Writing meta: Writing OCs, part one

[sholio]

I'm working on my novel, can you tell? *g* Ah, procrastination.

It seems like I've written something like this before, but I can't remember when or where. Maybe it was just in comments and I never really made it into a coherent essay.

Anyway, I write a lot of OCs in my fanfic, and I like reading well-written OCs, but there are an awful lot that aren't well-written. So, here is:

Friendshipper's Guide to Writing Compelling Original Characters in Fanfic (part one)

(All strictly my humble opinions, of course, and based in my own experience and personal reading tastes. All my examples are drawn from SGA because that's mainly what I've been reading and writing lately, but these principles apply cross-fandom, I think.)

Obviously, creating a fanfic OC is not fundamentally different from creating any original character in a non-fanfic piece of writing: they should have a compelling and interesting personality, a unique voice, a history, and so forth. Here is a good page of links on tips for creating original characters. You want your OC to come alive on the page as an interesting person, just like with any original character.

But in fanfic, as opposed to original fiction, there are also unique challenges to creating an OC that won't overshadow the story and/or annoy your readers. The dreaded Mary Sue is, of course, the bane of fanfic readers everywhere. Sometimes, for whatever reason, you may be deliberately trying to create a Mary Sue, but you really don't need my help for that.

You have to accept that most readers of fanfic have a knee-jerk, anti-OC reaction, especially if your OC has a leading role in the story. Unlike readers of original fiction, who are predisposed to like and sympathize with the characters in the story (until given a reason not to, anyway), fanfic readers are predisposed NOT to like OCs. Your mission, as a writer, is not to bludgeon your readers with your own overwhelming love for your OCs; it's to take them gently by the hand and lead them along, until they love your OCs (almost) as much as you do ... or at least acknowledge their necessity to the story!

Here are my personal guidelines for creating interesting, likeable, and, most importantly, non-annoying OCs. (Note: Your OCs may be annoying to the characters, if you intend them to be; I don't mean that they all need to be pleasant people. In fact, it's probably better if they're not. But they should not annoy your readers.)


PART ONE: Your OC's role in the story.


1. The story is about the canon characters, not the OCs. This is my guiding principle when I write OCs, and is also true of every good fanfic I've ever read that featured one or more OCs in a leading role. The importance of the OCs is in how they relate to the main characters; they are not important in and of themselves.

This doesn't mean that your OCs should be tabula-rasas with no personality of their own -- of course not. But they should serve a purpose in the story that relates to the main characters in some way, and you need to keep this purpose in mind as you write the story. Some of the possible purposes for having an OC in a large role in the story are:

- Provides a 3rd-party viewpoint on the main characters.
- Acts as an antagonist to the main characters, e.g. a gang of bandits on a trading world.
- Helps the main characters, e.g. the farmer who hides them from the bandits.
- Supplies a cast of suspects in a murder mystery.

In SGA, most longer stories will have at least a few background OCs; in fact, in stories that take place offworld, it's virtually inevitable. And some of them will simply be the fanfic equivalent of extras: villagers wandering around on the trading planet, unnamed Marines who get eaten by the giant water lizard on M34-whatever, nurses helping out Sheppard in the infirmary. You really needn't feel as if every background character who passes through your story must have a name and personality and history; in fact, if you end up burying your reader under a ton of details on OCs that we're only going to see once, they'll probably go find a less tiring and slow-moving story to read. On the other hand, if you can use your background OCs to add a bit of color, then go for it! Case in point: Ingrid the terrifying nurse in Candle in the Dark. She's never actually shown in the story, and all we get are a few lines of dialogue between John, Rodney and Carson, in which we learn that she's built like a tank and has jail tattoos, and Rodney is terrified of her. Sure, it's not exactly pertinent to the story, but more interesting and colorful than just referencing a random nurse, no?


2. As a corollary to the above, if your OC does not have a specific role in the story, consider not using them. This isn't a hard-and-fast rule, of course, because some of the most interesting scenes in fanfic or canon are the little side trips. But it's also fairly obvious to the reader if your OC is only present because you're fond of the character and want to use her everywhere, not because she needs to be there for the plot. With a canon character, it's one thing, because fans of Zelenka or Cadman or Ford will be happy to see that character no matter if they're important to the story or not. But with OCs, keep firmly in mind that the only person who likes this character is you, at least until you've given your readers a solid, compelling reason to care.

