A regular emote is a line telling others what your character is currently doing. These can be short, like this:

Brygid coughs.

, or they can be long and involved, such as:

Brygid enters the plaza slowly, winding her way through the stifling crowd. Her boots tap quietly against the pavement as they alternately peek out from the oilskin duster which pantomimes her every movement.

A closed emote most often happens in Role Played combat, when one person gets too vigorous or does not think about the other player's possible reaction to their emote. For instance, a player who is fighting an ollie might emote this:

"Brygid throws a high kick toward the Ollie's forehead." - This would not be a closed emote, because it offers the ollie a chance to duck, dodge, or take the hit.

However, the player could also emote "Brygid kicks the ollie in the forehead, snapping his neck like a twig and killing him with her powerful judo kick." This is an example of a closed emote. The player is telling the ollie he has to die from that kick. -NOT- a very pleasant thing to do to another player, not to mention rude and against the unwritten rule of RP. Closed emotes are just bad karma.