The Guide to Email Success/Joshua Tips

From Homestar Runner Fanstuff Wiki

Hello, I am Joshua, the writer of the overly popular Tampo Emails, which have won various awards for both the show itself and individual emails.

Here are quick tips that I suggest to all email-writers out there.

• You need to love writing. You have to enjoy writing stories and have enough free time on your hands to do so. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time.
• Use perfect spelling and grammar. It's really hard for users to enjoy reading your work if it's poorly written. Even small grammar and spelling mistakes, if they occur too frequently, will cause some users to stop reading.
• Don't make them too short. This is the easy way out, and it happens too often. Try to make your emails have at least 50 lines. People generally seem to prefer email shows with fewer, long emails than many short ones.
• Plan beforehand. Don't just browse through the list of abandoned characters, pick a character, and start writing. Unless you're working with a main H*R character, you need to think about all your options, and once you find a character you like, plan before writing. What's his personality? Where does he live? Who will he live with? What are their personalities? Etc.
• Don't jump in the deep end right away. All the big email shows have plots nowadays. To the average newbie in the email show pool, it'll seem like to become popular, you gotta have a cool multi-email plot. Well, maybe. But don't start it right away. When it comes to email shows, it's hard to have a cool, interesting plot without first developing the characters with single, regular emails first. I waited until email #10 before I started making plots more than two emails long. Normal emails are the best way to introduce the public and yourself to your main characters. Play safe in the plot pool.
• Don't overpopulate your email show. Don't crowd your email show with too many characters, expecially early on. You'll confuse your readers, and possibly even yourself. Take your time, and whenever you do add a major character to your show, make sure you give him time to show and express his personality early on. Let the public learn about him. And as your email show expands, your cast of characters naturally will too.
• Obey the rules. Follow transcription standards are all those other email rules from the beginning. Learn them before beginning your show. A rule breaking email show is usually not a popular email show.
• You gotta have humor! No matter how good your plots are or how advanced your characters have become, what most people really want in your email show is some jokes scattered about. Be witty with your jokes. Everyone has a different sense of humor, make sure you use your own to the fullest. But don't focus on a joke too long or use it too often so that it becomes stale. That's a bad thing.
• You aren't using Flash. There's a small problem with that. The thing is that with the exception of what's taken directly from the H*R website, your audience will have to imagine your email show being played out in his or her head. So make sure this is easy for them to do. Read your emails from the viewers point of view. Try to imagine a Flash cartoon of your email. Make sure you are being descriptive enough. But don't overdo it by boring your audience to death by focusing on every little detail.
• Don't make your emails too long. With the exceptions of email specials, try to not make your emails too long. You'll go insane. Trust me. This is one thing I have to work on. Also, make sure that any long emails you make have enough humor and action so as not to bore your viewers into leaving or skipping to the end.
• No flashy blockquotes. It's okay to have cool looking blockquotes, but pick color schemes and fonts wisely. Make sure the text on your blockquotes is easy to read and doesn't burn out your eyes. Use common sense when making blockquote styles.
• Don't throw away emails. When answering emails, give every email what it deserves: being answered. Unless it's a very crappy "omg u r teh suxx0rs!!!" type of email, every email deserves to be answered, even if its just a small reply before the main email in a two-email episode. No one likes seeing their email responded with something like "Umm... I don't understand you, so DELETED!" and then erased, and then having the rest of the episode focused entire on a seperate, completely unrelated email.
• Don't crossover too much. It's cool to reference other fanstuff and real-life media, just don't overdo it. It's hard to overdo referencing, so usually you won't have to worry about it. What you need to look out for are crossovers, expecially with material unrelated to H*R. Don't do it too much. Maybe for an email here and there, but only when it makes sense and used intelligently. And as always, stay in character. Make sure you know how the character you are crossing over with acts before using him or her in your work.
• Make long paragraphs rare. Try to not use long paragraphs too much. They can deter any light readers who aren't determined to read your email thoroughly. Dialogue between two or more characters is useful in splitting up long explanations. When doing long action sequences, splitting up the paragraph with the occasional dialogue, even if its just a character grunting, can be useful.
• Don't summarize within transcripts. When something big happens in one of your emails, don't be lazy and just say "Homestar escaped" or "Strong Mad killed Strong Sad," etc. Remember, you are transcribing an imaginary toon, and you don't want your readers to have to make stuff up to visualize the storyline. It is okay to cut action scenes out as long as it is realistic from a real cartoon point of view. For example, {Homestar is cornered by a bunch of ninjas. Fade to a screen reading "One totally awexome fight scene later..." Fade back to Homestar standing over a bunch of KO'd ninjas.}
• You aren't going to please everybody. So don't try to. People have very different tastes, so no matter what you make, someone isn't going to like it. (Yes, there are some people who dislike Tampo Emails.) Be content with the audience you get and don't feel sad and a failure if someone says your email show isn't up to par. (Unless you are putting no effort into it, in which case it probably does stink.) Focus on the good and not the bad, otherwise you'll get discouraged and probably lose interest in writing. Some people like long 100-lines-plus email shows, while some like emails with around 50 lines. Some like long, deep plotlines, while others prefer short, unconnected emails that focus mainly on humor. And of course, tastes in humor varies from person to person as well. So the best strategy is probably to go with what you like, because then you'll be able to write to your fullest potential.

Summary

• You need to love writing.
• Use perfect spelling and grammar.
• Don't make them too short.
• Plan beforehand.
• Don't jump in the deep end right away.
• Don't overpopulate your email show.
• Obey the rules.
• You gotta have humor!
• You aren't using Flash.
• Don't make your emails too long.
• No flashy blockquotes.
• Don't throw away emails.
• Don't crossover too much.
• Make long paragraphs rare.
• Don't summarize within transcripts.
• You aren't going to please everybody.