Is imagination the right way?

Those who know Chyna know she's a HUGE fan of imagination. I've willingly suspended my disbelief so often, "disbelief" is now a relative term to me. :)

However, there's one area where "leaving it to the imagination" may hurt our KTDARPG players more than it's helping them. That's when you're dealing with your Character.

Some players go very minimal when it comes to describing the physical-ness of a new character. (Some people actually go for "not at all" -- we don't even get a bio on which to start building our understanding of a character.) The reason I've heard is that this allows the Reader to "imagine" the character based on dialogue & action. The creator thinks too much detail might spoil the fun.

Ok. In theory? That might work. And that's an iffy "might." I mean, c'mon. When a player creates a character, he/she knows exactly what that character looks like. Based on that mental picture, the player develops dialogue, interaction, motives & emotions.

Now, you start leaving that to my imagination? You might have me writing that my character sees a chubby redheaded girl with freckles (when the picture in your creator-mind is a leggy blonde with bronzed skin) or a tall skinny boy with snaggly teeth & shaggy brown hair (when you-who-created-him see a muscular sexy guy with a great smile).

Seeing the challenge? It gets more challenging when you consider that EVERY PLAYER may see something different & then act on what they "see."

All this is just Chyna's way of requesting maybe a few more physical details about game characters. It really helps a scene when characters start describing what -- and who -- they see, so readers get a more solid mental picture. Hair color, eye color, height, build, distinguishing marks, tattoos, piercings, hair style, how a voice sounds or what a smile looks like ... every detail helps!

-Chyna

Photo source: Webshots