How to Find a Writing Partner

[Autumn Sativus]

How to Find a Writing Partner

• Don’t Give Up!
  You may not receive a reply right away. You may not receive a reply within a few weeks or even longer. But if you are particularly interested in writing a plot or a special pairing, whatever it might be – just stick with it. Eventually between member growth and determination you will find someone else who may just share you interest.


• Post a Request Thread!
  Give it a title relevant to what you’re looking for, which helps people when they are skimming through the list. If you leave things too general, chances are your topic will just be overlooked by many. Make your request as detailed or as vague as you want it to be, leaving room for people to pick up ‘ready-to-go’ stories or to work with you in spinning a tale that suits you both perfectly. Remember that both will interest people. Make your thread look nice, if possible – at least make your potential new writing partners see that you’ve put some effort into your search and are likely to put effort into your roleplaying. If you have a bit of a character fleshed out, it often helps people to try and place themselves in the story to see if it is something they would enjoy.


• Be Prepared to Compromise!
  Remember that roleplays do not always turn out the way we plan them to in our minds. Be open to the changes that a potential partner may wish to make to the idea you’ve posted. Ask yourself if you would prefer to have this twist on the idea or if you would rather wait for someone who might be more interested in leaving things the way you set them. As soon as another brain gets involved, expect the unexpected and remember that it’s okay to veer off course once in a while. Loosen your boundaries where possible or be open to posting several variations of your ideas.


• Networking, Networking, Networking!
  The best way to find new writing partners is to make friends! Be active on the forums, chat with people. When you find people you click with, go ahead and send them a message and get to know them a little better. You’ll find that they will also have friends and those friends have friends. Through an intricate network of acquaintances it becomes much easier to find people who want to write with you. Everyone here is friendly and willing to meet a new friend. Most importantly, don’t be shy!


• Work on your Ons and Offs!
  The more a potential writing partner can see about you and what you like when it comes to roleplaying, the better. Instead of jumping blindly into it, they have a chance to see if your ideas and styles are likely to mesh well. Posting the things that you enjoy and the things that you would rather not see bring partners that are well-suited to your needs as a roleplayer.


• Go Looking!
  If partners aren’t just magically appearing at your doorstep (which they likely won’t!) you can always try going out and finding them yourself! Browse other people’s request threads and view their Ons and Offs. If something catches your eye – send a message, respond to it, make it known that you are interested. It may not be exactly what you set out looking for but you never know what kind of interesting ideas other people might be looking for.


• Communicate!
  Perhaps one of the most important things when looking to write with someone is to talk to them. Talk about the idea, talk about your characters, talk about where you both want the story to go. Just talk to them in general! The more you communicate about the roleplay the more likely it is that it will be enjoyable for both of you and in turn it will last longer.


• Just Go For It!
  The worst that anyone can do in response to your roleplay request is say no. Then you will be back where you started before you asked them. No harm done. Don’t be afraid, just go for it!

How to Find a Group
The same ideas apply to finding a group. The biggest change is that you must work with several people who will all have different interests and different reasons for being interested in the idea. In this case more than any other you must be willing to leave wiggle-room in the idea, allowing everyone’s needs to be met through communication of interests and needs. It will likely take you longer to find the number of people required, but remember to keep looking at what people are interested in. Once you have a partner or two you can all be on the lookout for others as well, work together!

[Ashley Wilson]

Short and sweet, this was a good post for new roleplayers who find themselves disappointed their first take at it. I know that happened to me and took a couple of years to discover my passion for roleplaying. A couple of tips would be great motivation to a new roleplayer.

Great post!  :-)

[MasterMischief]

I have to say, in my experience Networking > all else.  I like to hang out in the socializing threads and other places and I find people I meet there approach me.  Also, people that lurk there get to know your personality and style and if they like it, they approach you.

I would add to the Don't Give Up! do not take it personally.  There are a million reasons why someone may not respond to a particular request and none of them may have anything to do with you as a person.  Do not assume the worst.

[Missy]

Must agree with Mischief I had one of the ladies contact me last week who must have picked me up out of the social boards, or else I can't imagine any other way she might have managed to pick me out of all the other lovely people here. We're well on our way to what I'm hoping will be an enjoyable roleplay for the both of us.

As far as the RP request boards go though, I really only look through them once every one or two weeks. It seems most of the time the one's on the first page are pretty uninteresting to me. Which isn't surprising, there are so many different possible interests it's pretty unlikely that I'll just find someone with similar interests at random.

I do intend to use the request boards however, though I plan on just doing a single thread per concept. Since that allows me to draw a more specific audience or interested potential partners to my specific ideas as well as put a good deal of relevant information to the specific game in question down for potentially interested parties.

[Remiel]

For those who haven't yet had a chance to read this, this is really good advice for those who are struggling to find partners, especially those of us who are new.

[Caeli]

I feel like this would be really nice to put in the "Tutorials" board, just to make it easy to find.

[jouzinka]

I agree with Caeli. It's some very good advice there. :-)

[Saerrael]

I feel like this would be really nice to put in the "Tutorials" board, just to make it easy to find.

*looks at jouzinka*

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