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Here's some sample posts from RP's I've done over the last few months. I was just wondering what you guys thought I needed to improve on or if my characters leaned toward Mary sue ish...

Sample 1

Erik Goodman really didn't know why he'd come to the nightclub, he just wasn't really in the mood to get drunk and hit on by girls. Not that it didn't cheer him up on horrible days, like this one had been, he was just feeling lousy about himself at that moment. He was still getting over a pretty bad break up, and just wasn't really in the mood. Not to mention girls weren't his cup of tea. The only reason why he wasn't at the gay bar down the street, working on getting some rebound sex was because his friend Ronnie, from Music Theory class had told him to swing by there. He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his bright blue hair, starring at the drink he'd ordered. His light blue eyes- a matching set to his hair- where dull and bored as he scanned the crowd wondering where Ronnie had run off to. She had met him by the door, brought him to the couch where he now sat and played with his drink, and left him there. It wasn't helping his mood at all, if anything it just made him more upset.

He glowered at his drink for a good moment before he sucked it down in one go, making a face and the alcohol burned it's way down his throat. With out missing a beat he set the glass down on a passing waitress's trey, and waved at her to get him another. "Might as well get drunk, if I'm already feeling emotional..." He sighed and played with the heart charm hanging around his neck. It had been something he'd always cherished and never took off, even if it seemed as gay as he was.

He was never one for hiding who he was anyway, his hair color changed more times than his sister, Jenna, had boyfriends-which was saying something- and he had a fondness for tight fitting clothes that showed off the fact that he had no body muscle or fat on him anywhere. The jeans and printed t-shirt he wore now did nothing to change that fact. Erik was a skinny man, and liked it that way. To prove that thought he pulled his legs up on the couch and dropped his chin on his knees staring at a half full martini glass someone had left of the table and seriously debating if he was willing to drink it or not.

It was either that or go home, the waitress was taking too long with his second drink.

He glanced up and around making one more sweep to see if his new drink was on it's way when he spotted Ronnie walking back toward him through the crowd, a tall, very good looking blonde in tow. "oh geez...." He frowned hoping Ronnie wasn't trying to set him up. She knew he'd broken up with Kyle about a week ago, and that it had been hard and painful break up at that- Erik had the scars and bruises to prove it. He wasn't looking for anything at the moment, all Erik really wanted to do was focus on his art major, and get that internship to the Texas Ceramics school if he could. Besides, the blonde looked straighter than a 2 by 4.

He didn't stand as they approached but just looked up and smiled. "Have you seen the red haired waitress on you way back? she owes me a drink...."

Sample 2

Sarah White was frustrated. She'd been wondering the main streets of Los Vagas for almost three hours now and she still couldn't find her new apartment. She'd only been living there a week, and had thought she'd gotten the streets down, but apparently not, and now she was tired, hungry, and down right upset at herself. "God what a loser am I?" She moaned and rubbed her hand across her face before yanking them through her thick wavy brown hair that stopped in the middle of her back. She had moved here for an internship at an artist workshop and so far was hating it.
The city was load and obnoxious and she had been hit on by more hookers in one day than she'd ever dreamed of. She just wanted to find her apartment!

Grunting as she turned down yet another wrong street she finally just gave up and wondered into the nearest coffee shop. She would have asked directions but she still had a hard time remembering what number the street she lived on was. "I really need to learn to write things down!" She tugged angrily at her t-shirt and walked up to the counter. Digging through her pockets she pulled out her last 20 dollar bill and frowned. Moving here had also depleted her back account, and working for free at this internship wasn't going to help none either. But at least she got free board.

"Hi, uhm... can i just get a coffee? black?" she said handing the bill over and trying not to whimper as the cashier took it with a smile. "I hope today doesn't get any worse..."

Sample 3

Nathan Phillips didn't know why he was here. The Soleil Lounge was packed, bodies of rich New Yorkers saying to the music or stealing open chairs as their previous owners ran to the bar to get more cocktails. He wasn't a fan of humid packed places but he'd let his friends and fellow collage mates drag him there to celebrate his new teaching position at Fairview Hieghts High school for the insanely rich. He really shouldn't be complaining. This had been his seen not to long ago. Clubbing and spending all his daddy's money on alcohol had been his favorite pass time before he'd gotten serious about teaching. Some how during his first year at collage he'd found a true passion for English and cultural history, and just went with it. This teaching job would be a new start for him he figured.

He sniffed and ran a hand through his auburn hair wondering if it was staying straight with all the humidity in the air. He straightened it every morning but that had been hours ago, knowing his luck they strands where starting to curl again fighting back against the small amount of product he'd used to slick it back.

"YO NATE!" Brendon's cry shocked him out of his self conscious thoughts and back to the situation at hand. "Why are you sulking in the corner!? this is YOUR celebration! Go have some fun!" His friend and old roommate pushed him toward the bar egging him on to get a drink.
Nathan blushed at the attention, making the light scattering of freckles on his face stand out and his teal colored eyes flash in the low lighting. "Alright!" He laughed pushing Brandon off of him. "But YOUR paying!" He grabbed his dark haired friend and shoved him away as they got up to the bar.

