Forum A fun way to get better at character development? ..

For the longest time, though, I practically ignored character development.  They had personality, sure, but there was no depth and they were only tools of the story, instead of them DRIVING the story, as they should have.  I know how hard it is to get into that mindset starting out, where you're trying to create a mind that's different from your own.  It's not easy.  And up until high school, I was oblivious to its necessity.

However, I found a place where writers were doing just the same as me, trying to better themselves in how they wrote characters, not just stories.  It was an online Play-by-post rpg.  Now I can just imagine some of you rolling your eyes and believe you me, I totally understand.  I've done some looking at your usual rps, and I nearly gagged at what I saw.  A bunch of idiot middle schoolers using words like "orbs" and "pools" instead of just "eyes" and littering their posts with a sickening amount of purple prose.  I'm glad I never played on one of those.

But I discovered that on the good ones, you are surrounded by people willing to give you constructive criticism and take it in return.  You don't write stories.  You write people alongside others and create stories simply by having them react to each other.  The story writes itself, as it always should.  Because of a place like that, I now always write with a character and their background in mind, and it comes so much easier to me.  And because it was literally a game, it was an insanely fun way to learn.

And so, I wish to share with anyone who wants to get better the website I currently write on.  My motivation?  Frankly, I'm tired of advertising on other, not-as-good rps for more awesome people to write with.  If anyone even looks at ours on the long list of other sites and happens to join it, those that do don't stay very long or aren't very good, and we're looking for a community of dedicated writers. 

Here's the site: to the awesome!

Though the setting is fantasy, we are steering the old site in a direction of realism and focus on making relatable characters with depth.  It's a great way to learn how to make all sorts of characters meaningful, not to mention a fantastic way to make awesome friends who share your interests.  :D