I been having some trouble with my character Astrid with getting her invovled with the story. When I get invite or something my brain go's blank for her. So does anyone have any idea's or any hints in helping with writers block ?
These suggestions may sound strange, but I've helped my students come up with scores of characters using them. For each of these, you have to push yourself to write for AT LEAST three minute straight without stopping, five is ideal. Here they are:
1. Write a list for your character, where every sentence starts with "I come from..." and you should repeat the "I come from" every time - it makes it sound brilliant and poetic which equals inspiring! So for Briar, for example, I could write:
I come from Virginia.
I come from a time before women were allowed to vote.
I come from believing my father wasn't my real father.
I come from losing my human life for another one
...etc, etc for five minutes of free writing.
2. Or, if you want a similar prompt that's a bit more complex, I tell my students that they have to make a list for their character, but can only choose from the following three sentence starters: I was, I wish, I want. So again, for Briar it could look like:
I want to drive a sane mind mad, and a mad mind sane.
I wish I didn't have to mask anything.
I wish I could mask everything.
I want to unravel these contradictions in myself as easily as I can for my patients.
I was so sure of myself when I was human.
I wish that was still true today.
After you do the freewrite part of the exercise, you can go back over your list and circle ones that you think could lead to potential SLs for your character. Or that may even give you clues about which characters on this board your character should meet. Or you could use some of your list for post titles, and find the inspiration that way! Sky is the limit. No matter what, it's a fun no pressure exercise to do where the stream of consciousness helps you learn things about your character that you may not have known before - so long as you don't stop writing, and you keep pushing yourself to write WHATEVER comes to mind.
I didn't realize that Briar was more sure of herself when she was human, for example, until I just did this to provide an example! So now I have something to explore with her, yay!
As to the block? That happens to us all now and again, like when I get room invites for some of the clubs. The Blues/Bondage/Rave club for example, Art really doesn't have a reason to be there simply because 2 of the 3 aren't his thing. If its not a setting the character would frequent, coming up with a reason for them to stop in gets difficult.
This is where NPC's can come in, make up a friend or someone they know that drags them there so the non-playable doesn't have to go alone. That's one option. Music can help inspire us to write. Like my first post in 'Restless" was inspired by "Like Nobody Else', a song from My Darkest Days. Art needed to think over a lot of things and just started running, listening to the song put me into his headspace.
If its just some creativity in general? Here's another of my tricks. Write a poem. It's not nearly as hard as you think, and there's no need to rhyme. Pick something, anything, and write a paragraph on it 4-5 sentences. Take it and break the sentences up into lines/stansas. Go through each line and see what words can be taken out or what words can be changed. Don't worry about structure, within 5-10 minutes you'll have a pretty good poem garaunteed.
You can then take said poem, and integrate the idea of it into a post for the character. Use your poem as the theme for what the character is doing.