"what can I get you?" the cheerful brunette on the other side smiled eying Nathan with a look that made his blush deepen and reach his ear.
"Uhm.... give me an Aztec." He shrugged. It had been a while since he'd drank anything and he wasn't planning on really starting up again.



I know this isn't much, but it's something to work with I guess.. I also realized while putting this together that I start out all my introduction posts the same and I need to shake that up.

well spelling a side I'm pretty game for you to rip me to shreds >.< I already know I'm horrible at spelling.

Hi Kyo,

I'll try to glean what I can from what you've given, though I may be making false assumptions here and there. As usual, I want to preface this by saying that what I share with you are my opinions, and not meant to discourage or offend you in any way.

I'm going to break this down into different areas that we can focus on. We'll start with the more objective ones.

Length
You are off to a good start. You've done a good job at getting in enough information, even in your shorter posts, for other players to get a better sense of your character and the environment around. Length in and of itself is not something I'm concerned with (though it is for some). The fact that you are providing the right kind of details is enough for me to not make any further comments here.

Structure
Your overall structure is fine. The paragraphs are meaty, but not excessively lengthy. Your sentence structure and size have a good amount of variation and I'd be hard-pressed to find a run-on. The only thing I could see was that you tend to start a lot of your sentences (especially in the first post) with the same pronouns ("he").

Grammar/Spelling
This is perhaps the area you need to spend a little more time with. There are several sentences that need capitalization. There were several spelling errors: mostly mix-ups of words that spell-check won't find (e.g. your/you're, collage/college, etc.). There's no need to have a sentence in all-caps, or use more than one punctuation mark.

I'd recommend proof-reading your posts before submitting them, if you don't do so already. If you do, try starting from the end. Doing so will break the "flow" that it's easy to fall into and will help prevent you from skipping over mistakes.

Style
In this case, style is somewhat tied to structure, but has a bit of a more personal touch. Anyway, you seem to be finding your own style well. It appears that you don't have much trouble in guiding the reader along, switching between simple descriptions, thoughts, emotions, and memories, providing your (or rather your character's) own personal touch and some useful metaphors. This is something to be proud of: not everyone can do it, even with practice.

Similar to the above, it was good to see you add context and descriptions around your dialogue. Things like that really give the reader a better idea of why and how characters say the things they do.

I think you've done a good job with your vocabulary. I was happy to see you occasionally use words that don't always show up in common vernacular (glower, sulk, etc.). Maybe it's just my own thing, but it's an easy way to get bonus points from me. surprised

Characters
I hope not all your characters are so sullen. I'm not sure if this is a trend for you, or rather just a coincidence between the samples you've given. Regardless, make a note of it. I know the "strong, silent" type is easy to fall into, especially since much of role-playing seems to be based on inward reflection, but that just makes it less interesting in the end.

Also, I noticed that your characters seem to all be seem to have backgrounds in the fine arts (maybe from personal experience?). They also seem to have a decent amount of education, or are at least intellectually inclined.

I'm not saying you should change your characters, especially if using this type of character is what you are most comfortable with. I'm simply noting that they are somewhat similar.

As I've mentioned to another person, there is a common trap that people often fall into that can lead to exhibiting Mary Sue symptoms. Essentially the trap is "I'm a great person and there's nothing wrong with me but I have a 'dark past.'" Now clearly it's not inherently bad for a character to have a troubled past, or some other trauma, it's just that people often use that as an excuse to have no character flaws. Being "damaged" from a break-up, for example, is something that people might use to make an otherwise spotless character have a weakness.

As the samples you gave are all I have to go on, I can only say that you may want to be mindful of that.



Overall, you've got very little to worry about. I'd encourage you to keep getting better, perhaps adding some more colorful vocabulary and experimenting with new types of characters. If there's anything specific you want to work on, let me know and I'll be happy to do what I can (though I think your progress from here will mainly be one of self-improvement, as I don't think there's much left that can be taught).

Anyway, thanks for sharing! surprised

Because pal has already given you all of the compliments I wanted to give you ;3 I won’t save my breath on any of the compliments and move straight into the criticizing owo. LOLOL I SOUND SO MEAN >W<.


xxxxContractions
At some points, I think that you could use less contractions and vary the way you use them. So instead of blahblah ___n’t blahblahblah ____n’t blahblahblah ___n’t blahblahblah ____n’t. You can change some into ___ not, blahblahblah ___n’t blahblahblah___ not and change it up however you feel like it. I just noticed that there were a lot of them, and sometimes it’s not bad to use them, but when you use the same phrase over and over again, it becames pretty obvious that you’re going to repeat the word. Or it makes people want to go like ‘AGAIN?’ owo. It doesn’t really show in the other paragraphs of the first sample, but in the first paragraph, I noticed ‘just wasn’t really’ twice and they were used pretty close to each other. I think you want to stay away from doing that and separate your writing out a little bit more owo. And instead of phrasing it ‘just wasn’t really’ you can also change it to ‘really just wasn’t’ or something like that.


