________________________ I have a BIG dilemma. Help.

[AIfred the Great]

I have, completely finished, an incredible roleplay that needs to be turned into a multi-chapter fic so it can be shared with other fans. Thing is, I have no flipping idea how to convert it from a roleplay to the feel of a story. It's a very literate, well-written roleplay, it's just that, well, you know how posts in a roleplay are laid out- your character says a bunch of stuff and then the other responds to all I it, when in reality that is not how real life works.

What I'm trying to ask is if any one has done this before or has some ideas as to how to do it?

Both mine and my partner's posts are beautiful; it would be a shame not to include them, or at least most of them. That's my dilemma. I have no idea how to restructure it.

Please post here or PM me if you can help out in any way.

[Renkon Root]

My personal experiences with reading fics that were converted from role plays have not been pleasant. So, I'm actually skeptical that it can even be done.

But, the best advice that I can give you is just to copy-past all the posts, in order, onto a word document and edit it as you would any other story. Make sure the flow feel's natural and organic, that the narration is consistent, its paces well, nothing to rushed, nothing to drawn-out, etc. If extra descriptive narrative is needed, add it. If there's already a lot and the narration starts to bog you down, try and rewrite it to be briefer.

That's about all I can tell you.

[AIfred the Great]

Thank you for the ideas. C: They're much appreciated.

[Strawberry Pocky Parade]

Never forget that the role play is copyrighted work. It has been published to the Internet and so is a story of its own. You must obtain permission from your partner In writing to repost it.

Now, depending on the posts you may be able to either separate the posts into chapters or you might need to rewrite a post here and there to jive with the perspective of the narrator. I think it would be acceptable for the narrator to change once per chapter but not more than that. Split it into chapters, but not post-length chapters. Make sure the chapters have content you know? Hopefully it helps. smile

[Gemenice]

Okay, a quickie about how it's done. You get the main idea of the story and write it. You don't use the posts, just the feeling you got there.

[The Drunken Jester]

Gemenice

Okay, a quickie about how it's done. You get the main idea of the story and write it. You don't use the posts, just the feeling you got there.

Thiiiiiis.

People tend to forget that roleplay is really a completely different type of storytelling all together than fanfiction. It REALLY is. You can't just copy it into a text file and think it'll feel the same. Because it won't.

[AIfred the Great]

The Drunken Jester

Gemenice

Okay, a quickie about how it's done. You get the main idea of the story and write it. You don't use the posts, just the feeling you got there.

Thiiiiiis.

People tend to forget that roleplay is really a completely different type of storytelling all together than fanfiction. It REALLY is. You can't just copy it into a text file and think it'll feel the same. Because it won't.

Thank you, this is a great idea. I shall try my utmost to do it this way.

[Lea Fealith]

Repeating what some people aid above, roleplay is a completely different format and cannot be easily translated into straight prose.

There are a couple of things that make adapted RPs both obvious and annoying to read. Not knowing the RP you did these may not all apply:

~The same events keep happening twice. I find this annoying in roleplay in general, but we seriously don't need to see the same thing happen from two different perspectives. If something happens, pick one instance of it and don't ******** refer to it again, or make character reactions more integrated.

~A corollary to this is constant tiny time skips. Player one kicks someone and throws something. Suddenly player two is being kicked again and now something has been thrown. Back and forth, back and forth. It is jarring in a prose context and almost as exhausting as whiplash.

~A lot of internal monologue by two different characters. In RP this is typically used as a communication device between players to indicate where they want a scene to go, what's working, what's not, whatever. In prose the reader doesn't give a s**t about two players negotiating a scene. They just want the story. Internal monologue by itself is ok, but a lot of times, particularly in so called "literate" roleplay, the same feelings are reiterated again and again with no real reason for it beyond reinforcing mood during RP. That's not how fiction works.

~Similar to the above, reassertion of description can get tedious but is used in a lot of RP to pad poses or whatever. Describe something once and then every time another description cut and paste shows up get rid of it.

~There's only two characters in the whole damn story, or if there are other characters their roles are disproportionately minor.

===

There are two solutions in my book. Clean up the poses and present them as they are, a role play session that you think is good enough for others to read, or do some serious editing, mostly cutting, by getting rid of redundancy, integrating character actions so the tag team nature of the narration is not as obvious, and making point of view more stable. If you're going to do it right it will most likely require a lot of editing.

[Victorias Doll]

I've actually done this and somewhat successfully at that (it was my first fanfiction and my second-most popular one by far) so it is do-able. As another poster said earlier, you basically have to get the feel of what's been written. You obviously can't just copy and paste, then change a few sentences so it flows better, because it will still read off like a roleplay and, though it might have good transitions from one view to the other, will ultimately become confusing.

