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| Welcome to our little community! Here is a bit of information about creating and playing characters in our club. Letters From Bath, the sister club to Little Bit of Ivory, runs in simultaneous time and we have characters cross-over between the two clubs, so these guidelines also apply to LFB. 1) These clubs are a chance for us to write in the style of Jane Austen (or at least try to!). These means that we don't use modern words or expressions. However, although we emulate Jane Austen's style, we use our own ideas. Please do not use any characters or places (excepting real places that she wrote about, such as Bath) that she created. 2) Please keep the time period (late-Georgian, early-Regency England) in mind as you write. There are a number of good webpages listed under "Links" on the club webpage here that give you information about fashion, society, and politics of the time. It was an exciting, fascinating time! 3) As you are creating your characters: There were not that many members of the peerage (dukes, earls, viscounts, etc.) during this time, as they were either inherited or bestowed by the king. It wouldn't be realistic for there to be a dozen dukes in the sleepy little town of Wickerton! Many of the families in Wickerton are the families of "country gentlemen" (like Mr. Bennett or Mr. Woodhouse). Although we are hoping to have a wide range of classes represented in Wickerton, as of yet we only have a couple of lower class families. Keep in mind that if you create a lower class character, it might be somewhat hard for him/her to interact with other characters in LBI at this time. A scullery maid, for example, would not have interacted much with the daughter of a gentleman, except maybe to polish her boots. Hopefully we will have more of a variety of social classes represented in Wickerton in time. Letters From Bath does have some lower class characters (laundry maid, bookbinder) and middle class (governess), so there is more room for interaction there. Check out the club webpage to see profiles and pictures of some of the characters in Wickerton presently. You are welcome to write a profile for your own character and I will post it. If you would like help finding a picture to use (I just love looking through the Regency portraits for one that "looks like" my character!), Eliza and myself know of a number of sites. 4) As you begin to play your characters: Most importantly, please post ONLY for your character! Do not attribute so much as a smile to another character while posting. Type the thoughts, words, actions, expressions, etc. for your OWN CHARACTER. It may look, at times, that we are breaking this very rule, if you see helen_woodruff post an entire conversation between Helen Woodruff and Annabelle Steed. However, many of us play several characters and, while we have separate IDs for most of these characters, we often will just post for all under a single ID (when we are in a hurry or are simply feeling lazy!). I do play both Helen Woodruff and Annabelle Steed, so it is fine for me to post an entire conversation between them at once, rather than posting separately for each under different IDs. Remember that you are playing a character and not yourself, so try to think how your character would behave in a certain situation, rather than how you would behave. This is the fun part! We create characters with individual personalities and distinct character traits and then place them in situations to see how they would react. If confronted by a highwayman on the road into Wickerton, Helen Woodruff would probably burst into tears, Catherine Woodruff would throw back her head and scream, and Annabelle Steed would likely hit him over the head with her riding crop! Please help everyone (including yourself!) out by using your character to create situations. Do not have your character sit in his/her house all day, and then become upset, thinking that no one likes the character! Take your character for a stroll through town, visit a shop, call on a neighbor. Your character will have more interactions (and you will have more fun!) if you go out and find the interactions and situations! When posting, we use the convention of ending the post with TBCB (to be continued by), and then who you want to reply to the post. Other clubs use "Tag" and then the person's name, either at the end of the post or in the subject heading, but we would prefer if you would use TBCB at the end of your post. If it is a post that you don't expect anyone to respond to (such as your character going to sleep), then you can just put TBC (to be continued). Also, we assume that all posts are written in character, unless the post is marked in the subject line with OOC (out of character). If we see OOC in the subject, we know that it will be a post in your "real voice", perhaps asking a question about the game. However, please try to keep OOC posts to a minimum and try to have those that you post pertain to the story and the club! 5) Please be patient (as we all have been learning)! All of us have busy lives and unexpected events, so please be understanding if someone does not return your post right away. Most of us let people know if we will be out of town and away from a computer for an extended period of time, but if someone is unexpectedly called away and is unable to respond to your post, do not get upset. If the person does not respond for a few weeks, certainly you can gracefully extract yourself from the "conversation". Also, as we've come to learn, a "day" in Wickerton can take several months in real time! We started this club in February of last year, and I think we�ve only gone through one �week�. 6) Have fun! Just jump right in if you have a character! We also have some "free" characters that can be played. Please don't hesitate to ask if you have a questions! - Helen |