xxxxPronouns
Also, I noticed that you kept using ‘he’ a lot. Or pronouns basically. I looked through and saw erik’s name appear about only 4 times while the rest of the time you used ‘he’ to describe Erik. If you mix ‘Erik’ and ‘he’ a bit more, and change it up, I think that it would make your writing become another level better, because then your reader’s interest won’t stray from the story and think ‘AGAIN’ as stated in the previous paragraph. I find that many people do this type of them, and just keep repeating ‘he’ over and over again instead of saying the actual name. Though saying the name too much is also bad, so you have to be able to find a balance between the two of them, and you’ll be pretty good. Or when you decide to use that word, then use it and then let’s say two sentences down, you decide to change your mind and we can do that.


xxxxGrammar&Spelling
I agree with pal on the grammar and spelling parts owo. Since you already know that you’re spellings bad, I’m sure there no need to say that the only way to get better is by improving it. There weren’t many spelling errors per say as much as words that you misused, for example (your/you’re) you’ll have to be especially careful about those [types of words] types of spelling mistakes because those are rather deadly compare to just messing up on the spelling of a word that’s ‘harder’ than plain words.

And so, for grammar, I think you’re misusing commas. You generally used them right, but in some places, they are wrong or can be replaced with something else. For example

‘Erik Goodman really didn't know why he'd come to the nightclub, he just wasn't really in the mood to get drunk and hit on by girls.’

You can change that into

‘Erik Goodman really didn’t know why he’d come to the nightclub; he just wasn’t really in the mood to get drunk and hit on by girls. ‘

The use of a semicolon is better for your purposes than the comma is. And so there are many other places where you can replace the comma with a semicolon otherwise, it ends up being technically grammatically incorrect because it would then be a sentence fragment I think (i suck at grammar rules and names ;< i just know how to use them lolol). Considering the fact you’re adding two sentences together that’s ideas are slightly different. And yet there are some places where you can add a comma but you didn’t. For example

'To prove that thought he pulled his legs up on the couch and dropped his chin on his knees staring at a half full martini glass someone had left of the table and seriously debating if he was willing to drink it or not. '

in this one, without the comas, it wouldn't been too long and if you try reading your posts, especially the sentences with no commas, (and you MUST read it how it's written, meaning that you have to read it with no breaks in between if there aren't any commas... ) you'll notice there are places that need it compared to some where you don't. I think reading it aloud to yourself will be a good way to check your post, and it'll help you catch the mistakes.

'To prove that thought, he pulled his legs up on the couch and dropped his chin on his knees, staring at a half full martini glass someone had left on the table and was seriously debating if he was willing to drink it or not.'


xxxxFluffyness
So I won’t continue on the subject about grammar and spelling because that’s been covered. Besides that would be the intros. Yeah, they generally do start out the same and are basically very easy to write and start off with since you’re ordering something from an npc. I think with different rps, you should try integrating yourself into the scene and not always go into a store and buying something or being depressed about a relationship. You could talk about the scenery more and where they were going and what not, but definitely try to shake up the intros.

You’re fluffying up on the posts is already forming so I don’t see the need to criticize it there and you have your own style of writing so I’ve refrained from critiquing it. And your post amount as of now is pretty okay, but of course, once you get even better, you’ll naturally add more small details and more story line to it and I believe that’ll increase as you start to rp more and more and see what type of niche you like to place yourself in. So did I mention I’m not saying much positive? I’m balancing out pal’s positive post XD <3. But don’t feel discouraged owo, this isn’t to make fun of you or anything 8D just to point out areas of improvement <3. Thank you for sharing and I look forward to seeing your improvement 8D.

Oh yeah owo for the character part, I don’t think that you’ve slipped into it yet, but it depends on what you wrote later on. As of now, for the intro, the characters seem to be fine. Okay I’m done XD;; this time around ;d even though this last paragraph wasn’t too helpful.

<3333 mmkay D; alksdjf;alwejf cause i worried ;w; cause i tend to be like blunt and rude about stuff 8DDD >W<. but yeah <33 x3 meow! and yeah owo you had good points, like how fluffy the post was as your start, and your descriptions ;3. //refers to pal's post again XD. :wheeh: and ;O DDD; tell those beetches to shaadup ;w; <33

x33 i look forward to watching your progress too x3

8D awhyeah, i agree ;d which is why i prefer to stay like this w<
and ;< i guess we need to make more rps XD

;O i think omni 8D is starting a bar rp up soon? x3 teehee ;3
and i agree ;< but like //is too lazy to keep up with rp
since right now i'm in a lazy shlump XD
and owo that would be fun! ;O