I can cite a fantastic example from published fiction: James Alan Gardner's Expendable and sequels. Expendable is a good book -- or at least I remember finding it so, when I read it ten or so years ago -- and the rest of the books in that universe are reasonably good, but are marred by Gardner's tendency to re-use Festina Ramos, his main character from Expendable, in every other book he writes, regardless of whether she has any role in the plot or not. Usually she shows up in the nick of time to rescue the characters from whatever situation they've gotten themselves into, so they can be impressed by how wonderful she is. It got to where I was just waiting with gritted teeth for friggin' Admiral Ramos to show up and save the day, and then bam! there she'd be.

You do not want to do this. Trust me.

If your OC's role can be performed by a canon character, it's probably better to use the canon character instead. You don't need to create an OC physicist to snipe with McKay when Zelenka will do. Why is an OC Marine leading your backup offworld team when Lorne could do it? And so forth...

If you can eliminate an OC from the story without hurting the plot, it's almost always better to cut them out.


PART TWO: Avoiding the Mary Sue label.

Remember: when you write OCs, you are laboring under the weight of 30+ years of fanfic history, rife with Mary Sues. It isn't fair, but your OC will have the Mary Sue label immediately slapped on her by most of your readership the minute she (or he) walks onstage. You have to prove to your reader that she's not.

3. When you create your OC, try to avoid giving your character classic Mary Sue trappings. Mary Sues are usually attractive, young (teenage/early twenties), middle-class to upper-middle-class, Caucasian women from an American or Western European background (or one which suspiciously resembles it ... like, say, a female teenager from a suspiciously English-looking, unrealistically clean, "medieval" village). This is, absolutely, without a doubt, the hardest kind of OC to write, because of all that historical Mary Sue baggage. If you really want to make things difficult for yourself -- or if your plot absolutely requires it -- you can write your OC as a pretty 17-year-old American teenager, but why not make life easier?

Rather than having your characters saved from bandits by the attractive teenage daughter of the local innkeeper, have a crotchety old farmer save them instead. Rather than having the 19-year-old beautiful new Marine flirting with Sheppard, have it be the unexpectedly sexy, 60-year-old leader of the steampunk people they're trading with. And so forth. Not only do you avoid having the nearly impossible-to-remove insta-Sue label affixed to your character's forehead, but you open yourself up to a wide range of story possibilities by writing about characters who are a little bit different than the ones everyone else is writing about. How does Sheppard respond to finding himself attracted to a woman 20 years older than he is? How does everyone else respond?

Young, female and Caucasian, or some combination of the three, are usually the default for OCs, so the more you deviate from this, the more memorable (and interesting to write) your OCs will tend to be. (Of course, I'm slightly biased here, because as a reader I really LIKE diverse casts of OCs and would like to see more of them!)


Okay, I really MUST work on my novel now, or at least go take the clothes out of the dryer and make myself another cup of tea while I pretend to work, so I'll resume this in a later post. Let me leave you with a link to what I believe is one of the best, if not THE best OC-centered stories in SGA fandom, kodiak_bear's The Last Survivor. It's ... research!

Very belated ETA: If you're expecting a "part two" to this ... I think, from the reaction that this got, that I screwed up somewhere either in my concept or delivery -- so I need to figure out what I screwed up and fix it before I write more of this, if that makes any sense.

Comments

[amalthia]

loved this post! I loved your examples. :)

[sholio]

Oh, thank you! There's more to come, though I had to quit writing meta and go write actual fiction. *g*

[kodiak-bear.livejournal.com]

*seriously blushing*

Thank you, so much!

[sholio]

You're welcome!

I think I'll probably address your story in more detail later on, because it actually breaks some of my personal "rules" for writing OCs, but -- like the best fiction -- succeeds anyway.

[ladyflowdi.livejournal.com]

This is a fascinating take on OC's. I think the quality of an OC is usually a great indication of the writer's creativity, because oh God, they're hard to write. I have trouble with it all the time. Thank you for all the tips!

