Original character fics

These are underrated. Alexandra Quick is freaking awesome, for example.

And there's a lot of series that would suit a new OC very well, like X-Men.

Only problem is, is the tendency to make the OC's secondary characters instead of the protagonist, or else replace one of the canon character's roles with an OC. That's a waste.

I agree I love OC fanfics. I personally think the fear of running into bad OC/Mary Sue fics makes people look down on them. To be frank I honestly think that's kind of stupid. I've read a ton of shitty all canon fic, and I have yet to develop an aversion to all "canon only' fics.

Also I love Alxeandra Quick. That's one of my fave HP fic series out there.

I agree with on the fact that fear of a Mary Sue/self-insert fic probably encourages people to distance themselves from the idea. I've also been told by some people that it feels arrogant or somehow presumptuous to put your own characters in what's supposed to be a fan-work, but I don't know how popular that opinion is.

I'm the opposite, since I get very weird about writing canons. It's something that's been lost on me for the longest time, and normally I have such a stable of OCs I've written/want to write that it's easier for me to adapt them to someone else's setting than to put myself in the mode of writing someone else's characters. Most of the time I've been drawn to big, open settings with a lot of tangential lore and set-dressing that can be expanded on, where OCs are easier to worm in and sometimes even necessary. Something that's big and sprawling like Game of Thrones or any iteration of Warhammer is a good example, and lends itself well to tinkering around.

edited 29th Jan '15 7:59:37 PM by ShengDongJiXi

I'm a bit wary of OC fics only because I know they're gonna have to work a lot harder to make me care about the characters than a totally canon fic. If an OC isn't done well, I'm just gonna be annoyed by them being there...

As an avid writer (but not really a reader) of fanfiction, I might as well share that half of my fanfics use OCs for the main characters, with supporting characters and/or concepts carried over from the original canon.

Used in my Goosebumps fic Creeps (with other GB fanfics in the planning stages) and my Get Smart fic Growing Pains, the idea was that incorporating my OCs - planned for use in future publishable stories - into fanfic would familiarize me with the characters, in addition to improving my writing skills for when the time actually came to write their own, fully original stories. While the latter (my writing skills improving) has worked as planned, ironically the former hasn't yet, as none of the several original stories I'm working on right now make any substantial use (if they use any at all) of the OCs in my fanfics. Though my fanfics are arguably more like "original stories, guest starring characters and concepts from this media" anyway, so maybe it all makes sense.

(If you're wondering, the other half of my fics are my Old Shame Animaniacs of the Caribbean fusion fics, and my endlessly delayed, humorously rewritten Shakespeare tragedies; both ideas being Played for Laughs, and by definition, completely dependent on the original cast.)

edited 1st Feb '15 2:47:08 AM by shrikecatcher

What I do with my OC fics is I usually base it on a place FAR away from the canonical setting, giving me more of a reason to use OC, and less of a reason for you to shout "SHAMLESS O Cx CHARACTER SHIP AHEAD!"

No. Bad. If our readers wanted to read stories about characters that they've never heard of, they wouldn't be reading fan fiction.

If you absolutely have to use OCs, put them in a supporting role, at least until the readers have had time to grow attached to them. But don't write a story about Awsum Mc Superpants that nobody has heard of or cares about and expect people to read it unless you've already got a massive fanbase.

Yes for OC fics that explore the setting or the world beyond the view of the canonical characters. Worlds are big places, and there is room for more than just one story to be told; OCs allow that to happen.

It does call for skill and imagination in storytelling, but what doesn't?

Did it ever occur to you that it might be the setting in which something takes place that has appeal and draw of its own, and not necessarily the characters?

Yeah. I don't mind OCs set in the Pokemon universe, because the way Pokemon works means it's basically begging for stories like that anyway. However, not all works are like that, and in some of them OCs can seem pretty intrusive

Yes. And I don't care. If the setting is so unexplored that you cannot explore it with characters from the work you're using the setting of, then you might as well write original fiction. Nobody's going to call you on it, since you're basically making everything up anyways.

And if it isn't, then you should be able to write a fanfic using the characters that have been presented.

edited 27th Feb '15 2:31:36 PM by Hyp3rB14d3

All right. Let's say someone decides to explore the interaction of the magical and nonmagical worlds in the Potterverse, during Victorian days, for instance. There's no way to do this without original characters. Or, say, WWII, which the author only hinted at. Or in Central Europe. There will need to be a lot of original characters there too.

The Main Characters Do Everything isn't a good approach. There won't always be canonical characters for every given purpose. Yes you're writing original fiction, but in a pre-established world; that is by definition an OC fic.

And of course there are worlds that have so many characters that most have almost no inherit characterization. These can provide a wonderful way to supplement canon, yes Sturgeon's Law applies but when does it not?

@Sabre's Edge: You have a point. However, the vast majority of OC fan fiction isn't like that. The vast majority of OC fan fiction consists of power trips involving the OCs doing what the main characters did canonically better than the main characters did it. And they are horrible for it.

And for the record, The Main Characters Do Everything is a trope for a reason. They are the characters the audience has grown attached to. So the audience wants to follow their adventures. Unless you manage to endear the OCs to the audience very quickly, your works are going to get a lot less attention than they will if you stick with canonical characters from the works you're writing fan fiction of.

edited 27th Feb '15 5:25:09 PM by Hyp3rB14d3

How did I create such a fuss over how something as simple as the setting affects the legitimacy of the fic? All I basically said was I use a setting change to justify OC usage. That, and I have some tremendous fear of writing canon characters OOC for some reason, forgot to mention that.

When you write, you tend to get better at writing what you write. If you never attempt to get characterization down, you aren't going to get better at maintaining a consistent characterization.

All I basically said was I use a setting change to justify OC usage.

If you have to twist the setting around to justify your OC instead of letting them come into it in a natural, organic way, you have a fundamental error going on there.

What I do with my OC fics is I usually base it on a place FAR away from the canonical setting

Which beats the whole purpose of using the canonical franchise then, out of sheer name recognition factor.

edited 27th Feb '15 8:04:47 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

So that's probably why I feel like most of my fics are shit.

Oh, not the old victim card, please. My fics are shit too, most likely far more than yours, and I don't let that dishearten me.

edited 27th Feb '15 8:16:05 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

I'm actually not disheartened, it's just a weird feeling I've known about for a while. I do enjoy my own work, and I think I'm getting more or less better at writing in each chapter (though punctuation's always been real pesky for me). And they do have a few fans each, so it's not like I can just up and quit on them because "My fic is shit."

edited 27th Feb '15 8:29:03 PM by Nate-of-a-Hundred-Things

There's little problem if the setting you choose is geographically or chronologically removed from the original setting, so long as it's recognizably the same setting. The Potterverse, which I used as an example, extends all the way around the globe, for instance. It'd be perfectly justifiable to set a story in, say, Civil War-era America, or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and explore the dynamics there, since it's the same setting, even if it's geographically far away from the original stories. The idea is that you can shed some additional light and provide some additional insight to parts of that setting which the author didn't explore.

However, that does mean that if you just choose a distant, faraway land just for the hell of it, you may have problems if it's not immediately recognizable as the same 'verse. