ABC's of OOC's

The ABC's of OOC's.

Always Mark out of character in some way to let the other person know you are speaking writer to writer not character to character. The three most common ways to mark OOC are;

• ((words))  
• //words
• OOC: Words
•  This prevents confusion in initial greetings, of your greeting coming off as an in-character message, as you are not your character you are your character's writer (Their Mun) they are your muse. Thus you represent them, and their interests.

Be respectful - Everyone has their skill level and their interests. It may not align with yours, and that's okay.

• Did you start discussions and find you don't meld?
• Tell them.
• Did you start discussions and before they were concluded you got outnumbered in other stories or life.
• Communicate that and ask if it would be okay to back burner this until a later time. Don't just ignore them
• Did you start writing and find the other person's style cringy? or uninteresting, or not your cup of tea?
• Let them down gently that unfortunately, the story will stop here, and you will pursue other stories, and you wish them luck in the future.
• (Remember just because their style isn't yours doesn't mean you should insult them. Unless they ask.. then let them down gently.. there is another person on the other side of that keyboard, be constructive and tell them what they can IMPROVE that could have made it better. )  
• This is a cooperative writing style site. We are dealing with people, in what is very much so a mostly dying art form, there is less and less of us, so treat each other with respect.

Consider how your characters might engage before contacting. Pitch it as a conversation starter.

• Don't approach writers or new adds with
• "hi"
• "hey sexy"
• "Thanks for the add"
• These kinds of greetings are functionally useless. and are unlikely to garner much of a response and here is why.
• It doesn't show any effort or real interest in the character the person is portraying. It doesn't give any REASON to reply.
• How to improve this:
• Review their profile first, and go over a few things that caught your interest that you think you would like to build off of for a story, or even if you thought of something for a story hell tell them that! I can tell you from experience if you come to someone who put effort in their profile with a logical story pitch you will stand ahead of the crowd.  

Dare to inquire. Ask questions. If you are discussing a story between writers building a plot every reply should have a question to be answered to keep the conversation going in a productive direction.

• If you are not moving the conversation you are killing your chances of writing together. So If you are discussing location, you could pick hey my character is best suited for city scenes at night, would that work for you? or would you rather a post-appocalyptic that is more adaptable? I know your character is a vampire how do they handle the day? should our RP happen mostly at night?
• keep the other writer engaged while answering questions! you want to make each message back and forth functional so you can get to what we can here for!
• Be it in discussions or during an RP, did something confuse you? ask. Did they describe something that didn't computer? was there a term that you didn't know and even google went (eh what?) Ask.  

Earnest: you are NOT your character, use your words. If you loved their response, tell them; if you dislike where the story is going, talk to them. Be polite and be a person. This is cooperative writing. If you are not communicating and the story is suffering, it's okay to OOC your feelings regarding what is going on!

Friends: We are here to write, but we are also engaged in an intimate mind-mixing hobby that requires compatibility. Even if your characters are enemies, it doesn't mean in OOCs, you need to be hostile!