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anons, do you think the length of a tag is indicative of interest?

i had someone tell me that they didn't feel that i was as interested in our thread because my tags are usually only about half the length of theirs. but i'm very interested in our thread! i wish i could express that without beefing up the length of my tags.

christ

tell your rp partner that if they have a problem with the *content* of your tags - ie, if the shorter length means there's not enough hooks, or the writing is so curt it's uninteresting - then they should give you crit you can work on. if it's purely a wordcount comparison issue? they need to stop projecting their insecurity onto you

I used to feel horrible if I didn't match my RP partner's tag length and you know what? I used to drop way more threads because I didn't *always* have that much to say. I'd write a perfectly good tag and then stall out nervously trying to make it bigger with nonsense that wasn't any good, because it was unnecessary

if you are consistently tagging them back with engaging writing, that is proof that you are interested.

I'm not deny that they might genuinely feel unappreciated, because anxiety brain is not logical, but that's a problem they need to work on (with encouragement and support from you, IF you are willing to give it/think it's reasonable), and not a feeling you should be enabling

eh, I don't think this is always true. word count isn't the bottom line, that's true, but it's also very possible that in some cases word count does indicate something about effort

I'm not talking like word vomit or purple prose padding for the sake of it, but like if I spend half an hour writing a tag that includes careful descriptions of the scene, or action and body language, that includes some interiority for context and that's like a few meaty paragraphs long, which I took the time to proof read and edit to make sure that there were no typos or mistakes in it

and then I get back like three or four sentences of quick surface level response every single tag? yeah I'm likely to feel pretty unsatisfied, and no that's not "anxiety brain" or something I need to work on

that would be me noticing a legit disparity between what I give vs what my thread partner gives

it's great to say that people shouldn't just complain about length but talk about qualitative things like content, but you're just being pedantic and stubborn if you can't reflect on qualitative questions when someone uses quantitative language. the two aren't in different universes

like "they're complaining about my tags being short and feeling like I must not be interested, so what might it be about my tags that's disappointing to receive?"

consistently tagging back is not in and of itself proof that a player is interested. it could just be proof of a player who's bored and doesn't have anything else going on so feels like dull consistent tags are better than no tags at all

people need to use more of their self-reflection and self-assessment skills instead of acting like they're justified in claiming they can't find two clues to rub together on their own

I don't see how this contradicts anything I said? "surface level" is literal a quality/content question about the shallowness or mental/emotional engagement of the tag, not quantity.

I literally said "if they have a problem with the *content* of your tags - ie, if the shorter length means there's not enough hooks, or the writing is so curt it's uninteresting - then they should give you crit you can work on." and "if you are consistently tagging them back with engaging writing"

>>you're just being pedantic and stubborn if you can't reflect on qualitative questions when someone uses quantitative language. the two aren't in different universes

...I disagree. They are entirely different qualities, and it's not pedantic to distinguish between them or to want people to make decisions based on the one that actually matters. They can be correlated, but in a shortform medium like RP, tbh they usually aren't. There are as many purple prose pillow queens giving nothing to work with in a paragraph as there are ECATS, and other writers who are great at any length.

A small handful of times, I have gotten paragraph long introspective nuanced rich tags, and replied with like, two sentences. But those two sentences were incisive and concise and powerful, moving the thread dynamically along.

People often have writing styles that lean towards more or less words. My friend who started writing in longfic defaults to loooong tags, and my friend who started writing in script format writes pretty short tags most of the time - but she's really good at conveying a lot in a small space. I started with poetry, so I'm somewhere in between - I love lavish metaphors but I love small punchy phrases too.

If I'm playing against friend A, on average my tags are shorter than hers. If I'm playing against friend B, on average her tags are shorter. We're all good writers and we're all engaged in our threads. Tag length on its own means nothing.

IF, as I said originally, there's a CONTENT complaint that makes the tags seem no-effort, then that's legit. But if they're enjoying the thread and getting good replies that just don't match theirs in terms of space taken up, then I stand by that being unreasonable.

watch out guys, we got a ~*~poet~*~ over here

shit dude, I've been accused of being too high brow every now and then and even I think you sound pretentious as fuck

pretty ironic that you want to defend brevity with all the empty lip flapping you're doing

and all just to avoid the point that people ought to use more self-assessment and self-reflection to look at what's going on in their own specific case instead of acting like they can't figure shit out

tell your rp partner that if they have a problem with the *content* of your tags - ie, if the shorter length means there's not enough hooks, or the writing is so curt it's uninteresting - then they should give you crit you can work on. if it's purely a wordcount comparison issue? they need to stop projecting their insecurity onto you

then you went into a whole thing about how word count does sometimes correlate with lack of effort, which no one disagreed with. but it doesn't correlate every time, and some people really do complain that a tag is "short" even if it gives them plenty to work with, so I don't get why you're arguing that people should "figure shit out" instead of actually encouraging communication. obviously op thought they were giving enough to work with, which is the whole point of this thread, so "figuring it out" is useless here.

you're being a jerk about this for no reason

Friend this is gonna sound dismissive but should we really spend 30 minutes writing a tag? You talk about scene description but I'm not going to spend time writing off a tangent that isnt relevant to what is going on. Unless they change locations.

That gnarled oak with the split bark that was probably struck by lightning some years back and is providing plenty of shade for some ferns, and might even be hosting an ant colony given certain spots of it are teeming with moment. Movement that might. Not be noticeable except for now with the sun at the perfect point in the day allowing for some refreshing coolness to break up the glaring heat.

