The last couple of days I have been inspired to write. There is this story buzzing around in my head that needs to be put down to paper.Â
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In the past I have had similar ‘urges’, which usually lead to me writing maybe a chapter or two before completely losing heart, interest or his massive writers block. I guess my biggest enemy is my own perfectionism; it tends to discourage me from finishing anything bigger than a poem.
The story that is currently haunting through my head has to do with the role-play character I made for a MechWarrior campaign (still refusing to call it “Classic BattleTech Role-Play)”, a friend of mine is running/preparing.
Every time I make a new character I go out on a limb to search for the personality of this character. But it is mostly during play that a character really gets filled out as you are starting to search for his character and behavior and quirks. A good character does not stop evolving; a character is rarely the same at the end of a role-playing campaign as he was at creation time. To me, this is part of what role-playing is about.
Some folks will think it is weird to ‘get into’ a character so deep, remembering the horrible incidents where youths got too carried away with their Dungeons and Dragons game or took Vampire the Masquerade a bit too personal. But in return I can say any good book writer does the same, not to mention actor.
I think you could consider role-playing to be a collaboration of ‘writers’ that make a story as they go. There is no real room to plot things out, no matter how skillful the game master is; the story will follow its own path and all you can do is try and steer it a little.
But back to the story-writing part. 😉
I was working on this character and actually put a lot of effort into it, but we have not been able to play the game recently due to events in ‘real life’. As a result I have been thinking on the character of the person I created because I like to have a good idea of how he will respond in varying situations.
Just as I was fabricating his demeanor this start of a scene just came to mind. I tend to think in terms of scenes rather than story lines, because scenes help me better to form character. But this scene that was evolving in my head is so interesting I want to write it down. Even more so, this scene just feels like the start of a good story.
I have not written down anything yet, really. Even the scene is still a bit like particles floating in my mind. But these particles are starting to adhere to each other forming the scene as I think more about it. Once I have this scene figured out on paper I will contemplate a storyboard to help me figure out where to go from there.
I am not quite sure if I will publish parts of it on this blog, or at least not to the great public. I am rather fond of copyright and I would not like for someone to take off with my story or my character for that matter. What I will do however, is try and write down the experiences of this expedition and how it affects the evolution of the story and my character.
Maybe posting this experience will keep me from stopping where I have done before. Maybe someone reading this might give me pointers on how to continue. I would like (as with every other story I started) to finish putting it to paper but I need to find the stamina to scoop up that which floats in the ether and put it down in writing.