I used to blog all the time. And honestly, I need to pick up that habit again. Not only is blogging a really good way to warm up your writing, but it also gives you a great feel for what mood your in when you decide to sit down and post. As a writer, blogging gives me a release from trying to find the all important character voice. Back when I was just a simple PC and not a moderator, it was easy to slide into character to write up a post. But when you become a moderator, suddenly the crowd in your head becomes sometimes overwhelming and everyone wants attention or needs development and there simply isn't enough time. I'm the type that demands every NPC have a back story, a set of rivalries, a tragedy, or even perhaps a smidgen of romance in their life. Is the messanger boy secretly the son of the blacksmith and not some nameless faceless sloth who left his mother, the baker, for adventure and parts unknown? Is that why the blacksmith often takes extra time with the boy, showing him things and sometimes offering him gifts? He didn't have to give him the new coat last winter just in time for the heavy snows. But he did? Why won't he tell the boy? What is the secret there? I'm always looking for the angle... the edge. Every city has a thousand of them, these little microdramas. Some are bigger than others, like the corruption on the city counsel, but some move me more than others - the old woman who pushes the flower cart needs a new roof and has no money for one.
I want PCs to be interested in these sorts of things. I want them to find out. I just don't want them to have a cardboard cutout interaction and walk away feeling that they have just visited the McD's drive-throu and the guy taking their order was actually an automoton. There's no pleasure in that for me.
Good development takes time. It also takes good note taking. With the wiki, we have a giant notebook full of interesting facts and exciting things that could spawn a thousand...
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