Greetings, Escapists!
Hoping to make my first ventures into the forum-world a memorable one, I came to think that a question-topic might make a decent starting point *clears throat*
One of the things that has always bugged me the most with written forms of communication, be it IM, forums or anything in between, is the complete (and rather obvious) absence of body language. I have always been an incessantly oral writer, that is I write much the same way I speak, which means my writing often turns quite peculiar without the added dimension of non-verbal(err, that is, written) communication. Now, most people would be content with smilies, but somehow I never liked them, so to solve this issue I started using "star-captions" to detail anything from tones of voice to physical movement, like this: *raises eyebrows and gestures to the line you are currently reading*
The question, then, is how do you usually make up for the lack of body-language when writing, and why that way in particular? Do you keep to the simple beauty of smilies? Are you a fellow user of stars (for it is always stars *cough* sorry)? Do you have another clever way of dealing with it, or do you find that is it not needed in the first place?
EDIT: As several people has pointed out, tone of voice and intonation can be just as important - how do you deal with that challenge?
Hoping to make my first ventures into the forum-world a memorable one, I came to think that a question-topic might make a decent starting point *clears throat*
One of the things that has always bugged me the most with written forms of communication, be it IM, forums or anything in between, is the complete (and rather obvious) absence of body language. I have always been an incessantly oral writer, that is I write much the same way I speak, which means my writing often turns quite peculiar without the added dimension of non-verbal(err, that is, written) communication. Now, most people would be content with smilies, but somehow I never liked them, so to solve this issue I started using "star-captions" to detail anything from tones of voice to physical movement, like this: *raises eyebrows and gestures to the line you are currently reading*
The question, then, is how do you usually make up for the lack of body-language when writing, and why that way in particular? Do you keep to the simple beauty of smilies? Are you a fellow user of stars (for it is always stars *cough* sorry)? Do you have another clever way of dealing with it, or do you find that is it not needed in the first place?
EDIT: As several people has pointed out, tone of voice and intonation can be just as important - how do you deal with that challenge?
