Writing Narrative
Sept 19, 2011 20:18:32 GMT -6
Post by Ralph Meglane on Sept 19, 2011 20:18:32 GMT -6
Role-Playing Playing a Role in my Writing
When you read the word “Role-Playing” a few things might come to your mind. One might be the ever-popular RPGs, or Role-Playing Games. You might even think about people pretending to be someone they are not. Possibly even someone truly believing they are someone they are not. What I am referring to; however, is the writing style associated with Role-Playing.
Role-Playing in the terms of writing is a very simple concept. A group of people over a long period of time slowly write out a story. Each person creates a character, like they would in a game. Their character is who they write the story's perspective from, so everyone writing puts different ideas into the story. In most Role-Playing stories, each person can write for and control their character alone. This method evolves the story in a very different way than just one person writing a book. With many people writing, the story becomes a large brainstorm session, eventually ending with a better story than any one could have written alone.
There is one major problem with this style of group writing, and that is that not everyone is a great, or even good, writer. This problem was my problem when I started Role-Playing at the age of fourteen. I was young and inexperienced with writing. Since the fourth grade all of my English Teachers had wondered why I was not any good at writing, though I knew why. During those grades, all I had been made to write about was myself. Every prompt was to be written from my perspective, even if I could care less about it. My problem with the way I was being taught was that I am not interesting. I could never write in a way that made myself feel comfortable, because what I wrote were things I wouldn't do. My writing suffered; I was always behind in my English grades, to the point of almost failing in the fifth grade.
I found a small group of people on the internet by chance. They were Role-Playing with a story based on a favorite game of mine at the time. I was new to this style, and since I never had been taught any better my character was bland and uninteresting. My writing was short, only a sentence or so of dialogue if my character was addressed, and no descriptions of my surroundings. Nobody wanted to have to be in the same room as my character, much less hold a conversation. The only thing that kept me going was me wanting to succeed.
Rather than continuing with the way I was writing at the time, I started adapting. I would read what others wrote, and study their techniques. Slowly realize the differences between I and the other writers. The main difference was substance; that I was only writing a few sentences at a time while some were writing multiple paragraphs of descriptions. Another major difference was the development of characters. My character was bland and stayed that way for some time. Once I started to realize these differences, I began to write in the same way.
With experience under my belt, I started to have less trouble writing for prompts at school. Since I always had a place to write from the perspective of a fictional character, I found it less tedious to write about myself. Prompts in school became more complex than that later, and my time Role-Playing helped me through it. Thanks to Role-Playing my writing has become much more complex and descriptive.
Professor's Note: I have a friend who does this but I don't, so I very much enjoyed your narrative.
A
When you read the word “Role-Playing” a few things might come to your mind. One might be the ever-popular RPGs, or Role-Playing Games. You might even think about people pretending to be someone they are not. Possibly even someone truly believing they are someone they are not. What I am referring to; however, is the writing style associated with Role-Playing.
Role-Playing in the terms of writing is a very simple concept. A group of people over a long period of time slowly write out a story. Each person creates a character, like they would in a game. Their character is who they write the story's perspective from, so everyone writing puts different ideas into the story. In most Role-Playing stories, each person can write for and control their character alone. This method evolves the story in a very different way than just one person writing a book. With many people writing, the story becomes a large brainstorm session, eventually ending with a better story than any one could have written alone.
There is one major problem with this style of group writing, and that is that not everyone is a great, or even good, writer. This problem was my problem when I started Role-Playing at the age of fourteen. I was young and inexperienced with writing. Since the fourth grade all of my English Teachers had wondered why I was not any good at writing, though I knew why. During those grades, all I had been made to write about was myself. Every prompt was to be written from my perspective, even if I could care less about it. My problem with the way I was being taught was that I am not interesting. I could never write in a way that made myself feel comfortable, because what I wrote were things I wouldn't do. My writing suffered; I was always behind in my English grades, to the point of almost failing in the fifth grade.
I found a small group of people on the internet by chance. They were Role-Playing with a story based on a favorite game of mine at the time. I was new to this style, and since I never had been taught any better my character was bland and uninteresting. My writing was short, only a sentence or so of dialogue if my character was addressed, and no descriptions of my surroundings. Nobody wanted to have to be in the same room as my character, much less hold a conversation. The only thing that kept me going was me wanting to succeed.
Rather than continuing with the way I was writing at the time, I started adapting. I would read what others wrote, and study their techniques. Slowly realize the differences between I and the other writers. The main difference was substance; that I was only writing a few sentences at a time while some were writing multiple paragraphs of descriptions. Another major difference was the development of characters. My character was bland and stayed that way for some time. Once I started to realize these differences, I began to write in the same way.
With experience under my belt, I started to have less trouble writing for prompts at school. Since I always had a place to write from the perspective of a fictional character, I found it less tedious to write about myself. Prompts in school became more complex than that later, and my time Role-Playing helped me through it. Thanks to Role-Playing my writing has become much more complex and descriptive.
Professor's Note: I have a friend who does this but I don't, so I very much enjoyed your narrative.
A
Ralph, in my opinion, everything that you said was true, more so about how we are taught to write in shcool, always about ourselves. Ourselves, at that age, are boring! Admit, we are XD We're kids, we haven't done much of anything that you could write about. So, instead, they need to let us, now them I suppose, write about others, make it up. What's the harm? So the kid starts to write about elves, magic, or vampires? Who cares? If they are still, properly, taught, what's right, wrong, real and imaginary, then all the better!
yet 
).
