- They can be long, short, or somewhere in between, one liners, dialogue only, whatever. The amount of people who might reply to the starter would depend on the group you’re with, but longer starters will usually mean fewer replies, because it can be intimidating to people who might be more used to shorter rps.
- Keep in mind how much access you’re giving for people to reply to. If you make a starter that takes place in your character’s house, only people that could be inside that house can realistically respond. Same if they’re calling someone from a number on their phone, if it’s from their own logs, it doesn’t leave much for new interactions. What kind of area they’re in, the environment, and the reason they’re there all affect who they can encounter, and can be used to limit other people who want to reply. Some characters can be placed anywhere, others can’t or they wouldn’t have reason to be there based on the characterization. If you want to be selective about who replies to a starter, this can help, but if you want it open to as many characters as possible, it’s helpful to make the starter topic very broad, in public, and open to make interpretations.
(And in any call/text starter, even if could be taken for a random/wrong number, more likely people will avoid it if they aren’t rping a character that wouldn’t know the other. It depends on the mun and muse, as some are outgoing enough to respond anyway, but it’s rare in my experience.)
- It’s better to give something for the other people to react to than to expect them to begin interaction with your character themselves. While a starter describing what your character is doing on their own and minding their own business can work, it’s more helpful for people to get creative when they’re given a starting point. There’s a difference between having your character taking forever to look over a coffee shop menu with intense focus, and another with the minor change of turning to the person next to them in line and asking if they’ve been there before/if they know what’s good. Or finally placing an order and then accidentally turning and bumping into the other person. In the more passive, description-type example (of where and what the character is doing), someone can respond with how their own muse is feeling about the situation if they’re used to it, or could make a comment. The second adds however they might have been feeling plus action, something for them to do, if they chose. It gives more possibilities and opportunities for people who might not be comfortable with passive interaction, where the muses might not even do anything with regards to the other for a reply or two.
- Don’t get discouraged if an open starter doesn’t get responses. It could be any number of reasons, including other people being too busy, feeling too shy, or thinking it’s too late to reply (such as if they log in and see it a day or so later). Sometimes it’s a muse compatibility issue. The least likely cause, literally last thing on the list 95% of the time, is because people don’t like the writing or are trying to avoid you. Again, based on my experience, but the anxious balls of fluff muns are the most likely cause, wondering if they should and debating, and probably talking themselves into a corner of whether they should jump on it or not, and especially the new people that want to interact do a very good job of scaring themselves off the opportunity to poke at starters.
And, sometimes, people might just be the types to prefer the options handed to them on a platter from various memes to hopping on the wild open starter encounter. Everyone has their preference.
Quick Notes About Writing General Starters
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Moonlight Archive 