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Fandom History & Inspiration Meme - Day 8
Jul. 8th, 2011 05:49 pmDay 8 – Do you write OCs? And if so, what do you do to make certain they're not Mary Sues, and if not, explain your thoughts on OCs.
I have written a couple of original characters in my time, but I don't make it a general rule. I've never created a character and inserted it into a canon universe, simply for the reason of having a fresh face in familiar territory. I create characters out of purpose, and I try not to ever have a purpose to need them, especially if I'm writing in-verse fic.
Interestingly enough, I'm not sure I've ever written an OC into a short piece of fic - at least, not to the point of naming the character and/or giving them any significant background. All of my OCs are in my longer, multichapter works - Snegura in Every Heart, Akiko in Fragments, Stubbs McKinsey & pals in Stacy in Bloom. Aside from Snegura, I wouldn't even consider any of these creations to be main characters - they are side players, there with a purpose, to move the plot further along. Even Snegura didn't play that large of a role in Every Heart, but she is the character I paired Sesshoumaru with, so I think that automatically counts, LOL.
I try my best to avoid Mary Sue territory with my OCs, and I think I do okay. Snegura was based on the Russian folktale storytellings of Snegoritchka, the snow maiden who is the helper of Dyed Moroz ~ sort of the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus. I took the general description of her appearance from that of Elena Dementieva, a professional Russian tennis player. I tried to give her some interesting backstory and motivation, to make her an equal to Sesshoumaru in that regard. She was no simpering, shrinking violet who quivered at the sight of him. She hated him as much as he hated her, LOL, but political intrigue and a mutual enemy forced their hands, basically. I was hoping to write a sequel to Every Heart that further explored her character and her relationship with Sesshoumaru (and Rin, and his mother), but it never materialized.
Akiko in Fragments came about because I want that to be a purely Mir/San story. I didn't want to bring in Inuyasha or Kagome or other canon characters, but I needed someone who could help push the plot forward. She became much more important in the second half of the story, and I liked that I had someone I could 'completely' control. She said things and did things that would've been out of character if it had been Kagome instead, and that, I think, is the real power of having an original character. They aren't there to overwhelm the story, the characters, or the universe. People don't read fanfic for original characters, so why should they be the center of attention?
Stubbs McKinsey and his bottle-brained baseball cronies have been an absolute hoot to write, and they will resurface again in the second portion of Stacy in Bloom, but as of yet? They've had two scenes in 90K+ words of fic. They are original characters, but not created out of whole cloth necessarily, since it is mentioned in Season 5 that Ryan joined the school baseball team. I just gave his theoretical teammates names and a bit of personality, LOL. They, too, are helping to push a strand of plot forward in that sprawling universe. They always serve a purpose, but never, usually, to tell a story of their own.
( Other days )
I have written a couple of original characters in my time, but I don't make it a general rule. I've never created a character and inserted it into a canon universe, simply for the reason of having a fresh face in familiar territory. I create characters out of purpose, and I try not to ever have a purpose to need them, especially if I'm writing in-verse fic.
Interestingly enough, I'm not sure I've ever written an OC into a short piece of fic - at least, not to the point of naming the character and/or giving them any significant background. All of my OCs are in my longer, multichapter works - Snegura in Every Heart, Akiko in Fragments, Stubbs McKinsey & pals in Stacy in Bloom. Aside from Snegura, I wouldn't even consider any of these creations to be main characters - they are side players, there with a purpose, to move the plot further along. Even Snegura didn't play that large of a role in Every Heart, but she is the character I paired Sesshoumaru with, so I think that automatically counts, LOL.
I try my best to avoid Mary Sue territory with my OCs, and I think I do okay. Snegura was based on the Russian folktale storytellings of Snegoritchka, the snow maiden who is the helper of Dyed Moroz ~ sort of the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus. I took the general description of her appearance from that of Elena Dementieva, a professional Russian tennis player. I tried to give her some interesting backstory and motivation, to make her an equal to Sesshoumaru in that regard. She was no simpering, shrinking violet who quivered at the sight of him. She hated him as much as he hated her, LOL, but political intrigue and a mutual enemy forced their hands, basically. I was hoping to write a sequel to Every Heart that further explored her character and her relationship with Sesshoumaru (and Rin, and his mother), but it never materialized.
Akiko in Fragments came about because I want that to be a purely Mir/San story. I didn't want to bring in Inuyasha or Kagome or other canon characters, but I needed someone who could help push the plot forward. She became much more important in the second half of the story, and I liked that I had someone I could 'completely' control. She said things and did things that would've been out of character if it had been Kagome instead, and that, I think, is the real power of having an original character. They aren't there to overwhelm the story, the characters, or the universe. People don't read fanfic for original characters, so why should they be the center of attention?
Stubbs McKinsey and his bottle-brained baseball cronies have been an absolute hoot to write, and they will resurface again in the second portion of Stacy in Bloom, but as of yet? They've had two scenes in 90K+ words of fic. They are original characters, but not created out of whole cloth necessarily, since it is mentioned in Season 5 that Ryan joined the school baseball team. I just gave his theoretical teammates names and a bit of personality, LOL. They, too, are helping to push a strand of plot forward in that sprawling universe. They always serve a purpose, but never, usually, to tell a story of their own.
( Other days )
