Original Characters: a few thoughts
Jun. 16th, 2003 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdOriginal characters are necessary in fanfiction.
This statement will come as a shock to some, and blaspheme to many. But if the boys get out of bed and interact with other people at all, there are bound to be a few. Even if they're just anonymous stormtroopers used as blaster-fodder.
A quick glance at my new fic page shows I tend to create
an average of 2 oc's per fic.
They fall into several categories:
1) Scenery that moves. This includes large numbers of students wandering to and fro on Rudrig (a university planet), the ranks of stormtroopers Vader reviews regularly, the gamblers in a scene, the patrons of a bar, Luke's students, etc.
2) Cameos. The scenery that gets a line or two. The waitress at the malt shop. The yellow humanoid who is eyeing Luke to approach him. A cell block guard.
3) Minor characters. The bartender at the Tavern Outside of Time. (this character is so minor sie is not even gendered, yet much of the action is seen through hir eyes.) Eril, Leia's long-lost lover. Med-droids.
4) Adversaries. Instigators trying to thwart a treaty. Gun-runners. Weapon merchants. Disgruntled Imperial nobility. The Davrosian leaders who try to poison the ISS Enterprise command crew. The paparazzi.
5) Allies. Friends. Family. Sympathetic planetary leaders, who want to help out.
I like Oc's. They have their place. They form the background and conflict for our canon characters.
When does an OC become self-insertion? When the author says so.
Yeah, I have an avatar. Two actually. The bartender at the Tavern Outside of Time is me. And Zora in the Sw'verse. She's a minor character.
So when does an avatar become a Mary Sue? When she begins to annoy readers just by existing. (Some characters are designed to be annoying, and that's deliberate) When he's too perfect. When she upstages the canon characters, saving the day, making them all love her. When he exists for no reason other than to have a canon character fall in love with him.
Why worry about it? Especially if we're only doing it for the fun... Seriously, it should be fun to write, and fun for the readers. And someone else's sex-fantasies are no fun. They feel like voyeurism at best.
It's my lunch time.
This statement will come as a shock to some, and blaspheme to many. But if the boys get out of bed and interact with other people at all, there are bound to be a few. Even if they're just anonymous stormtroopers used as blaster-fodder.
A quick glance at my new fic page shows I tend to create
an average of 2 oc's per fic.
They fall into several categories:
1) Scenery that moves. This includes large numbers of students wandering to and fro on Rudrig (a university planet), the ranks of stormtroopers Vader reviews regularly, the gamblers in a scene, the patrons of a bar, Luke's students, etc.
2) Cameos. The scenery that gets a line or two. The waitress at the malt shop. The yellow humanoid who is eyeing Luke to approach him. A cell block guard.
3) Minor characters. The bartender at the Tavern Outside of Time. (this character is so minor sie is not even gendered, yet much of the action is seen through hir eyes.) Eril, Leia's long-lost lover. Med-droids.
4) Adversaries. Instigators trying to thwart a treaty. Gun-runners. Weapon merchants. Disgruntled Imperial nobility. The Davrosian leaders who try to poison the ISS Enterprise command crew. The paparazzi.
5) Allies. Friends. Family. Sympathetic planetary leaders, who want to help out.
I like Oc's. They have their place. They form the background and conflict for our canon characters.
When does an OC become self-insertion? When the author says so.
Yeah, I have an avatar. Two actually. The bartender at the Tavern Outside of Time is me. And Zora in the Sw'verse. She's a minor character.
So when does an avatar become a Mary Sue? When she begins to annoy readers just by existing. (Some characters are designed to be annoying, and that's deliberate) When he's too perfect. When she upstages the canon characters, saving the day, making them all love her. When he exists for no reason other than to have a canon character fall in love with him.
Why worry about it? Especially if we're only doing it for the fun... Seriously, it should be fun to write, and fun for the readers. And someone else's sex-fantasies are no fun. They feel like voyeurism at best.
It's my lunch time.
