Writing meme, day 8 -- original characters (OCs)
Ah. And we get to another question that has some really annoying built-in assumptions.
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 wrote out a full-blown rant cum essay on it years ago. In full, my thoughts on OCs can be found over here. The short form runs like this: it's my opinion that any character, canon or original, can be badly written. Both original and canon characters have at times been badly written, both by fic writers and for that matter by the pros. Personally, I think the assumption that any original character is almost certain to slide into being a 'Mary Sue' is complete crap and detrimental to fandom.
Part of the problem starts with, which version of Mary Sue? In my fifteen years in fandom, I've seen Mary Sue defined as 'too perfect to be real,' 'the author made fiction' (a.k.a. 'self-insertion'), and/or 'how dare you write a story that isn't about the lead characters from the show?' The first, it's bad writing, yes. The second raises the point of, 'Do you know the author to be sure of this?' These two in combination, by the way, cover pretty much any original character. I think that the third is frequently the root problem.
I believe it was
kaiz who once said that there is fanfic about the canon events/characters and fanfic about the canon universe, and some fans like both, but some fans would like you to quit calling it fanfic if it doesn't have their beloved characters. I fall squarely in the field of liking both. I'm aware that a lot of people don't, and that's fine, too -- if they don't use 'Mary Sue' as a bludgeon to coerce writers into only writing what someone else wants to read. A happy writer makes for a fun story. An unhappy writer... goes elsewhere. Sod that.
Anyway. To answer the question: yes. I write OCs. I also write minor characters in major roles, and I'm sure I've been accused of turning them into OCs.
To make sure they're not bad writing, my definition of Mary Sue, I use betas, either over email or by asking a local friend who's taught English for 30 years to take a green pen to it. Sometimes my betas are going for grammar/spelling/'hey, you left a spare verb when you changed that paragraph', sometimes for overall plot/feel, sometimes for 'hmm, I got knocked out of the story here,' and sometimes I beg for fandom betas to keep me from screwing up a crossover. When I started writing, I didn't know about betas, or how to ask for one, so I'd write a story, leave it for six weeks to come out of short term memory while I wrote the next thing, and then went back and shredded the old story with red (or green or purple) ink and tried to fix as much as I could find while the sequel slid out of memory....
It's writing. I tried to do it to the best of my ability. I think I've pretty steadily gotten better. Man, though, the assumptions built into that question sucked.
The full list of questions, linked to answers, is here.
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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 wrote out a full-blown rant cum essay on it years ago. In full, my thoughts on OCs can be found over here. The short form runs like this: it's my opinion that any character, canon or original, can be badly written. Both original and canon characters have at times been badly written, both by fic writers and for that matter by the pros. Personally, I think the assumption that any original character is almost certain to slide into being a 'Mary Sue' is complete crap and detrimental to fandom.
Part of the problem starts with, which version of Mary Sue? In my fifteen years in fandom, I've seen Mary Sue defined as 'too perfect to be real,' 'the author made fiction' (a.k.a. 'self-insertion'), and/or 'how dare you write a story that isn't about the lead characters from the show?' The first, it's bad writing, yes. The second raises the point of, 'Do you know the author to be sure of this?' These two in combination, by the way, cover pretty much any original character. I think that the third is frequently the root problem.
I believe it was
kaiz who once said that there is fanfic about the canon events/characters and fanfic about the canon universe, and some fans like both, but some fans would like you to quit calling it fanfic if it doesn't have their beloved characters. I fall squarely in the field of liking both. I'm aware that a lot of people don't, and that's fine, too -- if they don't use 'Mary Sue' as a bludgeon to coerce writers into only writing what someone else wants to read. A happy writer makes for a fun story. An unhappy writer... goes elsewhere. Sod that.
Anyway. To answer the question: yes. I write OCs. I also write minor characters in major roles, and I'm sure I've been accused of turning them into OCs.
To make sure they're not bad writing, my definition of Mary Sue, I use betas, either over email or by asking a local friend who's taught English for 30 years to take a green pen to it. Sometimes my betas are going for grammar/spelling/'hey, you left a spare verb when you changed that paragraph', sometimes for overall plot/feel, sometimes for 'hmm, I got knocked out of the story here,' and sometimes I beg for fandom betas to keep me from screwing up a crossover. When I started writing, I didn't know about betas, or how to ask for one, so I'd write a story, leave it for six weeks to come out of short term memory while I wrote the next thing, and then went back and shredded the old story with red (or green or purple) ink and tried to fix as much as I could find while the sequel slid out of memory....
It's writing. I tried to do it to the best of my ability. I think I've pretty steadily gotten better. Man, though, the assumptions built into that question sucked.
The full list of questions, linked to answers, is here.
Original post on Dreamwidth | Leave a comment on DW | Read
comments on DW