Ok, time for lesson number two.

Writing in General

If you are new to writing or to role playing, and even if you're not new, but you want to improve, this would be the post to read.
Obviously, I myself am not a perfect person, and therefore my writing is not perfect either, but I work hard to write well, and I thought I'd share a few little tips with you guys as well.

The first thing to take into consideration is grammar and spelling. But those are things you can learn easily, and things with which I've already offered a little help. Therefore, we're going to skip on down to the interesting part -- that being flow and style.

We'll start with flow.
Flow is basically the way you string together a piece of writing so that the reader is carried along gracefully through the piece. Without flow, the piece seems choppy and unorganized. It will be harder to read, and harder to understand. Basically, without flow, it is impossible to write an interesting, intelligent sounding piece.
Most people have some sense of flow to begin with, but to improve your writing you must hone that inate sense and think purposefully about it.
One trick to help with this is coming up with a theme.
For instance, if I'm writing about a girl who had a traumatic childhood, a theme throught the piece might be fear or pain. I will draw on that particular aspect of what she went through, and keep the reader reminded of that particular thing.
Be careful, however, of becoming redundant. Although stylistically (as we'll get into in a moment) it may be nice to have a phrase or word you repeat from time to time, DON'T over do it. Poorly used "style" can be the demise of a piece of writing.
That, basically, is "flow" in a nut shell.

Now, let's take a look at style.
Everyone has their own unique style in writing. Just because yours is different from someone else's does not mean that you are not a good writer, it simply means that you are YOU, and that is OK.
Beware of trying to force a particular style on yourself. It's great to experiment a little, but the best way to find your style is simply to write what comes naturally to you. Eventually you will find your voice if you simply write. Explore your own creativity!
Taking both flow and style into account, you can greatly improve your writing. The best way is simply to try.

One mistake many people make is that they think writing in long, complicated sentences with flowery language and big words (usually used wrongly any way) makes them sound intelligent. DO NOT DO THIS. It accomplishes the exact opposite. Trying to sound bigger and better than you are usually makes you sound much LESS impressive than if you were to simply write what is natural to you. Having a big vocabulary full of good, meaningful words is great, but if you can't use them properly, it's no better than a small vocabulary. If you have a question about a word, look it up. Don't use it if you're not sure. It is wonderful to keep a dictionary and thesaurus nearby, and the internet makes that even easier. For convenience, try websites like dictionary.com, or onelook.com. They are invaluable resources for a writer.

Also, be careful not to use a word twenty times in the same paragraph. This is along the same lines as the redundancy I mentioned above. It's great to have a common theme, but do NOT use the exact same phrase every time you say anything about it. It will begin to lose it's meaning, and will become commonplace and possibly even annoying to readers. Vary it up. Find new words and new ways to phrase it, or creative ways to mix it up. Don't get too abstract though. Keep it real, keep it interesting. This is another time when a thesaurus can come in handy. Thesaurus.com and onelook.com, again, are very helpful resources. Use them! It's what they're there for.

ok, that being said, lets move on the the next subject.

Lengthening

Something alot of RPers struggle with is length. Either they can't make it long enough, or they go on for hundreds of words when they shouldn't.
I'll address the more common problem of not being able to write long enough posts.
The first thing to think about when writing your post is your character. Think about their emotions, their thoughts, their appearance. Think about what's around them: their surroundings and environment. Take setting and all of that into consideration as you begin your post-writing.
I'll give you some examples of things you can do to lengthen your posts.

Here is an example of a short post -- one with little insight or interest:

Xavier walked through the wood by himself, thinking about home. He came to a rock and sat down. He though to himself, "I wish I had a friend to talk to." He was so lonely. He wished someone would come to talk to him.

That is a classic example of a post by a brand new RPer. It's screaming "come post here, I'm bored," and has obviously not had alot of thought put into it. There's no character developement, no background information, no anything. The reader can tell nothing about the character or where he came from by reading that post.
So, let's spice it up. Here is an example of what you can do to lengthen that post and make it well written and interesting. (I'm not going to make you read a thousand words, so I'll try to keep it short and still get the point across.)

The woods were filled with soft noise. Little things that you only notice when everything else is silent. The trees loomed high and gloomy over Xavier's head as he walked slowly between their trunks. The young man was obviously tired, and looked about ready to break down. He was worn and weary...and lonely.
Home.
The word resonated inside Xavier's head as he walked slowly, sorrowfully through the empty woods. He missed his home more than words could tell. When his parents had died a year ago, he had been taken to live with his uncle, but his heart was hundreds of miles away, buried in the ground with his parents and his charred memories.
Xavier saw a large boulder in his path and was too mentally and physically exhausted to pass up the opportunity for a rest. He sat down, easing his sore muscles into a relaxed position. He took a deep breath, breathing in the forest air with a heavy heart. It was like a physical pain that gripped his chest whenever he thought about what life used to be.
Things were all so different now...

Now you see, I took five lines and turned them into a decent beginning of a post. This post, which right now is still only about 200 words, could be made into a six hundred to a thousand word post if I continued with his mental state and more details, but as I said, I don't want to make you read a thousand word post right now.

Notice, if you will, the way i used setting and mood to create a feeling that reflected that of my character. Notice how I described his surroundings a little, got into his head a little, and shared a little about his history. Now, in a full post, you can go much deeper into all of those things, but for the sake of this example, I tried to keep it short. .
Also notice the use of theme. Did you feel somewhat sad and somber while reading it? And yet I didn't use the same word or phrase over and over or anything like that.


I hope that helped some.
If you have any questions, message me about them, and I might even update this with the answers. :D