I've won role contests several times over the years, but my last three characters haven't even been acknowledged for having a role after 200 hours.

Do you divide out who is in charge of reading which roles? Do you look at characters at 20 hours and determine if you will bother reading anything they write? Am I, the player, on someone's #### list?

Some people are being noticed, and if I'm lacking in some category, I'd rather get negative feedback that I can learn from than crickets.

Thanks

Roughly in order of importance:

-Tell me something useful about the character and their motivations. This is, after all, the point. Your role should ideally make watching you in action make more sense.

-To the point. You might enjoy writing a novel, but I don't really want to have to read one every time I check out a character's role.

-Realistic. By CF standards, that is. If your role involves you slaying a dragon at, essentially, level 0, you're immediately starting your reader off with an eye-roll.

-Quality writing.

-Formatting. Please take pity on your readers and adhere to 80 characters max per line.

I think motivations trump character backstory. I don't mind if you write a little bit longer of a story, but if that story has nothing to do with the character it defeats the purpose. The backstory is really there to set mood, placement, and to show off the character, imo.

For hypothetical example: If your character had rich parents but you never met them and they are dead. Most of the role should probably not be about the mostly irrelevant parents.

I've read a few really well-written, long stories where the role had almost nothing to do with the character.

I used to write stories that had nothing to do with motivation, but over the years have started to favor motivation over backstory. Good to hear I steered in the right direction. Only took 10+ years to pound that logic in my head.

I think motivations trump character backstory. I don't mind if you write a little bit longer of a story, but if that story has nothing to do with the character it defeats the purpose. The backstory is really there to set mood, placement, and to show off the character, imo.

For hypothetical example: If your character had rich parents but you never met them and they are dead. Most of the role should probably not be about the mostly irrelevant parents.

I've read a few really well-written, long stories where the role had almost nothing to do with the character.

I think motivations trump character backstory. I don't mind if you write a little bit longer of a story, but if that story has nothing to do with the character it defeats the purpose. The backstory is really there to set mood, placement, and to show off the character, imo.

For hypothetical example: If your character had rich parents but you never met them and they are dead. Most of the role should probably not be about the mostly irrelevant parents.

I've read a few really well-written, long stories where the role had almost nothing to do with the character.

.

Just less people doing the work than in the past.