To be honest, I think that throwing yourself into it IS one of the best things do to, although being told that at the beginning isn't really useful. I remember the first character I created was Allegria, and I originally was going to make her a Ravenclaw. I changed her to Gryffindor because I was warned that there were already a lot of Ravs and they had a lot of history, and that it would be hard to integrate Allegria into it. So instead I make her a Gryff, when there weren't really many others her age around. Trying not to 'butt-in' to the established group made her much harder to use in my opinion, since there weren't other characters easily accessable to her (If that makes sense?).
I still don't feel pretty established, but that's probably partly to do with the way I've used my characters and how often I get to reply to threads. The character I feel I've used best is Orion, and he's only currently in one thread. I think that whilst a newbie might want to integrate themselves quickly by posting in lots of threads with lots of characters, they can spread themselves a bit too thin and end up having lots of minor characters and no major ones (I use myself as an example here. If only I had a timeturner, I would do things differently).
One of the things that has been the biggest help to me was Alex joining after me, and the fact that I talk to him quite a bit on IRC, but I can't really say "If you're new to rp, get someone else to join after you". I think it was just easier to get to know someone new than break into the already established group.
So I don't really know what I'd suggest - focus on one or two main characters in one or two main threads to start with to develop them? Like I said, I still occasionally feel like I need the guide, so I don't really think I can be much help.
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 07:15 pm (UTC)I still don't feel pretty established, but that's probably partly to do with the way I've used my characters and how often I get to reply to threads. The character I feel I've used best is Orion, and he's only currently in one thread. I think that whilst a newbie might want to integrate themselves quickly by posting in lots of threads with lots of characters, they can spread themselves a bit too thin and end up having lots of minor characters and no major ones (I use myself as an example here. If only I had a timeturner, I would do things differently).
One of the things that has been the biggest help to me was Alex joining after me, and the fact that I talk to him quite a bit on IRC, but I can't really say "If you're new to rp, get someone else to join after you". I think it was just easier to get to know someone new than break into the already established group.
So I don't really know what I'd suggest - focus on one or two main characters in one or two main threads to start with to develop them? Like I said, I still occasionally feel like I need the guide, so I don't really think I can be much help.