Writer who role plays, or role player who writes?

[Len]

A question that I've been wondering for awhile....would you say you are someone who firstly is a writer, and you love the role play format, or would you say you are a role player who writes?  AND which character of yours would you say is your best one, in your own opinion, and would it be because you thought it was well played, or because it was well written?

Okay, over to anyone who wants to answer!  :tongue:

[Paula]

Hard to say, where's the difference? I've done roleplaying in my youth and I've been writing since I was teen...

And what do you call it when you characters write themselves?
My best ones are those who do write themselves...like Corowal or Aileyan. They are often also the oldest ones, with lot of history.

[Chelle]

Well....I started roleplaying when I was about 15 as I recall. However, I also write poetry and have been doing that for a long time so... I'd have to say I was a writer first, though I don't like novel writing in the least. I've been known to do short articles and newsletters and such from time to time.

My character that I'm in love with the most...oh that's very hard.
I think my most fun to write would probably be my weyrbrat at Arolos. She went from being a starved holder sent to the Weyr during the famine to a curious fosterling to stealing flit eggs to winning singing competitions to runner jockeying..and all sorts of things in between. And to think, I adopted her.

Course there are so many others that I'm in love with. Each of them has their own..something. Are there some I find hard to write for? Yep, though I think most of that is not having someone to play them off of. Without anyone to interact with, a character can never reach their potential.

[Clancey]

Another great question! LOL

Like Paula, I couldn't quite figure out the difference.   But, I was a role-player first.   I think that is what taught me to write.  I certainly RPed for years before I tried to "write" a story.  And now I'm writing a book  So RPer who writes fer sure.

Well I bet you all know my favorite character is J'darin.   He's the most interesting of mine, though after a little more time, Dysali (if I write her more) may grow into someone just as interesting.  I don't even know the depths of J'darin.  Eventually, he'll tell me.  

I love Felyna too, but I didn't create her.  I just write her.... so that is hard to say

But the ones you've been playing for the longest eventually go into their own story without your help.  Their lives continue on even if you don't write them all the time.   I wrote a character for a Robert Jordan RP named Kallandra al'Kanntur Sedai and she writes herself.  She has so many stories, some of them she's never told me.  

Eventually, though, you become both an RPer and a writer... and thats what I'd like to be

[Suzee]

Most certainly a writer before an RP'r, unless you count Cowboys and Indians or Ben Hur when I was a child.

I've written for most of my life and have found it cathartic when dealing with difficulties or just changes in life. I've written so much with just pen and paper even before computers. I can't even begin to tell you what it feels like to go back and reread things from ages past and remember the person I was in that point in time.

It wasn't until about a year and a half ago that I even discovered RP. The funny thing is that it was my ex-husband who told me about it... and an rp run by his current wife.  Needless to say, our breakup wasn't a traumatic thing but a growing apart and mutual decision after 17 years of marriage and raising 5 children. After this last 18 months though, she has become one of my best friends and favorite writing partners. It was through her that I was introduced to Ames.

Ames is another story completely. She had a situation where a family issue had kept her from writing for quite awhile and she had to close down a beloved site. During her absence one of her special characters became the brunt of some rather harsh treatment from another writer.  When Ames came back and started to write again I met her for the first time and offered to help her tell his side of the story... privately just for herself.  We spent months and many pages of RP telling his new story.  We didn't even know where it was going to end up.  But in the end... she found him again, he grieved for his lost past and found a fresh future.

Growth is a wonderful thing and I have found a great deal of that over the last 18 months. At first I couldn't conceive of writing a male character. Then I created Dorian Alexander and now he writes himself as Clancy said. Most of the time I don't even know what he's going to do or say when I start writing.

Tavia, ah Tavia. She's taken on a life of her own and I'm excited to see where it's going to go. I did adopt her to begin here at Triad but thanks to the other wonderful writers here she's really coming to life.

I am enjoying Triad so much and growing as an RP'r. I appreciate you all and thanks for the opportunities to help you with your own characters. I enjoy a challenge... so bring it on.  I may even try a male greenrider... never would have dreamed that one all those months ago.

Hug Ames - aka Brice, and all you've taught me.

[Devin]

I'm a writer who dabbles in RP. Writing can be lonely, and the style of writing here lets me have a different kind of outlet. I like writing with others and being surprised at what our characters do.

N'vanik is my favorite character by far. He hasn't had much chance to shine lately, but I'm hoping something or someone will come along to change that. Like Chelle said, a lot of it has to do with having someone to play off of.

[Ames]

I am most definitely a writer first. I have been writing since I was a child! Diaries, poems, stories...whatever I could get my hands on! My dream in life is to actually write my own children stories and adult romance stories.

Problem is that in this 'busy' world, I always seemed to shove writing to the back-burner, until I found role-playing online about 5 years ago. Suddenly I could create and test characters in all kinds of settings. It has truly helped me expand as a writer, not only because it's motivating, but also because I get to see reactions that are different than the ones I might have created for a character.

One day, I _will_ publish some of those books! I know it!

As for favorite characters? Oh gee, I could write a book! I fall hard for my characters, though some have left truly lasting impressions over others.

As Suzee mentioned above (love ya Suzee!!) she played a part in helping me bring back to life a character I absolutely adored. Even though I had done other RPs before, about 3 years ago I created my own Star Trek RP and quickly fell in love with my Captain. Yet, life changed, and I had to leave RP for awhile to recover from a family loss. When I decided to return to the online world, I found that some old friends had made my character out to be so different than I had ever dreamed him to be :( It truly broke my heart and I thought I might never write him again. Yet, I found his heart and soul once more...he is by far my favorite character I've made.

I have others that I love as well...Cardella and Lisadi being two of them. Here I created them thinking they would be 'simple' characters, and both have developed and grown in ways I hardly imagined. They are like dear friends to me now that I return to each and every day.

Writing is truly an amazing avenue and roleplaying adds dimensions to writing that are hard to create alone.

Maybe someday you'll see one of my characters pop up in a published story!! Boy, I hope so!!!

[Jane]

I'm bumping this excellent 2010 topic up from the depths because in a way I think it's a bit of companion to Yvonne's questions on 'voices'.

My response here is - is Triad (or any of the full post pbem clubs) role-play at all?

Although we use to the term 'persona' I usually use 'character' because to me this is just a writing group.  I see no role-play in clubs like Triad.  I don't 'play' bronzerider X'yz, I write fiction using him as a recurring character and in conjunction with others writing for their characters.

If it was live role-play, or even round-robin, then I feel it would be more 'role-play' than writing.  What do others feel?

And to take this back to the 'voices' - I'm sure this is where there are no voices in my head!  Even if I'm writing speech for a character, if they don't say something well enough then I go back and change it, change it a couple of times, reword it.  Take the paragraph out and write it differently to get the effect I want.  There's no time for listening to voices.

 :geek:

[Leigh]

I think I'm both.