[sholio]

You're welcome! :) I've got more to go, but I had to go do something useful for a while. *g* I feel a little weird doing writing meta, since I'm not an expert or anything, but I've written a ton of fanfic lately, so I may as well codify some of the things I've figured out along the way...

And yes, OCs are spectacularly hard to do well, but they add so much depth to a story when they succeed.

[kirei-seimei.livejournal.com]

Great insights on writing OCs. Thank you!

A hypothesis: Do you think somehow that the prevalence of Mary Sues (young, pretty, attractive Caucasians, often female) has something to do with how many "Mary Sue-esque" featured extra/guest roles tend to be??

[sholio]

You're welcome! More to come...

That's an interesting point. I think it might be at least a partial explanation for it -- it makes sense that writers, if they don't make a conscious effort not to, would tend to slip into the mold of what they are used to seeing. (And casting directors too, apparently!)

[iamrighthere.livejournal.com]

Writing OCs is an incredible challenge. They do keep stories from becoming static, like bringing in new blood and a different outlook. After reading so many fics, a writer inserting new people in there can really lift a story to another level. But, as you say, they need to be well written, multi-dimensional and definitely not Mary Sues.

I'm looking forward to your further musings in this subject.

[sholio]

It's definitely a fine line to walk. Most stories longer than a vignette or character study need an OC or two, and well-developed ones (as in the stories of most of the authors whose work I truly enjoy, including yours) are a delight to read. But they can so easily throw off the whole balance of the story if handled poorly.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

(Here via metafandom).

I really like your advice on varying the age, race, gender, and attractiveness of the OC's. I've seen it mentioned before, but only a few times; most of the advice concentrates on giving the OC's flaws instead, which can turn into Sue traits of their own (like being too modest). I really wish I got to see more African-American OC's, or older ones, or females whose every move didn't revolve around their looks.

[sholio]

Oh, yes, so much yes to this! I would love to see more diversity in OCs, racially and otherwise. SGA in particular has a canon that really lends itself well to this, being an internationally-flavored expedition in a galaxy full of a variety of different cultures. But nearly any canon can be populated with a diverse cast, within the limitations of the place and time, of course.

And I agree with you about so-called "flaws" becoming quite Sue-ish if misapplied.

Here from metafandom.

[saeva.livejournal.com]

"Mary Sues are usually attractive, young (teenage/early twenties), middle-class to upper-middle-class, Caucasian women from an American or Western European background (or one which suspiciously resembles it ... like, say, a female teenager from a suspiciously English-looking, unrealistically clean, "medieval" village)."

You mean like most the canon characters?

It seems to me you're mostly talking not about how to write well-written OCs but how to cater to your reader's biases. I don't disagree that more diverse characters would be great -- but I'd extend that to canon too. If the vast majority of your canon are attractive, middle class, well-educated white people then it makes sense that, unless you're trying to highlight the difference, your OC would fit in.

This is especially true of canons like SGA where, if you're writing people on the city then they're all going to be under the same standards as the main cast and thus they're going to fall into much the same patterns and if you're writing off world persons then, well, let's look at off the world persons in canon. Persons like the Genii and the multiple pseudo-medieval towns we see, starting most obviously at the Tower but showing up over and over throughout canon.

So I guess for me, I'm more interested in writing a story that makes sense to the canonical world than one that caters to potential reader bias even if that loses me readers.

Speaking of the canonical world, why should a story that's about the universe necessarily also be about the main characters? A story about the Marines on Atlantis set in S3 would basically have to be all OCs as all the military characters we have names for that are currently alive are Air Force, not Marine. A story about the Athosians when Teyla's father was still alive or during the exile of the Wraith-infected humans that eventually became Teyla's bloodline would also be all about newly created characters. Yet either story would fit into the canon perfectly.

You can't avoid the Mary Sue label as soon as one's OCs take on a personality of their own, where they have more than a few lines or exist for anything but filler to get the "real" characters -- i.e. the canon characters -- from point a to b. Either an OC who has a personality is a "Mary Sue," they're bland and unnecessary, or they're not really a character so much as a plot device.

But it disheartens me to see this being given as advice because it is saying that the only way you can "get away with" OCs at all is basically by making them plot devices and removing them as soon as possible, and what sort of way is that to flesh out a universe if you don't want to just write the John and Rodney show? And I know I don't and neither do a lot of writers who fall in love with universes and not just characters.

