To become a better writer and student of the craft, many writers take to buying books on character, plot, voice, and setting; take to attending workshops; and take to consulting with writing coaches. None of these things are bad; in fact, I do many of these things, and I also coach writers and write articles to help them in many of the areas regarding writing and publishing. However, there is something that we all can do that doesn’t cost much, if anything, except for our time and will give us opportunity to develop our writing: role play. The connections between role playing and creative writing can be fairly obvious. Both contain the following elements: setting/worldview, conflict(s), characters/players, context, action/enactment, resolution/outcome, and rules. To be a good role player, you have to be able to understand and work within these elements; the same holds true for the creative writer. I’ll talk about each of these elements briefly below. Setting/Worldview In its...