Credit once again to Sarah, Copyright To Tommy © (This is from the old old old old old old Draco on this site! Some may remember him)

I'm sure you've asked that question before if you've clicked on this. "How do I make my posts longer?" Or you're just curious to know if you can spice up your posts a bit more. Well, I'll show you how to take your simple one-liner:

i.e.
"Draco walked into the room and looked around, wondering where everyone was."

And turn it into a post worthy of JK Rowling herself:

i.e.
"Draco walked into the room, sighing. He hadn't seen Pansy or Blaise all day long, and now he'd come to an empty common room as well? Well, wasn't life just dandy for him? Sitting on the couch, he brought his feet up to the table, slamming them quite hard and sending and echo throughout the room. Looking around, hoping to see some sign of life other than that ruddy, no-good fire, he sighed in defeat. Where in Merlin's name was everyone?! Did they just forget that he was here?! I mean, why would you possibly pass up the oppertunity to talk to one of the most handsome, rich Purebloods in all of England?! It just wasn't right.

Crumbling up some spare parchment that was left lying on the table his feet were on, he threw them into the fire, smirking. Eventually, he'd get up and go hunting for people- or, would he just wait and let them come to him? Yeah ... that sounded like a good idea! So, sitting smugly on his "throne," the Pureblood Prince sat and waited for someone to grace him with their presence."


Okay, here's the general thing that makes this work: ELABORATION. You have to use heavy-description, and get inside the mind of your character. It's a matter of steps, and I'll show you them.

Step One: Generalizing Your Character's Mood

The first step is setting your character's mood. What mood are they in at the beginning, middle and end of your post? Are they happy, sad, depressed, anxious, upset, eager? What? This is one of the easiest parts. Just think of how you want your character to feel- let's say they'd just one the Quidditch game the night before, so they're still happy about that. Instead of-

"Draco walked into the Great Hall and was happy he won the Quidditch game last night,"

You might want to say-

"Draco beamed as he stalked smugly into the Great Hall, smirking as he went along. Yes, yes, he was the Quidditch star last night that caught the Snitch when Slytherin was behind by one-hundred points. Yes, he was the envy of everyone on Gryffindor team, including Saint Potter."

See? It gives readers more of a good feel on how the character is actually feeling. He went from just a one-dementional happy to very plainly vain and smug about his win the night before.

Step Two: Describing Your Character's Surroundings

The second step is a bit more difficult than the first for the simple fact that you have to describe more than just one thing about the area your character is in. For example-

"Hermione walked into the library and frowned at the noise of the other students,"

Could easily be lenghtened to-

"Hermione huffed as she pushed past the crowd of students leaving the packed-library. Gapsing in disbelief at the tornado in front of her, Hermione took a few steps in, seeing students hurrying back and forth between tables, books lying about everywhere and ink spills on just about every table. So this was the library during exams?"

Also describing the feelings and textures of a characters surroundings helps make your posts longer and sound better. For example-

"Harry lay on the cool grass, the warm sun balancing perfectly with the cool breeze that blew by every now and then."

Step Three: Adding Your Character's Personal Thoughts

The third, and most important and challenging, step in this guide is adding a bit of your characters own, personal thoughts into your post. It gives it a more personal and charming touch to your posts and gives the readers a closer connection to your character. If you character normally has a smug personality, such as Draco's, add that to your post. If your character normally has a witty personality, like Hermione's, add that to your post. Here's an example of each:

Draco's:
"Draco had finished an assignment that he had reluctantly sat down to do and decided to go on a little stroll afterwords. He hadn't seen much of Pansy, which he regretted. His thoughts had been on her a good deal lately since they had become more than just friends. Her image always seemed to dance in his mind even when he was trying to think of other things. Many people could probably never believe that Draco Malfoy, of all people, was in love... Or something like love. Whatever it was, it was delicious and yet haunting.

He crammed his hands deep into his pockets and wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the handle of his wand, doing it purely out of habit. Draco took slow and steady steps, kicking a small rock along as he did so. And then he grew tired of it and decided to step over the small stone and ignore its existence. This was something he had been doing to a lot of ideas and objects, stepping over them (physically or metaphorically) and pretending they didn't exist.

