Just out of curiosity, but has any other muns have the problem where you say your pup is going to do one thing and they just kinda give you the finger?
Occasionally I'll want my pup to do something that's out of character for them, either because of the storyline I want to present (this is sort of okay) or because of some emotional state I'm in that I'm only dimly aware of and that is coming out in RP (this is not okay). I find that if I pursue this, the text rings false in some way, usually too melodramatic, and I cringe inwardly when I go back and read it later.
I wouldn't call it the pup giving me the finger, though. I'd call it me trying to force an established character into a mold that doesn't work for them.
Okay um...You're kind of making it sound like your character is a completely separate entity that you have little to no control over. Was that your intent?
No and yes. I'm sorry, that doesn't make too much sense, does it? Let me try and explain.
I've always felt that to get a good and fully rounded character they had to be created to a point where they seem like a real person. Some one that could possibly maybe exist outside in the real world. (I'm not saying that they'll jump out of my head and start talking to me) but they need to have as much personality as any other person you might meet on the street.
So, in a sense they might be "A separate entity" in that they might have, if real, different ideas on how to approach a problem than I would.
In this particular case I had approached a problem with choice "a" and after trying to work with it a while, realized that this isn't the choice that the character would have made and changed direction.
RP is just like any other creative venture - sometimes I get inspired to play something out, but that doesn't mean I lose control of it. I'm the one writing the characters, which means everything they do and say comes out of my head, even if/when their views and desires are different from my own. That's writing.
I use the canon source material, I get inside their heads (for lack of a better phrase) but ultimately I'm still the one going "DANCE, MY PUPPETS! DANCE! MUAHAHAHAHAHA >:)"
If I ever cease to feel like I'm in control of my characters, like they're actual, sentient beings telling me what to do... well, that's not good writing practice, and it's especially not good RP practice, as that's when it tends to cease to be both pretendy and fun timey. And really, pretendy fun times are what RP is all about.
Re: *apologies for rambling*hawk_shayNovember 15 2007, 20:10:37 UTC
Um, well, sort of, I guess?
I still don't quite grasp how you could not be in control of your characters' motivations. If you 'discover' or realize something about your character that you didn't think of before, you ultimately still decide what your characters' motivations are. They are not sentient beings. They have their own agendas, sure, but you determine those agendas. That goes doubly for OCs, because with OCs you're not so much "discovering" things about them as you are deciding what ideas to use and what ideas to not use. (I have played canon character before, only to discover things from their canon that I didn't know about... but that's why I, um, do research first. And if it comes right down to it, I can STILL have veto power over canon stuff that I hate. That's the beauty of RP
( ... )
Re: *apologies for rambling*elementwizardNovember 15 2007, 20:26:37 UTC
I still don't quite grasp how you could not be in control of your characters' motivations. If you 'discover' or realize something about your character that you didn't think of before, you ultimately still decide what your characters' motivations are.And sometimes you give your characters the wrong motivations. For example, I had a character who I had given a certain motivation but every time I tried to write this character, I couldn't because his motivation conflicted with other characters motivations. No, that's not right. His motivation didn't match the other personality traits that I had given him. Several drafts of story went by where I tried keep the character's motivation and each time the story stalled horribly and eventually I realized that the character's motivation didn't make sense. It took some fiddling but once I had rearranged the motivation the story took off and ran smoothly
( ... )
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I wouldn't call it the pup giving me the finger, though. I'd call it me trying to force an established character into a mold that doesn't work for them.
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I've always felt that to get a good and fully rounded character they had to be created to a point where they seem like a real person. Some one that could possibly maybe exist outside in the real world. (I'm not saying that they'll jump out of my head and start talking to me) but they need to have as much personality as any other person you might meet on the street.
So, in a sense they might be "A separate entity" in that they might have, if real, different ideas on how to approach a problem than I would.
In this particular case I had approached a problem with choice "a" and after trying to work with it a while, realized that this isn't the choice that the character would have made and changed direction.
Does that make sense?
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RP is just like any other creative venture - sometimes I get inspired to play something out, but that doesn't mean I lose control of it. I'm the one writing the characters, which means everything they do and say comes out of my head, even if/when their views and desires are different from my own. That's writing.
I use the canon source material, I get inside their heads (for lack of a better phrase) but ultimately I'm still the one going "DANCE, MY PUPPETS! DANCE! MUAHAHAHAHAHA >:)"
If I ever cease to feel like I'm in control of my characters, like they're actual, sentient beings telling me what to do... well, that's not good writing practice, and it's especially not good RP practice, as that's when it tends to cease to be both pretendy and fun timey. And really, pretendy fun times are what RP is all about.
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I think I understand what you're saying and I think I wasn't very clear on my question. It is rather vague ( ... )
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I still don't quite grasp how you could not be in control of your characters' motivations. If you 'discover' or realize something about your character that you didn't think of before, you ultimately still decide what your characters' motivations are. They are not sentient beings. They have their own agendas, sure, but you determine those agendas. That goes doubly for OCs, because with OCs you're not so much "discovering" things about them as you are deciding what ideas to use and what ideas to not use. (I have played canon character before, only to discover things from their canon that I didn't know about... but that's why I, um, do research first. And if it comes right down to it, I can STILL have veto power over canon stuff that I hate. That's the beauty of RP ( ... )
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