This is what an excessively long tag reads like to me. A glob of words around key points for padding. Sure, establishing a scene is great and necessary but its not needed every time, just as introspection isn't. It actually is needed more often than people use it, but this is about not feeling like your being disserviced or writing with disinterested people. I don't want to lessen your passion for the hobby but long tags just aren'tin everyone's ability to write.

but the ants are part of the smut thread.

one of my smut preferences is NO GNAT GIRLS!

should? well only if you want to, anon.

some of us do and some of us don't. it's not some collective standard. personally I often spend 30 minutes or more depending on the thread but that's my style, it's not prescriptive on anyone else

you don't like to read long description. that's cool. you're hardly alone. how many people out there hated Tolkien's writing because he described fucking everything, and how many other people loved it. different strokes for different folks

I've spent a half hour writing a tag sometimes, if the thread is especially emotional or meaty. It's fun for me. Writing is fun, why can't we all agree on that?

i've spent hours, before

+1

(Anonymous) - 2018-10-21 20:20 (UTC) - Expand

It honestly depends. Yes, sometimes. Is there a reason you don’t feel the need to put in as much effort as the person you are threading with?

Length isnt equivalent to effort. Ive crapped out huge tags with no real thought and ive spent an hour mulling over a paragraph.

it isn't always equivalent but it is a good indicator. if i consistently write a lot and only get half that in return, my first assumption is going to be that they other person is less interested in the cr/thread than i am.

tbh i've seen threads where one person writes several paragraphs and the other person consistently responds with only a few sentences. i have no idea how the second player isnt mortified by their own laziness.

long, multi-paragraph tags are often very difficult to reply to. They might be so heavy on introspection that there isn't actually much to respond to, or they might have so much dialogue that you have to either split the conversation (which can get awkward) or you have to write the characters as if they're standing around monologuing to each other (which is always awkward). so sometimes a very short response can be an attempt to bring a bloated thread back on track... but the root of the problem is probably just incompatible rp styles.

I appreciate my partners for lengthy tags with good descriptive setup, but what the fuck is my character supposed to react to? "he thinks to himself how the moutains are indeed very pretty and the clouds in the sky appear to be fair. that's good."

found the person who uses five sentences where two would do

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2018-10-21 18:39 (UTC) - Expand

yes. if you're consistently replying with one-line tags, i'm not going to buy that you're actually interested in the thread, and you're certainly not going to hold my interest for long.

if you actually have some content to your tags, though, i'm not going to compare word count.

I think it depends on the content of your tags. I can write long tags and I don't mind if I get shorter replies; a couple of my favorite rp partners are pretty concise. They write pretty strong tags though that feel like they're really engaging with what I'm giving them rather than just writing a response that's the character reacting to the most obvious action on the most superficial level.

Having your character really notice the more subtle cues the other player gives you like the other character's body language, tone of voice, etc. and reflecting on it and responding to those (even if it's just with introspection) can help.

I'm threading with someone right now who consistently writes less than I do, but they've been great and have made it plenty clear they're interested in the thread, so I'm not bothered by it at all. They do pick up cues from narration too and I think it's honestly just their character is kind of curt about things in general compared to mine, so it reflects into tags.

So yeah, there can be lots of reasons why this happens and I think the best option is to talk to the actual person involved a little and just find out why they feel that way. It could be your tags, but it could just as easily be on them.

i've been boomeranging someone like this all day. it's obvious they're into the thread because they were tagging me back like lightning for hours. their tags may be on the shorter side but they give me enough to work with and tbh i'd rather play with someone who writes shorter tags but is clearly having a good time with the thread.

sometimes, but i'd lean toward no.

i do think that sometimes writing styles honestly don't match, though. i know i've come across people who prefer very heavy introspection in their tags with minimal action/dialogue. i'm not the same type of writer, i try to balance my introspection with action/dialogue so there's something moving threads forward. not saying these can't work well together, but my tags are typically shorter than someone who writes like that.

if they're basing things on tag length alone, you're not going to satisfy them without filling your tags with fluff. but i'd definitely second checking to see if their issue is with the content or just the length.

95% of the time, no, it doesn't

i think tag length depends on context. in the same thread i can go for a tag with two sentences to another one with three paragraph, but that's because something happened that required the introspection, or it's the beginning of the thread that requires set-up. i hate some rping sites that have minimum word counts. i'm not going to write 300 words if our characters are only chatting about ice-cream flavors.

that 5% is when you can see the reaction doesn't match what you have them to react to. if your character confesses that they killed their friend's precious dog and the answer to that is only "[looks away] how could you" then yeah you have a red flag. not because one line tags are the worst, they're ok in the right context (like the ice-cream example) but because it doesn't fit the thread

it depends. if short tags have no hook whatsoever, are very passive, and seem like they were thrown together when someone was clearing out their inbox for the week, then yeah, i'll start to question it.

but i don't get this feeling from everyone who sends me short tags? some of my rp partners can be very engaging and only give me about 2-3 sentences to work with, but we tag each other just fine and I never worry about their interest levels. they manage to bring something new to the thread in just a few words.

the indicator for me is usually consistency. if someone gives me a sentence every time while they purple prose with others, then I may start to question whether they're really interested in our thread or not.

i dont think so, no. depends on the context, depends on the tag content, but it also depends on the player themselves

if i havent tagged on a thread in a while and im still interested but time/obligations/work/etc get in the way, when i do have time again i usually need to get back into the thread. quick short boomerang tags help me with that. if i feel like i can only respond with a long, overly thought out tag then chances are low ill do it and keep putting it off

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