Well, you can't just slap the name Ron on any character and have it be Ron, though. The point of fan fic to me is to take the characters from the books and put them in different situations that aren't too far out of the realm of the books. Loads of gray area there, yes, but the idea is to use the character as originally intended. Thus, if Ron acted like... Dumbledore it wouldn't make sense.
The character development is, hopefully as you pointed out, already done. Even if you had an incredible plot, though, without well crafted characters I don't think there'd be much worth reading. To me characters are everything.
Catcher in the Rye is an excellent example of this. What's the plot? There isn't any. It's just a guy who's schlepping around New York, trying to figure out what to do with his life after being kicked out of school - again. At least I'm pretty sure I recall he was kicked out. Anyway, there isn't a lot plot here. Not much action.
But Holden is such an incredible character and so consistent that it makes for a great book regardless.
I know some writers love doing AU characters in fan fic. I've done this twice that I can recall; one time with much more success than the other. Character development is HARD. Sure, anyone can cough up a character, but to make a character live - that's effing hard. And no, not much practice in fan fic for that, which is a problem with writing a lot of fan fic when you want to write your own stuff. But it is very helpful in other ways. And it's a great escape, while still writing, when you need to get away from your own project for a while. Something that happens to me all too frequently.
The character development is, hopefully as you pointed out, already done. Even if you had an incredible plot, though, without well crafted characters I don't think there'd be much worth reading. To me characters are everything.
Catcher in the Rye is an excellent example of this. What's the plot? There isn't any. It's just a guy who's schlepping around New York, trying to figure out what to do with his life after being kicked out of school - again. At least I'm pretty sure I recall he was kicked out. Anyway, there isn't a lot plot here. Not much action.
But Holden is such an incredible character and so consistent that it makes for a great book regardless.
I know some writers love doing AU characters in fan fic. I've done this twice that I can recall; one time with much more success than the other. Character development is HARD. Sure, anyone can cough up a character, but to make a character live - that's effing hard. And no, not much practice in fan fic for that, which is a problem with writing a lot of fan fic when you want to write your own stuff. But it is very helpful in other ways. And it's a great escape, while still writing, when you need to get away from your own project for a while. Something that happens to me all too frequently.
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