With my experience, I had to choose which character(s) I wanted to be the ones telling the story first. Then from there, I had the roleplay in front of me and read it and typed it out in a more story-like manner. Most--if not all--of it was changed. The only things I kept the same were the plot points (obviously) and dialogue that wasn't cut.

However, you might have to be open to changing things in the roleplay (like the order of events, adding new events, or deleting some all together) so that it would flow better as a story. When it came to converting my roleplay to a story, a lot of things were cut out because it wasn't until about half way through it that we came up with a legitimate plot line. So random things that didn't contribute to that were cut out and forgotten, or tidied up and made to make sense in the overall scheme of things.

Hoped this helped, good luck with your converting emotion_yatta

[AIfred the Great]

Lea Fealith

Repeating what some people aid above, roleplay is a completely different format and cannot be easily translated into straight prose.

There are a couple of things that make adapted RPs both obvious and annoying to read. Not knowing the RP you did these may not all apply:

~The same events keep happening twice. I find this annoying in roleplay in general, but we seriously don't need to see the same thing happen from two different perspectives. If something happens, pick one instance of it and don't ******** refer to it again, or make character reactions more integrated.

~A corollary to this is constant tiny time skips. Player one kicks someone and throws something. Suddenly player two is being kicked again and now something has been thrown. Back and forth, back and forth. It is jarring in a prose context and almost as exhausting as whiplash.

~A lot of internal monologue by two different characters. In RP this is typically used as a communication device between players to indicate where they want a scene to go, what's working, what's not, whatever. In prose the reader doesn't give a s**t about two players negotiating a scene. They just want the story. Internal monologue by itself is ok, but a lot of times, particularly in so called "literate" roleplay, the same feelings are reiterated again and again with no real reason for it beyond reinforcing mood during RP. That's not how fiction works.

~Similar to the above, reassertion of description can get tedious but is used in a lot of RP to pad poses or whatever. Describe something once and then every time another description cut and paste shows up get rid of it.

~There's only two characters in the whole damn story, or if there are other characters their roles are disproportionately minor.

===

There are two solutions in my book. Clean up the poses and present them as they are, a role play session that you think is good enough for others to read, or do some serious editing, mostly cutting, by getting rid of redundancy, integrating character actions so the tag team nature of the narration is not as obvious, and making point of view more stable. If you're going to do it right it will most likely require a lot of editing.

Thank you very much for your suggestions. I agree with everything you mentioned, it's annoying when it's painfully obvious.

[AIfred the Great]

Victorias Doll

I've actually done this and somewhat successfully at that (it was my first fanfiction and my second-most popular one by far) so it is do-able. As another poster said earlier, you basically have to get the feel of what's been written. You obviously can't just copy and paste, then change a few sentences so it flows better, because it will still read off like a roleplay and, though it might have good transitions from one view to the other, will ultimately become confusing.

With my experience, I had to choose which character(s) I wanted to be the ones telling the story first. Then from there, I had the roleplay in front of me and read it and typed it out in a more story-like manner. Most--if not all--of it was changed. The only things I kept the same were the plot points (obviously) and dialogue that wasn't cut.

However, you might have to be open to changing things in the roleplay (like the order of events, adding new events, or deleting some all together) so that it would flow better as a story. When it came to converting my roleplay to a story, a lot of things were cut out because it wasn't until about half way through it that we came up with a legitimate plot line. So random things that didn't contribute to that were cut out and forgotten, or tidied up and made to make sense in the overall scheme of things.

Hoped this helped, good luck with your converting emotion_yatta

I figured. Thank you so much for your input.

[velchanos]

The only suggestion that I'd like to make sure is hammered home is do not change POVs. Write the fic from a single character's perspective, or maybe only write a chapter or two from another character's POV only.

[Goddess Kairos]

It's going to be pretty difficult, because there is so much more that goes into a story. You won't necessarily have the perspective of ALL the characters in a roleplay. And everything will have to be more fleshed out and probably more added, and then some things taken out because chances are something with other characters are going on at the SAME time as something else, and it gets cut up so you'd have to separate different scenes as well.

[-lachey was here-]

chagaun

The only suggestion that I'd like to make sure is hammered home is do not change POVs. Write the fic from a single character's perspective, or maybe only write a chapter or two from another character's POV only.

I say this... but not entirely this.

plenty of books accomplish a multiple POV perspective, even from chapter to chapter and for multiple characters. what i'll echo is: do not repeat the exact same sequence of events through multiple POVs. not unless you're getting something significant out of the repeat, which i personally don't think should happen often.

[Klaark]

If it's good as it is why change it at all? Role plays are a thing these days I'm sure those who would enjoy it won't mind and might even prefer it left as a role play.