@roz said in How to: make your poses less repetitive:
I'm generally not a fan of epithets in most situation, and this is a good article about good uses and bad uses that I generally agree with. In RP I tend to often find they muddle scenes unless you're literally in a 1:1 because it's really easy to lose who's talking. (Unless you're in a 1:1 or it's literally a situation or a game style where your PC's identity is obscured or whatever, your name should ALWAYS be in your pose.)
As an alternate opinion, I've found that mixing up capitalized descriptors and nicknames helps spice things up. For example:
Wes looks at Cumani with a cackle, eyes alight with mischief. "Is that so?" He looks to his left, and then to his right. "Why, how could that be? For it seems to be, as you well know, that but for what words come out of my mouth, whoever else could I be?" As if that meant everything -- his final answer -- Wes winks.
That could be re-written as:
Wes looks at Cumani with a cackle, eyes alight with mischief. "Is that so?" The Hierophant looks to his left, and then to his right. "Why, how could that be? For it seems to be, as you well know, that but for what words come out of my mouth, whoever else could I be?" As if that meant everything -- the Seven of Words' final answer -- the Acolyte of Madness winks.
Mind, Wes had, like, eleventy billion nicknames for himself, but I think the second example, even in a crowd, reads a lot better than the first.
It helps if your character has other attributes or nicknames to differentiate him or her from everyone else. Clarice, for instance, is the Murder Mouse, the Winter Soldier, the Icy Waitress, and so on. Erin was the Aquarian, the Scientist, and the Trash Panda.