He came to a near-by tree and leaned against its trunk before taking out his wand and wondering what he could do to occupy his time. Even in a school of magic, one could easily become bored. Draco find someone to pick on perhaps, or maybe try doing something constructive.

Yet, as he stood there, nothing entertaining came to mind. Since the courtyard was void of other life for the time being, especially someone good to talk to, he found that there was little hope of being relieved of dull happenings about him. "

Hermione's:
"A pink tab meant Defense Against the Dark Arts, and a blue on Arithmancy? Yes, that was right, Hermione determined as she checked her Class/Color key. Biting her lip in concentration, Hermione pulled off several pink tabs, marking them on May 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th. Now for the blue tabs. She pulled five blue tabs off, and placed them on the day just after the pink tabs, on May 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th. One day each week would be dedicated to studying for the exams for two classes, and every Sunday would be dedicated to studying for all of them. While Hermione knew she needed to be studying for each exam often and a lot, she also knew that if she studied for only two a night, she would be able to go into much more depth, and cover the material thoroughly.

Now green would certainly have to be Herbology, to fit in with the theme of the class. Pulling off more green tabs, Hermione marked them just after the blue tabs, on the 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, and 31st. Now she would have to start doubling up on days. It was a wonder to Hermione that Ron and Harry hadn't started to follow her lead yet with preparing for their exams in such a manner. They never usually studied until the week before their exams. Such a thing was unheard of for Hermione. In fact, she was even deathly surprised that she hadn't started making her studying guide until just then. Four months in advance was suitable. Three months though? How could she have ever let herself slack off in such a manner? If she missed something on the final that studying could have prevented, she would never forgive herself. Never. It was unheard of."

Step Four: Putting Them All Together

Now, take all the things we've learned from the previous three sections and you should have, at least, a good paragraph or two to reflect on. Following these steps will really help, and with time, you may even get to posting things with lengths like this:

Hermione sat twirling a long strand of her fluffy brown hair around her fingers snapping off spilt ends, and just watching the sun bounce off her hair, causing different colors of brown highlights with dull reds. When did she get red in her hair? Oh that time she had been in Charms and Malfoy had figured it would be fun for her to look for like ‘a traitor like Weaslette’ in his words. He was such an arrogant, ugly, try-hard, greedy, conniving… She took a deep breath and stopped thinking about that twit. Looking down, resting her chin on her chest, she looked at her jumper. She flicked off pieces of fluff and minor hairs from Crookshanks. Her half-Kneeled, Half-cat, pet. He was always very playful and gorgeous. She never wanted to see him the way others did as ‘a fat hairy fluff ball’. And well…she was feeling very restless, constantly shifting her weight around, playing with the threadbare couch and checking for other people in the Common Room. Who'd have thought it? All her homework done to the tee, and re-checked by the dozens of Spell checks and cursive checking spells, so in other words, many spells she had found during her trips to the Library. She began tapping her fingers on the couch arm to a small tune. All her books read, considered, and, if necessary, returned. She had even written out a small summary about each, describing how they had made her feel.

Yes, she had been awfully uninterested in anything like Quidditch or Dueling Club, like you can’t tell already. All her other extra-curricular things were put aside like S.P.E.W and Dumbledore’s Army for their own reasons, like being un-popular or the runner was un-prepared. You guess which one’s which... Hermione was so extremely bored of a lot of things. She was bored of the magical, enchanting school, all of it being all too easy for her, bored of her reputation as the goody-two-shoes Gryffindor. May have been a phase, but it was true, she was a bloody goody-two-shoes. That’s why she’d skipped both Lily’s, and James’ parties, all because of that little fact ‘known’ to everyone. Perhaps she could start becoming more partying. Hermione laughed to herself at the thought. 'Me? ‘Partying’ like Sarah or Ad?' She shook her head and slowly glanced at the room again thinking that she could make this time worth it and clean up for the House-elves so they didn’t have so much stress. She pushed up off the couch, and evaluated the room. Completely and simply bloody bored of it all.

