Forums » RP Discussion » Stories you write with your characters?

Hey there!

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for the topic (the creativity one seemed to be about drawing.), but I'm always curious to see if people write short stories, or little blurbs with their characters. Personally, I find them helpful when detailing or thinking about major events in their life, or, if I haven't used them for roleplay in a while, maintaining my ability to write as them.

Anyone have stories to share? I've only got three, haha.

Albert Charlot Coupe
Homecoming
Happy Birthday

Regina Viktoria Baardsson
Violin

Oh yes! I do the same thing. I love to write little snippets for my characters--especially if they're humorous.

Samuel Clemens has several short stories. He's my blind dude with a guide dog.

Hunter Argentum has one or two short stories as well.

Zeke O'Malley my FBI agent has a journal for his missions, and Sterling Argentum's profile is just plain old humorous.

I'm partially the opposite with my snippets- I can't seem to write anything happy, haha!

Do you use them as exercises to keep up with your characters' mindsets and day to day lives, do it for fun, a combination of the both? Maybe a different reason?

I have some on one of my profiles, but the majority of my stories are never uploaded onto profiles, but I always write a million and a half stories for my characters. I really enjoy writing, so I write blurbs and short stories for my characters.

One of my characters earned herself a whole novel and another has an entire story based on writing the stories so I get to write stories about him through writing stories for other characters. If that makes any sense like it doesn't.

A lot of the stories explore the ending of characters and other sad bits in their lives, but sometimes I make something happy.

I have the stories that the characters are involved with on their profiles. I have literature tabs for them. I also really enjoy writing- hence the huge interest in roleplaying, but I barely have anything I wrote published on sites or stored anywhere other than Google Drive. :'D I think it's because I can't write anything happy.

I find it fun to write about specific events, such as the "Homecoming" story I linked to above. I also like writing things that explore the character's mind and thoughts of things, like "Violin." I know I'll both look forward to and dread when the time comes to write the ends of the characters (because I'd hate to throw away all the work I put into them! All that research and writing...), so that'll have to be a bridge I cross when it's time, haha!

I like to write stories, novel length ones, and every once in a while, a character will pop up with an interesting short story idea and I'll just run with it. My problem is keeping it short. I tend to write novels.

So I suppose I do it for fun. For Zeke, since he's FBI and has a ton of cases to work on, I use it to keep myself sane on which mission he's on and how that relates to his current storyboard.

I also do it, as you say, to keep with their mindset. For instance, I wrote a shortish story called "Camo Isn't Pink!" for Cody Wesson, which was just his overall aversion to the pink/purple camo for girls. And the twist at the end is that the girl who uses it, was able to get what he wasn't able to because her camo was the distraction!

I'm also a punny person in nature, so I like to add humorous quips and stuff. If I can make a pun out of the title, it's probably gold.

I actually chose to keep a theme in the stuff I'm going to publish that each will end with a suicide. I can't stand the idea of publishing something that won't rip someone's heart out, so I figured I'd just go with it. I don't really like happy endings, because I'm going to cry anyway, I might as well cry for a sad reason. I'm terrible to myself.

Oh, really? That's interesting. My mind pretty much works in that I can't write happy, funny, or other positive things well, as it always seems artificial and sappy to me. I think I also feel that sad things seem to draw people in more, and it's easier for them to emotionally connect to.

Yeah, I can't write things that are much longer than two or three "parts." I do not have the attention span for a novel. Most of the "storyboarding" for my characters is done in the roleplays they participate in. For example, through roleplays, Rhys moved from a rather bland, stationary life at his parents' pub to a more exciting, adventure-filled one with a sky warden. Of course, nothing had really been recorded, as they're roleplays, but that's how my storyboarding gets done.

I've done a number of happy things, but honestly my writing just flows better when I aim for sad things. One of my best stories is about a girl who dies in the end. She actually gets a second chance at life and ends up falling in love and dying beside him suddenly. It's the most heart-wrenching things that I love the most.

I don't really know why it's like that. I have friends who write really nice happy things and then I force them into emotional pain and torment. I'm surprised, really I have friend's left. Just as Pen there, she was part of Red's story and I would have never forgiven me for what I put her through.

