Left For Dead

I use my RPG tables quite a bit to develop characters for my books. There are a number of characters I use over and over again to fill the gaps in stories just beginning to find their roots. Taking a character that originated from a story told orally, to be embodied by simple text has advantages regardless.

To that end, since the LARP days, I often speak aloud as the characters I'm writing about, in the shower, in the car, and alone in my office. Verbally speaking every line of dialogue doesn't always make something clearer for the audience reading the story, but it does work to give the character a distinctive voice.

My notes are full of characters that never made it into a story. In a way they were left for dead, never to be a part of a larger story. Makes me wish I had kept the boxes and boxes of material I wrote for LARPs. Hundreds of letters and instances of dialogue that would probably serve me well now.

Curse me for not being more of a pack rat.

-- Sent from my Tech Envy Generator