Just today, I was browsing Barton Town as I am wont to do when bored, and I came across a thread advertising a literate one-on-one roleplay search. Now, I'm not exactly partial to one-on-ones myself; it's hard to find two people who can post/reply consistently enough to keep a story going, for one thing, and for another it's too easy for a one-on-one to get boring, especially if both people play only single characters.
But anyhow.
That is not the point.
The point is this: The person who claimed to be literate had one capital letter in their entire first paragraph. One. In the entire paragraph. Have I mentioned that this paragraph was written in first person? You'd think that they would have at least capitalized 'I' a couple of times. No dice. Now, I'm willing to set aside their various grammar problems (your/you're confusion, etc.), but anyone who claims to be literate and advertises for a literate roleplay should at least have the common decency to capitalize their Damn Words. (And yes, that was on purpose.)
So, since I've also just put up a little mini roleplay ad in my profile, I hereby enumerate my definition of literacy:
1. Observation of basic conventions of grammar and punctuation. (IE: Capitalization, periods, no run-on sentences. Ability to use semicolon correctly is preferred; however, it is not required.)
2. Original ideas present in brain. (If you copy Twilight or some anime TV show, you are not original. The exception to this is canon roleplays, and then you must stay completely true to the character and the original writer. This is hard- hence the fact that I will hardly ever do canon.)
3. Ability to write, if not at length, then more than one line. (I have seen too many threads die- and killed them myself- because the literate roleplayers get frustrated by illiterates. If someone takes the time to turn out a solid, reflective paragraph, they deserve to receive the same. Just common courtesy here.)
4. Ability to stick to a thread. (Yes, I know good roleplayers who don't hang around. But the best roleplayers I know are the ones who keep coming back to the same story. Why? Because it takes talent to tell a tale for months on end. This is simple fact. The more skill you have, the longer the thread will last.)
5. Capability of creating flawed characters. (Not everyone is perfect in our world; why would they be perfect in a roleplay world? If anything, literary characters are caricatures of real people. Therefore, their issues and aberrations should be more pronounced.)
That's all for now, but I'm sure there's more that I should add.
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The Book Of Remembrance and Forgetting
Hopefully, mostly remembrance. My New Year's Resolution this year was to keep a journal...this isn't exactly a chronicle of my exploits (though at times it becomes such) as a stream-of-conciousness narrative. Enjoy.
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