Also - as for attention span for novels, have you tried NaNoWriMo? Someone who doesn't know I can't take a challenge like that lightly (*coughPenAgaincough*) got me into it and I actually finished in ten days. Prior to that I;d never gotten past chapter four of a novel.

My writing flows the easiest with "sad" things, as well. I'm currently trying my hand at something "positive," and it is not going well at all. 8[ I don't know which of the three I posted above (my only three "published" ones) would be considered the best, or if they're really any good. xDDD

I don't know why I'm more attracted to "negative" things, either. I had tried being more productive with writing in the past, but had so much difficulty that I gave up on short stories for a while. It could just be the flow, or it could be a matter of personal preference (I get irked by how many happy endings seem forced in movies and the like.), as some of my favorite movies and books have sad endings.

I actually had tried NaNoWriMo several times. Once, I tried a consistent novel. I got bored with it not even halfway through. I tried again a few times with various short stories, but, I couldn't produce anything that I was actually interested in, as I was more worried about word content than quality, I suppose. I had considered it again this year, but there was no way I would have had time for it, as I had classes, work, three field work assignments, and studio hours.

I did write stories for my characters before discovering the world of RP, which was less than a year ago. I never finished any of them or even mentioned them to anyone. I read them every so often and mentally continue and alter the story, but I don't put pencil to paper or finger to keyboard anymore. They tended to be more on the sad side, I suppose, with occasional lifts of varying effects on the overall story.

I'm going to read Violin sometime tomorrow when I'm not supposed to be asleep. I'm something of a straying violinist myself, so I think it'll be up my alley in that regard.

That's kind of what made me stop for a while. I found that I could actually write with other people, where I had less control of the situation, and it thrilled me. Eventually, I realized that these little blurbs helped me out with character development, as well as understanding my characters better. Though that isn't for everyone- sometimes, people just gain a better understanding of their character set through roleplaying.

Awe, thanks. It's gone through a lot of tweaking since the comments/crits were written at the bottom, so some of those may not seem consistent, haha.

Well, that's the great thing about roleplaying: you can experiment and see what works and what doesn't. And sometimes the stuff the other person comes up with is right out of left field but it works so perfectly that you wonder why you never thought of it before!

I have several characters who are from a certain novel I'm currently writing now, but their RPs are considerably different from the novel they'll be in. It's good though, because I can get a real sense of the character I'm writing about and what sorts of situations they could be in; it's also terrible because I want to include everything into my novel and I can't. Intellectual property and all that jazz. Besides that, I can't write other people's characters for the life of me!

The way I broke out into actually writing novel-length stories and finishing them, was through NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month: 30 days of November to write 50,000 words. It's amazing and insane. But it definitely helps you get past the sheer terror of oh-so-many-words and into writing every day. Plus the community is very friendly and upbeat. They're doing a Camp NaNo in April, I believe, which is a similar thing.

I just keep mine with roleplaying and short stories. Yeah, it's great to get to write with them and all, but there's no way I'd be able to maintain a whole story for even one of them. xD I'm fully entertained with all the twists and turns they go through as they're roleplayed, as I kind of enjoy only having partial control of the situation.

As I mentioned above, I tried NaNoWriMo a few times. Once with a consistent novel that I grew bored with almost instantly. Then I tried with some short story collections, but couldn't quite maintain focus on it all, as I was more focused on word count than quality, and wasn't enjoying myself. I considered it this year, as I have a fairly stable set of characters to use for short story collections, but there was no way I'd have had time for it.

I think it depends on what your goal is- whether you want to develop your characters through RP to be able to write a better novel/story, or vice versa.

I see. Sorry, I should have read the other post. Well, NaNo isn't for everyone either. And every writer has their preferred format or length to write. I had a student who loved writing poetry but hated writing stories. I'm the opposite, I can't write poetry to save my life. Haikus are the exception.

The fun of RPs is the fact that they do change depending on the players and the characters. It's very addicting, I'll give you that!

I do not have any to share from any of my characters' at the moment, but I do occasionally write what I call 'drabbles' of my characters. Not so much short stories as scenes, such as encounters, dreams, memories and so on