Forums » RP Discussion » Over used words in roleplay.

Yes, but I don't want to derail the topic, so if you want to talk about Vsauce feel free to PM me.

"Orbs" has always bothered me too. I've never seen "oculars" used, and would probably facepalm hard enough to detach my own retinas if I did. I understand reaching a little bit for a synonym when you start feeling like you're overusing a word, but there's a line.

I'll even pick on myself a bit. Though it's not a word, I throw commas around like beads at Mardi Gras.

Over use of the word "would." Specifically when characters are taking actions. "He would step forward..." No... He stepped forward. Or if you want to use present tense he steps forward. It's a completely unnecessary word!

I don't think it's completely unnecessary. Sometimes in a roleplay I would write: If so and so did blank, she would react with blank. It's a way to advance the story without having to stop at every action.

"Would" is kind of a formatting choice. In the way it's used, it sometimes doesn't make grammatical sense. It can work though, I think.

I just wish we could see more simple present tense. Love it! So full of action and vitality.

I do the same thing with the commas! I was never taught how to use a comma in neither Danish nor English, so I'm using making it up as I go.

I do see it used that way quite often, but I still consider it unnecessary. There's nothing wrong with saying "If they did this, then she does/did this." In that case using would is technically correct, as it's expressing the consequence of an imagined event, but to me it makes everything feel wishywashy. You begin dealing with ifs and I personally don't agree with anticipating another character's actions. But my preferred method of taking care of combat is very strict (combat is usually where I see this happen), which isn't for everyone. In this case, I believe that even when using "would" is technically correct, it's still clunky and makes storytelling less dynamic.

I fully agree with this. I also think that if you need to incorporate 'would' frequently because you're performing so many IC actions and have to wait for your partner to respond accordingly, maybe it's an indication you need to write shorter posts with lesser actions. I'm sometimes guilty of this myself, trying to make my character do 5 different things that require a reaction from the other player; in reality it disrupts the flow of events and makes it difficult for the story to remain cohesive. You're constantly writing 5 responses to the other person's 5 actions and it reads very unnaturally in the long run. Short posts can help prevent this, reduce the need for 'would' and make for a better story.

Something that I tend to do accidentally is not necessarily the reuse of a word, but starting my sentences with my characters name. ___ looked to the horizon seeing something approaching them in that direction. ___ commented, "Oh crap". I smack myself every time I do it and get so frustrated. I do everything I can to rethink different ways of starting the sentece. Most of the time I can fix it, but I always feel bad when I have two sentences in a row that start with with my characters name. I used to be really bad where each sentence started with her name, but I like to believe that I have gotten better.

That is basically my issue. I tend to the same names or words too closely after one another. I don't think anyone really minds that much, but when I catch myself on something like that after I make my post I just want to hit myself out of shame.

This is such a tricky problem. I, and even some of the most savvy writers I know, occasionally slip-up and pull the dreaded noun-repeat, which has the monstrous habit of always appearing just fine at the Time of writing but simply awful when examined in retrospect. Luckily, it's easily solved (usually with the use of 'and',) and the more one tries to invest in clever writing and dynamic description the less common the issue becomes. Easier said than done, of course. Roleplay is unique in that certain actions have to be repeated far more often across posts than they ever would be in a more conventional piece of creative writing, and trying to describe those same old things in new ways on every occasion does get tedious.

The reliable solution: read, re-read and edit those long posts, or write shorter posts with your wits about you and/or a cup of caffeinated beverage handy. It works for me!

Not so much a single word, as it is a trope, but one thing that really gets me is when someone uses "the male" or "the female" instead of "he" or "she" or "her" or "him."