Welcoming Language, and How it Helps

hello ‘tis twobands subspace still sucks

Per usual, I’d like to push something out in between featured blogs. This post is about how I try to use inviting language to develop a relationship with readers.

When writing, I try to stay away from a writer-to-reader relationship, because it’s commonly hard to maintain and uncomfortably formal for an app such as Amino (my post about Ally is really the only time I went for this more formal relationship). To humanize myself a little, I try to use welcoming language throughout my blogs. Here’s some examples (all from the Ernie and Bert moveset btw):

Excluding the obviously informal tone of this (use of first person pronouns), the way I talk plays a role in how I relate to the reader. By expressing my adoration for two puppets geared towards *very* young children, I’m conveying a sense of shamelessness and willingness to open up to the reader. I clearly understand the adoration appears bizarre, even if it is for a reason entirely unrelated to a child’s adoration of Bert and Ernie.

I present my ideas for idle animations and similar things with questions (“perhaps/maybe...”), and the way I speak is almost comparable to pitching ideas in a faculty meeting. The intended effect of this is to address the reader directly and speak to them as if in the same room.

Furthering this tone, I often refer to myself and the reader as “we”, which promotes the idea that what I’m presenting is something the reader and I collectively accomplished, despite that obviously not being the case.

a phrase like, “we can accomplish a lot...” can also be used as an implication that there are a ton of options regarding what I’m talking about (non-gameplay featured, in this case). Welcoming language, in that case, both conveys a sense of companionship and an idea about the moveset.

This one is much more simple. I once again am speaking as someone physically with the reader, and I use that to establish a rule I’m going to keep in mind throughout the moveset. I directly inform the reader that the moveset is going to have questionable game design, because not emphasizing that self-awareness makes me look foolish. This example does help the previously established conversational tone, too.

ok last one

This example aids in the welcoming tone, but, given that that’s a common theme, I don’t care to focus on that.

“Phew” may have been overboard in of informality, but this screenshot aids in me conveying my thought process. I walk the reader through everything I considered with the move, eventually landing on what I actually decided to do with it. It’s pretty simple, but I’d say informal language and direct addressing of the reader is effective in conveying my though process here.

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I definitely don’t feel this kind of language is necessary. It def helps the specific style of writing that I try to use, which is very conversation-like.

#TwilightWings

#Macine