I haven't read
all the replies, but two cents (or ten).
Personally, I like
at least a couple OOC posts to see how people communicate and just, if we feel compatible. For me that's on the super low end, but at least. It's partly kinks and partly what they seem to expect in terms of style and even the relationship (there's
sooo many levels to that, I won't even start). Occasionally people have posted such wonderful stuff elsewhere or are (at least it seemed!) such an obvious match, that feels like enough. Usually though -- I mean the vast majority of cases, I prefer to go on in OOC for a good while and really get a sense of the type of story it's going to be and some details that
might be used take it in various ways.
Some people absolutely abhor this, but I feel like if we can't do that much and feel like we match in OOC, why bother putting parts of it in an even longer form first. Cause I do want it to go on a while when it's a post. Of course, if you like one line or one paragraph in your posts, that's maybe a different story. And if it turns out we don't like how each other does the story writing, at least we got to enjoy and maybe develop the idea for a while. (Although it's still kinda frustrating if it's dropped after doing "planning"
forever and thinking everything was grand and the intent was to make a story together. But one has to start someplace, and who knows, they might have dropped it at the first post anyway regardless.)
It seems to me that actually posting (or messaging) the story is really another form of writing. So it's not that shocking if things still go wrong there even after discussion. I don't know how many people here enjoy restarting or redoing posts; I usually honestly don't. I've had a few people ask me to, but usually it's under condition that it suits their preferences without much regard for mine... Or by then, I'm just tired of it cause I put a lot into my posts and with this demand for redo, I lose confidence and momentum. It does frustrate me when people disappear after I posted and don't even say something, though. And a tiny bit of polite, maybe sympathetic explanation would even feel nice but that's incredibly rare - could they just let me know (ok, without snapping at me) anyway?
I also think different people have different expectations of first posts as such... I see them more as setting a mood and expressing character outlook on things at the beginning. Maybe that's partly because often, I don't expect to have such full control (or knowledge) of what's next, when others are in more dominant positions starting from the next post. (I'm actually beginning to feel it makes more sense to let the dominant role in conflict situations, be the one to start the story too. Maybe that's just my bad luck, though.) It's different if we've agreed in OOC that some particular thing should be accomplished, or some particular place should be described fully, to begin with. Sometimes others apparently have other ideas though - cause they yeah, just disappeared.
I agree (re:
Lekhika) multi-character rp's may need more discussion (at least, in an "open" setting when there's room for them each to be moving or acting). I've occasionally built way too many "interesting" characters up too far, and then gotten stuck trying to juggle them all without enough reply to inspire what's next. That can just become frustrating.
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