RolePlaying

The real title for this post is actually:

Things I've Learned by Role-Playing w/ My Novel Characters in Chat

In celebration of March Novel Writing Month, on writing.com, there was a party in the chat rooms. Characters were welcome to join too. At first, I wasn't sure about the whole thing, to be honest. Despite having the username "Elfmage7" I've never done any roleplaying. At first, I was in the chat just as myself, the writer who managed to get 67,000 words of a novel done during the month of March, 2010. But after a little bit, I figured I'd give it a try and brought in the main character from that novel, Noah. And it turned out to be a great experience. There were a few hitches in the chat, moments of tension and someone who spent their time being rude/annoying. But overall, I had fun and through the course of the 4+ hour chat, had three different characters. From this, I have learned more not only about the characters themselves but also some of what it means to be their type of supernatural being.

The 3 characters that made it to the chat:
Noah: male mutant who can control energy. Main character from the book I just finished the first draft of, Standing Ground.
Bastian: Noah's boyfriend, real name Sebastian. Also, a mutant but with a passive ability to handle more electricity than most humans can. He's the love interest from Standing Ground.
Lucas: male demon, one of the two main characters from Fallen. It's only got a few chapters done, and he's still new to being a demon.

Things I learned:

Noah is a flirt. Even though he has a boyfriend and the other males at the party were all straight, he still did a bit of flirting.  He's also can be quite a downer too. He's so depressed sometimes, dealing with his relationship issues and how dangerous he could be. Started bringing the party down at first, till he found someone to flirt with, that is.

Bastian is starting to have some control issues and jealousy over Noah. Ever since he returned from the war, he's been acting more like that. And, he tries to push Noah's buttons over the issue (other men). He's gonna push too far one day, or so it seems.

Lucas, I didn't learn anything new about him specifically, but more about what he's gone through since becoming a demon. I never thought about stuff like how simple things might change, but the topic came up with someone else's character since she's new to being a vampire. Things like, the taste of food are different than when they were human. Interesting point, and I have much to think about as I develop the novel.


This may have been my first attempt at roleplaying, but it won't be my last. I can see now, the real use of stepping into one's characters and plan to do it more often in chat. Who knows what I'll learn next.