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Characters' hospital as development


Elena
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There are many instances when a character gets drama in his story life. As we are talking about RPGs, which are collaborative, sometimes this drama is actually sought by the writer, but other times it is:

- either the result of negotiations between writers, so that all of them find something enjoyable in the story (ie a necessary give and take, when one accepts a twist he isn’t so fond of, but the partner is, receiving in exchange another plot twist, probably with another character, that he is looking forward to)

- or the result of unilateral decisions of other writers (vanishing writers, dropped/ killed characters they had got bored with, etc.) which hadn’t taken into consideration at all the impact of their character’s disappearing on the characters theirs was related to.

Which are the literary techniques/ plot devices you have used in order to heal your characters after such an event and use the experience as character development?

(I know there are people who are so shocked by losing a writing partner that they retire the related character too. I am not interested in the answer “retiring the character”, but in techniques of making them cope with the loss.) I confess it had happened to me too, to retire a character at a certain moment, after most people they had plots with had left, and he had no more connections on the site at all. In those conditions, it didn't make sense for his story to get continued in those circumstances, so he had to step into the background and continue his life offscreen. But for most characters, it isn't the case. They still have a role to accomplish in the story, other connexions, etc. 

 

I have found, in any case possible, a plot twist to get them able to continue, even if they had to recover after a trauma. Some of my characters have found solace in religion, a pilgrimage or two being the solution to heal and go forward. Others had found new friends for support, or rallied all the remaining connexions around them, sooner or later, like in life. Or the new plot twists gave them other more immediate things to solve and think about...

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I've, never really thought about it. Usually I just keep throwing the character along in new threads/events and see them slowly make new connections with new people. The grieve the loss, but I never let them "tap out" of existence. 

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