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Thirty Days of Fanfiction: Day Eight
Jul. 8th, 2011 12:08 pm8 – 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.
Sometimes I write OCs. Since none of them have had super powers, violet eyes or romances with the canon characters I don't really lie awake at night worrying that they're Mary Sues. Most of the time my OCs have been purely functional inventions - I needed Larrell to have a new captain after Crais left, so I made one up. More rarely, I've written stories where the original character was the star. I wrote an Astro City story like that years ago, and one X-Men common people story. (There was a whole tradition in the Old Skool X-Men fandom that centered around OTL and CFAN of writing stories about mutants who were ordinary people rather than superheroes.)
I've also written a couple of stories about characters we know exist in canon but have never seen - one about Crais's mother and one about Vir meeting Londo's first wife. They're not technically inventions of mine since Crais must logically have a mother and we know Londo had a wife before the three we encounter in canon, but their characterization is all me.
My main feeling on OCs is that they should serve the story being told. I read fanfiction because I want to hear more about the canon characters and the world they live in, and if introducing an original character advances that goal then I'm all in favour of them. My main problem with Mary Sue in fanfiction isn't actually the super powers, the violet eyes and the romances, it's that she tends to take attention away from the elements that I find interesting.
( The rest of the questions ... )
Sometimes I write OCs. Since none of them have had super powers, violet eyes or romances with the canon characters I don't really lie awake at night worrying that they're Mary Sues. Most of the time my OCs have been purely functional inventions - I needed Larrell to have a new captain after Crais left, so I made one up. More rarely, I've written stories where the original character was the star. I wrote an Astro City story like that years ago, and one X-Men common people story. (There was a whole tradition in the Old Skool X-Men fandom that centered around OTL and CFAN of writing stories about mutants who were ordinary people rather than superheroes.)
I've also written a couple of stories about characters we know exist in canon but have never seen - one about Crais's mother and one about Vir meeting Londo's first wife. They're not technically inventions of mine since Crais must logically have a mother and we know Londo had a wife before the three we encounter in canon, but their characterization is all me.
My main feeling on OCs is that they should serve the story being told. I read fanfiction because I want to hear more about the canon characters and the world they live in, and if introducing an original character advances that goal then I'm all in favour of them. My main problem with Mary Sue in fanfiction isn't actually the super powers, the violet eyes and the romances, it's that she tends to take attention away from the elements that I find interesting.
( The rest of the questions ... )
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