- Andrea.

Re: Here from metafandom.

[dossier.livejournal.com]

Hhhm, interesting point!

I think that when you add diversity (via original characters) to a story that you're not seeing on-screen, then you're adding texture and richness to the entire universe, rather than distracting from the canon characters.

Perhaps the absolute best example of this is miss_porcupine's universe (http://www.offpanel.net/dmz/sga.html) that concentrates on almost entirely original characters. She has an exceeding deft grasp of the balance between giving life to her characters, and using them to view and contrast the canon characters. They are so beautifully drawn, that it's difficult to remember that these people do not exist within canon.

the only way you can "get away with" OCs at all is basically by making them plot devices and removing them as soon as possible

I didn't read it that way. I think she was touching on the point that if you allow the OC to take over the story, the story's no longer about the John/Rodney show, and the author is losing sight of what the story is about. I know that sounds like a contradiction to what I've just mentioned previously, but OC's that are not Mary Sue/Gary Stu can enliven an otherwise flat story, as long as the story is still about the canon characters. Otherwise, we'd probably all write original fiction.

Re: Here from metafandom.

[sholio]

It seems to me you're mostly talking not about how to write well-written OCs but how to cater to your reader's biases. I don't disagree that more diverse characters would be great -- but I'd extend that to canon too. If the vast majority of your canon are attractive, middle class, well-educated white people then it makes sense that, unless you're trying to highlight the difference, your OC would fit in.

I'm having a little trouble following your argument here -- if I understand you correctly, you're saying that having diverse characters is a good idea but we shouldn't do it because canon doesn't? Why on Earth not? It's true that there are some canons which are set in a heavily monocultural mileiu (for example, regency England or Meiji era Japan) where a racially diverse cast would be jarring -- although this is still no excuse for a writer not to diversify their original characters in age, gender and economic background, among other things. In Stargate, though, the very nature of canon is diverse -- it's supposed to be a multi-national expedition, and we see extras of various ethnic origin cropping up in the background; the show is not always the best at following through on its premise, but given the universe they've constructed, a diverse population of OCs is more realistic than what we see on the show, not less so. IMHO.

If I believed that most fan writers were taking a thorough, analytical look at the ethnic/gender/age balance in canon and conscientiously trying to follow that in creating their OCs, that'd be one thing -- but I don't believe they're doing that. I think that a lot of fan writers in the Stargate-verse need an OC Marine and create a random white boy with a generic Anglo-Saxon name without thinking about it. (I've certainly been guilty of that myself.) They need a random villager and insta-generate a pretty teenage farmer's daughter. But the fanverse could be so much more interesting than that!


Either an OC who has a personality is a "Mary Sue," they're bland and unnecessary, or they're not really a character so much as a plot device.

I don't think you and I are using the same definition for "Mary Sue" here.

From Wikipedia's article on the term Mary Sue: "the "Mary Sue" is seen as being a poorly-developed character, too perfect with too few genuine faults to be a sympathetic or three-dimensional characterization, existing in the story only to satisfy the author's ego." That's pretty much how I'm using it -- and that's what most of us are trying to avoid in our fiction, fanfic and otherwise. A well-developed and well-rounded character is, by definition, NOT a Mary Sue.

You can't avoid the Mary Sue label as soon as one's OCs take on a personality of their own

I disagree. The entire purpose of my article above is to describe ways that a writer can AVOID that. However, if you truly believe that all original characters are Mary Sues (or will be perceived as such by your readers no matter what you do), then obviously an article on avoiding them would be nonsensical in the extreme...


But it disheartens me to see this being given as advice because it is saying that the only way you can "get away with" OCs at all is basically by making them plot devices and removing them as soon as possible, and what sort of way is that to flesh out a universe if you don't want to just write the John and Rodney show?

I'm sorry if that's all you got out of the above; perhaps I didn't explain myself well. See dossier's comment for clarification -- I agree with everything that s/he says.

Like I said at the beginning, this is just "my own experience and personal reading tastes". If you believe that I'm giving misinformation to aspiring writers, then I'd strongly advise you to write your own article on the subject. The only way to counter misinformation is to provide better information.

