Novice Level Explained;In the Novice Level, we mainly focus on the technical stuff. This is where your student will learn the most. Not that they won't learn in other levels, they just won't learn as
much, because we've already pounded the ground rules into their skulls.
In this level, we will focus on character development, post length, grammar, smoothness, and spelling, to name a few. For each level, a student has to average a certain length for each post they make before they can be considered to graduate. The specifics will be explored under their topics.
Character Depth;This means that you are looking for your student's insight into his or her character. In this level, you want to prompt them to get into their character's minds. Have them explore their character's thoughts and feelings in a post instead of just talking about the character's actions, though that is definitely important as well. We need to know why this character does what he does in a certain situation, and why he thinks X way instead of Y way. Was he influenced by a certain person or event in his life? So on and so forth. The student also needs to
stick to the information they have given us in their character bios. For example, if a character was written as being poor as a church mouse as a child in your student's bio, the student cannot later say (in the rp) that the character came from a wealthy family.
Post Length;Most RP sites out there require at least 150 words per post, and so will we. This means 8-9 LINES (not sentences) per post must be met before your student can qualify for graduation. No matter how good a student is, if they cannot meet this quota, he/she cannot move on to the next level.
Grammar;Grammar is very important in this level, as this is the level where the posts are shortest, and trust me: you want to weed out as many complications as you can from the start. This will make your job as proctor in the later levels (where posts ARE longer) much, much easier. Grammar consists of period use, commas, semicolons, capital letters and all that good stuff. Most important of all is that you make sure your students properly utilize quotation marks (" "), as this will make it much easier to distinguish between talk and text. If you'd like to go a step further (which I suggest, but is not required), you should have your students bold everything their character speaks in addition to the quotation marks, which will make it even easier to find what they are saying.
Smoothness;Oh yes. Smoothness. I have no other word to describe this. Flow-idity? Never mind. In any case, this means that your student's post is easy to read and fits well with the rest of the rp. In some cases, this goes hand in hand with grammar, in that periods in the wrong places and run-on sentences will slow down and complicate a post, making it seem sluggish and confusing.
Another way to enforce this would be to make sure that there are no completely random and uncalled for events in your post. What do I mean? If Timmy and Julia are lost in the middle of the sahara desert, they cannot suddenly find the ocean and ride on a dolphin's back. That would be odd and disruptive.
Yet another is when someone doesn't pay attention to previous posts, and does things that make you go "What? When did that happen?"
The most horrible way of all is
the dreaded dead ender. This happens when a student puts up a post that gives no obvious way for someone to answer (refer to the page about dead enders in the RP school for more information).
Spelling;This is pretty straight forward. We don't wanna harp on minor mistakes (like one that's obviously a slip of the finger on the keyboard once ever few posts), but if a student's post is riddled with them, you should have them correct it by suggesting they use a word processor/spell check or something. This really isn't the most important thing on the list, but enough to mention. Someone's spelling shouldn't hold them back from graduating.
Power Playing / Godmodding;Don't get mad if a student does this, but explain to them why people will murder them if they do it in an actual rp. Power playing and Godmodding is awful and if they
do do it, make the class stop and have the person correct their post.
Mary/Gary Sues;These should be avoided at all cost! If you see any Mary/Gary sues, then please bring it to light and explain why the student's character is one. The character form is made to try to avoid having any of these characters, but sometimes it will happen.
When students graduate, their posts should look something like this;Eva picked up her guitar and stood up, stretching her back out. What was she going to do on this stunningly dull Saturday morning? She had called Luis; he was busy at the pet store. Apparently today was adoption day. She hated adoption day. Not that she didn't love the little animals, or want them to get homes...which she did...but they dragged Luis away on a Saturday. Saturday! Saturday was their fun day! They went to the cinema, played bad music in the park for fun, and good music in the tube for cash on Saturday.
But her Saturday was ruined. She hadn't any other friend, and she'd rather die than hang out with her half-witted sister. All Colette cared about was her hair, her make up, and what Zac Efron looked like with his shirt off.
She rolled her eyes and leaned against the side of the bridge, wondering what it would be like to fly. She shut her eyes tight, dreaming of birds and angels...and jerked back with a surprised yelp of pain when something hard smashed into her back. "Hey!" she howled angrily. "Watch where you're going, you idiot!"
It's a about 9 lines, and has few to no grammar errors, no godmodding or power playing, and most important of all, leaves a spot for someone else to enter in to the rp. Students must consistently make posts like this before they can move on.