Pastime or Addiction?

And How Real Virtue Came To Be

~ By Katy Lee

Thank you for inviting me to your virtual home today to talk about the gaming aspect of my novel, Real Virtue.

Did you know video game addiction is becoming an increasingly difficult problem with the youths in America today? It can affect the everyday life and social situations of children through young adults. Video game addiction can hinder a child’s learning skills, cause real life problem solving to become more difficult, and cause a child to spend far less time with family and friends.

In Real Virtue, the story opens with my heroine, Mel Mesini, reaching the highest level in this online interactive game she plays. A game that promises her a life she can love. She’s playing while she is supposed to be working. She plays because she doesn’t feel so great about her real life. She plays because it’s a world she can control.

Or so she thinks.

During my research, I read many interviews with gamers, mostly teens and young adults, where they admit to preferring their virtual lives over their real ones. Video games can become super appealing, especially if their real life is not so great. In a game, a player can zap out of a situation they don’t like. They can’t do that in real life. In a game, a player is rewarded for beating the next level or quest. In real life, it’s hard to accomplish things, and even when you do, people don’t always notice, or for some, care.

And that is where my character, Mel Mesini, comes in, and this is how Real Virtue came to be:

So there I was, flying cross-country, when the older gentleman to my right asks me if I have a virtual life.

“A virtual what?” came my reply.

He then continued to explain the details of his job of creating virtual possessions that gamers on interactive game sites can purchase for their avatars.

“Seriously? People spend money on a fake character?” And apparently enough for this guy to make a living on.

So, the remainder of my long flight was spent plotting out the story that would become Real Virtue.

My questions to myself were what would happen to someone who took their virtual life just a little too far? What would happen if that said someone lost all these possessions to, say, a villain bent on revenge? How far would someone go to protect their virtual life? Would they be willing to give up their real life for it? Just what would drive a person to do it? Who would this person be?

And since I write romance, my next question was just what kind of person would be their perfect match? And Voila! Mel Mesini and Jeremy Stiles were born.

Thank you for having me on your blog! Readers, I love comments and would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment here and let me know what’s sparked the ideas for your stories, and how you’ve woven real life issues into fictional stories.

Please keep in touch with me at my website: www.KatyLeeBooks.com, Twitter and Facebook and Goodreads. Let’s connect and get to know each other!

Katy Lee writes higher purpose stories in high speed worlds. As an inspirational author, speaker, home-schooling mom, and children’s ministry director, she has dedicated her life to sharing tales of love, from the greatest love story ever told to those sweet romantic stories of falling in love. Her fresh and unique voice brings a fast-paced and modern feel to her romances that are sure to resonate with readers long after the last page. Her debut novel Real Virtue is a finalist in many writing contests, and took second place in the 2011 Georgia Maggie Award of Excellence. Katy lives in New England with her husband, three children, and two cats.