Re: Here from metafandom.

[sholio]

A little bit more, since I ran up against the LJ comment limit...

I'm not recommending that people don't explore the canon universe in their fanfic. In case I haven't made that clear, I'll be sure to clarify in the next article. The thing is, though -- I cannot, off the top of my head, think of a really good story in SGA fanfic that is entirely focused on OCs as the sole purpose of the story, rather than using OCs to reflect fundamental truths about the canon cast or setting. I'm not saying it can't be done, or even that they aren't out there, because I have run across a small number of stories in other fandoms (I can count them on the fingers of one hand) that genuinely succeeded at it. To attempt it, and fail, is common. To do it well is extraordinarily rare. And if someone is sitting there staring at their all-OC cast and trying to figure out why their story isn't working, or why readers don't like it, then maybe what I've written above can help them figure that out.

I'm not trying to tell anybody what they should write or why they should write it. But I also don't subscribe to the "all fanfic is equally beautiful, a unique and lovely snowflake" school of thought. Some of it, dammit, is a whole lot better than the rest. I want to write good fanfic and, in the process of blundering towards that, I've figured out a few things that have helped me, which I thought might help other people as well.

Also here from metafandom

[hellenebright.livejournal.com]

Speaking of the canonical world, why should a story that's about the universe necessarily also be about the main characters?

Excellent point. Shows often do at least one episode a series that is written from the POV of a character outside the lead cast, with the lead characters only appearing as incidentals. ST-NG did an excellent episode with the swing shift in charge, the new Dr Who has done two episodes (Love and Monsters; Blink) in which The Doctor and his companion appear only as incidentals, Torchwood did an ep (Random Shoes) in which the main protagonist is a single use character, Babylon 5 did a couple (names escape me at this moment), and so on.

So if it's good enough for the show scriptwriters.....

I suppose it depends on your definition of "fanfic" The author of this piece is using a very tight definition, with the focus on the scenes and characters that appear in the show. Coming from the Dr Who fandom, which existed for years basically as "extended fanfic" in the shape of books and radio plays, I'd use a much looser definition, to say anything based on the original show is still fandom. Which is not to say that everyone will want to read a story about Marines in S3, but that's a different issue.

[dossier.livejournal.com]

I agree completely on your views of OC's--use them sparingly, and make them as real as possible. If they're important enough to have in the first place, they're important enough to breath life into them, to make them as important to the reader as they are to you, and the story.

I'm enmeshed in a novel of my own, where I've had to implement probably more than the usual number of OC's by virtue of the plot & setting. I'll definitely go back and consider this well thought out advice when revising!

[sholio]

Thank you!

Juggling a lot of OCs is hard. I've found that it's very helpful (for me) to read advice on making up characters that's aimed at writers of original fiction (like the site I linked to at the top of this post) -- even if much of it is self-evident or I don't entirely agree with it, there are often a few little gems mixed in; at the very least, it helps me to be consciously aware of aspects of the character generation process that I might not otherwise have thought of.

[parisindy.livejournal.com]

thanks for the interesting read... i've been writing fanfic for a long time and have sort of moved on to writing scripts...
its always good to hear other poeple's ideas and thougths on the subject

[sholio]

Thanks!

I'm immensely interested in reading other peoples' writing meta ... even when I don't agree 100% with everything they say, it'll often get me thinking along different lines than I might otherwise have done.

[tipper-green.livejournal.com]

Heh. Is it sad that I sighed a huge sigh of relief when I read this: "Supplies a cast of suspects in a murder mystery." LOL!

Otherwise, unsurprisingly, I agree with everything you said. To me, OCs are there for the main characters to bounce off of, whether for good or ill. End of story.

[sholio]

*heh* But that IS a good reason! I did it in Killing Frost, and you're doing it now. If you want to have any sort of "whodunnit" suspense, you *can't* use canon characters for that, because we all know THEY didn't do it!

To me, OCs are there for the main characters to bounce off of, whether for good or ill.

Yep. And it IS possible to use OCs in very creative ways, and even have the entire story from their point of view. But the story is still about the canon characters and their world, or it isn't really fanfic anymore ... and the reader can feel it.

