Interest Check and OOC Formatting
A while ago, I noticed that I got the occasional response to my interest checks on the basis of how well-organized they were; the better the organization and presentation, the more interest it garnered. Having been in culinary school, where they specifically teach you how to write the most effective resume possible, I decided to apply the thinking to the writing of interest checks.
Above all, whatever you do, the interest check should look organized and be streamlined for the comfort of the reader; you are trying to recruit people, and nothing says 'forethought' and 'commitment' like being detail-oriented enough to present them with a nice interest check that is organized for convenience. (The same concept applies to character sheets, incidentally -- a wall of text is frowned upon, in my experience. A little formatting of your character sheets shows you are serious as well.)
Then I realized that by taking a little time and effort, I could expand my interest check format into an OOC format. With a little expansion, I could create the OOC quickly and efficiently; of course, in the interests of keeping it simple for players, I also started to keep the front page as a table of contents and resource list for the entire RP. So I'd just take the interest check and add new sections with links to character sheets, important posts and other things in order to give everyone a resource that lets them quickly navigate the many, many pages these RP's tend to spawn.
At the end of this process, I wound up with a template for making new interest checks that helps me break down the RP, and then allows me to turn it into an OOC that is very user-friendly with less work. I've been using it ever since. I do it for both group RP's and 1x1's.
For the purposes of looking at the BBCode used, I have a titanpad link with all the BBcode for the template itself, and have included several examples of the template in use.
Examples of a Template in use
- Staring Back with Chrome Eyes - Interest Check. By doing it according to a template, I can quickly add to what I've already written to create the OOC.
- Star Wars: Revanchism - An OOC using the template system that I devised. The interest check was fundamentally the same as the OOC, with the addition of a character sheet section.
- Pandora's Inheritance: The Coven - An example of the template in use with hiders to keep the information neatly compact and organized.
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) that makes it easier to keep all the thread essentials in one place.
Anyway, I hope that this helps.