Character Journals?

[twilightfae]

I was wondering if there was any section or place, either on the forum itself or on the Wiki, that held character journals. I had looked around the forum and a handful of Wiki character profiles but couldn't find anything like what I was looking for. For me, character journals/diaries/etc are a unique way to give your character more depth and life. They allow you do many things, such as highlight characters' actions/days/etc from RP (which I find particularly useful, as I have a terrible memory and like to be able to look back and see what my character's experienced), how they've felt about things they've seen or done or people they've interacted with, and offer a glimpse into how characters have changed over time. Yes, they can be tedious to maintain, I won't deny that. I know I've fallen into habits of forgetting to update a character's journal on more than one occasion. At the same time, though, I think these sort of things give players the opportunity to be a little more creative with their characters.

Seeing as how I couldn't find something like this on my own (If such a thing does exist, please let me know!), here's what I propose. It's more of a list of suggestions, you don't have to agree with any or all of them, and they don't all have to be implemented.

-Have a character journal sub-board, perhaps either in the character profiles or IC boards
-Give people the opportunity to edit their Wiki profile pages to incorporate a journal element, either with a template or not
-Something else? (as in, please let me know if you have other suggestions!)

It's not really a major suggestion, really, just something extra that I think would be a nice option for members here to have. Maintenance on journals, regardless of where they'd be located, how they'd be kept, etc., would fall onto the player's responsibility, of course. Comments? Thoughts? Ideas?

[Caravan]

Hey sugar~! You can post in the In Character forum right here!

[twilightfae]

Mmmm... That'll do. I had thought about that board and I always associated it with IC, forum-based RP. Thank ye kindly.

[ImagenAshyun]

Mmmm... That'll do. I had thought about that board and I always associated it with IC, forum-based RP. Thank ye kindly.

It does both. You can also post short stories or novelettes (or even full novels) that tell stories of your characters.

[Piroska]

-Give people the opportunity to edit their Wiki profile pages to incorporate a journal element, either with a template or not

Already done. You can post them on the wiki, under your character's namespace. The best example that I can think of currently is Bovel's Telah, who has his character's journal posted as Writings of an Anchorite.

There aren't many stories posted on the wiki, but you can find them under the Story category. If you can't find something on the wiki, I'm usually a good resource; I think that at this point I've viewed pretty much every article there.

[twilightfae]

-Give people the opportunity to edit their Wiki profile pages to incorporate a journal element, either with a template or not

Already done. You can post them on the wiki, under your character's namespace. The best example that I can think of currently is Bovel's Telah, who has his character's journal posted as Writings of an Anchorite.

There aren't many stories posted on the wiki, but you can find them under the Story category. If you can't find something on the wiki, I'm usually a good resource; I think that at this point I've viewed pretty much every article there.

This is neat! Bovel/Telah's page really helped me out, it was exactly what I was thinking about! Thanks

[Piroska]

Not a problem. I always advocate for more wiki love.

[ImagenAshyun]

-Give people the opportunity to edit their Wiki profile pages to incorporate a journal element, either with a template or not

Already done. You can post them on the wiki, under your character's namespace. The best example that I can think of currently is Bovel's Telah, who has his character's journal posted as Writings of an Anchorite.

There aren't many stories posted on the wiki, but you can find them under the Story category. If you can't find something on the wiki, I'm usually a good resource; I think that at this point I've viewed pretty much every article there.

DAT WIKI CODING.

I doubt I'd make my own wiki page for my stories, though. They're way too long

[Piroska]

DAT WIKI CODING.

I doubt I'd make my own wiki page for my stories, though. They're way too long

Is nice, no? It's the Book template. It's one of the ones that Kret ported over when he initially set up the wiki, though I've tweaked it a number of times since. It's intended for short passages from books and works well for journals -- which may also be its most frequent use on the wiki. I've added it to a handful of wiki'd profiles that included journal entries.

Its article should outline all of the template's parameters, so it should be very easy to apply.

The option to add stories and the like to the wiki is available, though most have chosen not to. The forums provide a very viable alternative and one that doesn't require learning wikitext.

[Ural]

Piroska is my hero.

[Beltharean]

DAT WIKI CODING.

I doubt I'd make my own wiki page for my stories, though. They're way too long

Is nice, no? It's the Book template. It's one of the ones that Kret ported over when he initially set up the wiki, though I've tweaked it a number of times since. It's intended for short passages from books and works well for journals -- which may also be its most frequent use on the wiki. I've added it to a handful of wiki'd profiles that included journal entries.

Its article should outline all of the template's parameters, so it should be very easy to apply.

The option to add stories and the like to the wiki is available, though most have chosen not to. The forums provide a very viable alternative and one that doesn't require learning wikitext.

Want to do it for Tress' profile..?

All ten thousand plus words?

The reason I ask is because you say 'It's intended for short passages' and Tress' history isn't exactly -short-.

[Zukaza031]

I know rigley once made an awesome diver log

[Piroska]

Piroska is my hero.

D'aww. It's like I told Kril last night: people don't need to say my name three times to summon me. They just need to mention the wiki.

Want to do it for Tress' profile..?

All ten thousand plus words?

The reason I ask is because you say 'It's intended for short passages' and Tress' history isn't exactly -short-.

It can be done! I personally feel that it's best used with shorter passages (especially due to the font parameters used within the template), but it can definitely be applied to longer writings. It's another one of those preference things, probably related to my innate need to make things easily read by visitors.

[ImagenAshyun]

Holy hell, that story.

Now I can only imagine trying to squeeze in 'How the Serpent Lost His Legs' (Don't do it. For the love of God, don't do it XD)

[Piroska]

In your case, Immy, I'd probably break it up into multiple chapters and then provide multiple links to each chapter on each page. So, ideally, you'd had something like a table of contents at the top of the article linking to each chapter, then a link at the bottom of the page that would link to the next chapter (and maybe the prior one, but I'm uncertain on that one). I'd probably make the chapters each a little longer than each post since some of them are quite a bit shorter than the others.

So, you'd maintain the following structure:

• Dino's profile
  
  1. How the Serpent Lost His Legs (I)
     
  2. How the Serpent Lost His Legs (II)
     
  3. How the Serpent Lost His Legs (III)
     
  4. How the Serpent Lost His Legs (IV)
     
  5. How the Serpent Lost His Legs (V)
     
  6. How the Serpent Lost His Legs (VI)

I'm not quite certain how I'd name the articles. You could use use the Roman numerals as shown or call it (Chapter 1) or whatever! I'd only request that you be consistent in the methodology used within that series of writings.

I wouldn't use the Book template for it at all. Since it's not within another article and since it's fairly long, it probably wouldn't be optimal. The ideal use of the template is for passages within a larger article, though that doesn't necessarily mean that people should refrain from using it if desired.

And if you choose not to add them to the wiki, at least this basic explanation is here for anyone else who would like to do so for her own writings!