Attu Project:Records Style Guide
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Records are used to archive meetings and correspondence between characters previously posted on the server. Usually done in the format of stage play, meetings are built on dialogue between characters, with some stage directions written in between to convey the dynamics and movement present in the scene. Meetings on the server range across several years, and there is often a dissonance in the style of writing between early Attu and current Attu, as well as between authors. To ensure consistency between records, this reference style guide will serve to standardize the way of writing to ensure meetings have the same general aesthetic look to them, even as their contents may differ.
In-person meetings
When characters meet in person, sharing the same room or location, such a meeting is the most likely to share a structure of a stage play, and should preferably be written as such. Firstly, a setting should be conveyed, describing the place and context a scene is taking in. It may be as short as a single sentence. A setting usually describes the most important characters that will be present in the meeting, although it is not required to do so. Older meetings tend to have all of the characters named in brackets, although this is a convention that has been moved away from. Such parentheses should be removed. While the word setting should be bolded, the actual description should be italicized.
Secondly, the characters' dialogue should be written clearly, with each speaker identified clearly by putting their name in front of their lines. While nicknames and/or the use of titles are a fine replacement for the full name of the character, it should be fully understandable who the character in question is, by at least writing it in the setting. Due to the several in-universe decades and the multiple eras that have passed, such identification is necessary to ensure understanding of the texts. Highly notable characters may simply be referred to by their nicknames without further description, as the reader is likely already knowledgeable of their person. Dialogue should generally be punctuated correctly, although exceptions may be made depending on the needs of the moment.
Stage directions should be written in parentheses and italicized. Stage directions broadly refer to any sound or motion that cannot be written in regular dialogue. If only briefly interrupting dialogue, a stage direction should be placed integrated into the line. Otherwise, it should go into a new line, and stand alone. A single pair of parentheses should preferably hold all stage directions that occur between two lines of dialogue, although breaks may be made for dramatic effect, by separating them into two pairs of parentheses.
Finally, a date should be written at the end of the meeting, to put a meeting into its historical context. The date may be found on the timeline of events by searching the year in which the article was written in. In case no such page exists yet, the date should only be indicated by its year, with the specific date marked with Xs, such as "XX-XX 42 PC."
The in-person meetings format should utilize the Template:Textbox format, used by typing:
{{textbox
|quote=[Text]
|source=[Date]}},
where the [Text] refers to the meeting itself. An example of a meeting has been posted below.
Ago: Easy, easy.
(The pigs shuffle behind, looking at the man with menace in their eyes.)
Hog: (Grunts.)
Ago: I'm not hurting you, see. (He takes a pouch of seeds off his loincloth. He opens it, and begins to spill it forth.) There, look. I'm a friend.
(The pigs look on with silence.)
(Suddenly, one jumps forward, startling the man. He takes a step back, almost falling on his rear. He moves to pick up a rock, but it is unnecessary. The pig is eating the seeds he has left on the ground. It looks up at him with a stare only an animal could understand. A human most certainly does.)
Radio calls or recordings
Radio calls or recordings are written similarly to in-person meetings, with some key differences. This type of structure should be used when two or more characters aren't meeting in person, or if the in-universe basis of recording it would fall onto a device such as a film camera or a microphone. They should primarily be written as transcripts of a recorded conversation. To make this feeling clear, a different record template is utilized. Firstly, the traditional stage directions, as well as the setting, should be written using squared brackets, and the word "setting" itself should be omitted.
Character dialogue is written similarly to the in-person variant, with the only difference being that the characters should have an identifiable RGB color assigned to them for readability. The same character should preferably carry on the same general color between meetings.
A date and a source should be written into the template, which is written as follows:
{{IgRS quote
|source=[Where was it broadcast]
|date=[Date]
|quote=[Text]
}}
An example of a radio call follows.
[This is the recording of a conversation between #0f668b49f: and #0f667a88c: made on the island of Steamworks.]
#0f668b49f: [*Click*] Good morning to you.
#0f667a88c: Good morning to you too. How goes it?
#0f668b49f: Ah, another long day at the smeltery, you know how it is. You know, #0f9122eee fell down the railing the other day.
#0f667a88c: Damn, really?
#0f668b49f: Yeah, brother got done in. His whole brain melted. Could figure out where the slag began and he ended.
#0f667a88c: Damn.
#0f668b49f: I'm not complaining though. He knew the risks. The rest of us got the leftovers of his oil for witnessing it.
#0f667a88c: Guess that's something at least. Feel like a real fool right now, thought that killing all the humans might have turned things for the better.
#0f668b49f: Ah, same old, same old. Eh, we'll all get turned into slag one day anyways.