[tielan]

Overall, I agree with your suggestions for how to minimise Mary Sue-ism in OCs.

But I don't agree that 'minimising labels on OCs' (specifically the Mary Sue label, as well as other accusations levelled at OCs) necessarily means that the OC will be compelling or well-written.

This may very well be a disconnect between the title of your post and the content of it: having a character that suitably supports the main cast, or isn't labelled a Mary Sue doesn't mean they're necessarily compelling.

Or it may just mean that there's a second half to come that will join the dots for me. :)

(I admit, I've read a couple of miss_porcupine's stories, and while the OCs are definitely well-written, I have trouble really connecting with them. To me, they might not be Mary Sues, they might exist as secondary characters to John and the other Atlantis military, but they're not particularly compelling either. Although that may be because I haven't followed their development from the start of the time she began writing them to the present day, so they have no emotional value to me.)

[sholio]

There really is a lot more -- I think one reason why people are reacting negatively to this is because the whole thing is being judged on considerably less than half of it. (Which is fair. It's all people have to go by. But it *is* only part of it.) And I'm not especially inclined to finish a part 2 at the moment -- not your fault, not anybody's fault; it's just that this is something that I was writing up for fun, mostly for me, in between working on my novel, and it stopped being fun when I realized that by posting it, I was putting myself in a position where I'd need to spend a fair amount of time defending it. And I really don't have that time; I'd rather spend the time writing.

Short answer, though, is that, as I said at the beginning, there is a lot of pre-existing meta on the actual process of writing living, breathing characters. What I was trying to do, was not to repeat that, but to draw out the parts of character creation that are, in my opinion, specific to writing OCs. It's not an essay on creating a vivid character; I leave that to others who've already covered that ground. It's basically a list of things to keep in mind when creating OCs, not a guide to creating a character in general.

In which case the title is probably misleading and should be changed. Do you have any suggestions for something that is more accurate?

[dunv-i.livejournal.com]

Okay, I have to stop thinking post 10pm, but anyway...

Uh, something I find very interesting is that one of the (seemingly to me, at least) least embraced episodes of SG1 is The Other Guys? The first one with Felger. I remember when I first watched it, I was annoyed with the way it played it. Thought Felger was cute in a geeky 'omg sg1' way, but didn't find the plot very interesting or believable. And I just realized - they were, essentially, rather than scientists complimenting the story, like Dr. Lee or Janet usually do, either in a small, 'this is their part, let them do their part' position, or as a powerful guest star with motivations driving the story, it was two guys who took over the story and had SG1 following behind them.

[sholio]

Interesting thought! I haven't actually seen that episode, though I've heard about it. And, you know, from a strictly writerly perspective, I think it's a very cool idea -- taking a peek at a corner of the universe that isn't really about "our" guys. But as a viewer, and a fan of the characters, I'm really not especially interesting in watching it. I should note that I'm not specifically avoiding it; I just haven't seen that part of the series at all! But still -- cool idea for a writer, not so cool for a fan who tunes in to see "the further adventures of..."

I was musing yesterday -- and this kinda fuels my musings -- that it might be different in fandoms where canon itself has a different sort of feeling: Doctor Who, for example, or soap opera type shows, where the cast often changes and the show is more about the gestalt than the individual characters. In shows like that, it might be easier to slot new characters into the setting without it being so noticeable.

[greyias.livejournal.com]

I love these examples (just found my way to this post when catching up on posts at the writers_lair comm), as avoiding the Mary Sue OC trappings are very difficult. However this:

Rather than having the 19-year-old beautiful new Marine flirting with Sheppard, have it be the unexpectedly sexy, 60-year-old leader of the steampunk people they're trading with. ... How does Sheppard respond to finding himself attracted to a woman 20 years older than he is? How does everyone else respond?

This begs to be written! It actually somewhat reminds me of a Ray Bradbury short story I read in college, though I'll be darned if I can remember the title, about a May-December not-quite romance.

I'm currently writing a long beast that has several OC's just by the nature of the story, one of whom is female, and I have to be very careful to avoid the trappings of a Mary Sue-ism. I'm actually trying to base her characteristics on a male canon character and see how that works in someone who is female (with a completely different upbringing). I'm definitely going to keep this entry up when I write the scenes with her.