-perfect grammar, to the fact he says fuck practically every other word feels real to me because it IS real to me.

Take this sentence: "Where were you? I've been waiting." Kinda vanilla, but if your characters aren't "average," they shouldn't speak that way. Now let's see how Mackison and  some guy named Dorian would say the same thing.

JK: "Now where the fuck have you been, Flash? I've been sittin' on my ass for like, three fuckin' hours."

Dorian: "And so he returns. I assume you wanted me to pen my memoirs while I waited?"

Furthermore, characters should sound different with different people. That's just how we as humans are -- no one is a hundred percent real with people 24/7. Maybe your character has a mentor and has a tendency to ask questions passively when they're with them, as opposed to their best friend who they're constantly joking around with. Does your character swear as much when he's with his girlfriend/wife than he does with his manager/tag partner? Keep that in mind. It adds layers to a character and very subtly tells the reader what they're about.

Shut the fuck up.

For the most part, I can't stand long-winded diatribes in RP's. Nine times out of then, they get overly complicated, repetitive, and worst of all, boring. Dialogue is supposed to be about getting your message across, not how much of the message you can squeeze out at any given time. When it comes to your character talking, even in a monologue, less is always more. Any credit I get, it's because of that – knowing when to shut up, because when the same themes or subjects are addressed for too long or too often, any "punch" within the good lines gets diluted. I'd much rather read a character who can make me go, “Holy fuck, THAT'S a burn,” with five lines than someone who takes three quarters of a page to basically say the same thing.

Read your stuff out loud.

I really can't stress this enough. Read your "conversations" over once you're in the next section of your RP. If the dialogue you wrote doesn't roll off the tongue, it ain't dialogue, Jack.

So that's it. Hopefully after this, you can compel all of us with your character's next big interview. See you on the RP board, sucka.