She hadn't felt so bored to death since her first year of Hogwarts, before, becoming friends with Harry and Ron, although then she was more likely to be crying or winging or blaming them for things. She shuddered at the thoughts of her old self as the annoying, priggish, rule-enforcing, Percy-loving first year, as everyone did at that thought... She laid back into the couch and kicked her feet up on the arm rest, wondering everyone... ANYONE was. I mean the Common Room was always filled with little students here and there but today there was absolutely nothing. Nothing! She laid her head back on the couch arm and looked around the room vaguely. When was that Potions assignment due in? I'm sure I finished it but I might've left it in the library, when I was in there earlier... Hermione tapped her chin with her finger continuing to glance around the room hoping someone she knew would bloody hurry up and come in. Hermione had obviously forgotten about cleaning as quickly as she had decided too because of the scraps of parchment lying around and snapped quills. A few wrappers, probably left by Ron… He was such a tremendously bad role-model to the younger students. Making the other good, honest, hard-working Prefects seem like pigs and using their power to hand out detentions and such out.

Suddenly she heard the soft purr of her pet cat, Crookshanks, running his tail around her fingers elegantly. She watched him slowly simper up at her with his smooth face. He seemed to know something by the looks of him. Like he knew something she didn’t. He always did that to her. Making her think and wonder. That’s why she loved him so dearly, ‘Crooky,’ She said softly tapping her lap, giving him a small smile. ‘Come on baby, come to mummy,’ She added giving a mock forceful look, sitting up, and tapping her lap again. He slowly began to walk towards her, but stopped several feet away looking up at her seeming like he was trying to make her work to get him to come to her. ‘Crookshanks, I can’t be bothered, hun,’ She said, tiredly. Reaching out for him, waving her fingers towards her, trying to get him to move closer. She had always treated him as though he was human. Though, you probably already had that impression about her. She sighed annoyed with him. She laid back down on the couch yawning and giving a side-ways look at the fat little cat. He seemed to have picked up slightly and walked towards her, mocking her in a way. ‘Fine, hop up, Crooky,’ She said, scooting over the couch letting him hop up next to her. He slowly pushed her more and more into the couch.

She rolled over and shook her head as he stretched out as far as his itty bitty paws would stretch. ‘Pig,’ she said, jokingly. She gave him an affectionate scratch behind the ear before sitting up and switching ends. Hermione turned back to her hair, flicking it around and trying to think of where Ron or Harry had gotten off too… She felt like either yelling out in boredom or crying, right now. She felt so lost all alone, she bet that Ron had gotten off to Holly, who he’d spent Valentines Day with at James’ party. She kept telling herself she didn’t care, which she didn’t. She knew she didn’t like him that way, and never would, unless he did and he didn’t, she knew that so…she just didn’t…

Her eyes narrowed, as her mind trailed back to when Ron had ‘gone out’ with Lavender, though it wasn’t going out, literally, because they never really went on any dates that she knew about…wait she didn’t want to think about their dates, seeing how they acted in public was bad enough, imagine what would happen behind closed doors. Hermione shuddered again and covered her mouth, feeling her back go rigid, and her lunch trying to come back up. Taking a few seconds to regain her disgusted front she relaxed back and went towards her previous thoughts. If they were going out Hermione didn’t want to be sour towards Holly but she knew she would end up being sour. ‘Hey maybe they aren’t going out…’ Her small stupid voice of hope inside her head sounded. He had asked her out on Valentines’ Day so it must mean that they are and…

Hermione couldn’t stay in the common room, to many memories of the past and it was just slowly starting to make her want to cry more and more. Maybe she could go down to the gardens or, the lake or… no she couldn’t bring herself to go anywhere near those places. It would just make things worse for her. She jumped up and left the hollow, boring Common Room alone. It was kind of sad that she couldn’t stay here. She sighed and picked Crookshanks, rubbing her eyes angrily. She was too over this whole relationships, and school and it was all too pointless. She should be able to leave whenever she felt like it. She was old enough and.. Wait have was she thinking!? Why would she leave school without a good reason, besides that Ron was here. She hopped down the few steps and found herself in an abandoned hallway. She walked over to the wall and flopped down leaning against the wall petting Crookshanks and felling slightly upset and confused about all the boys in her life.

(I did not know the person who wrote the original RP for this section so put my own here insted so as to not to infringe on them and their contribution. It's mine in other words, thanks to Tommy and this tut!)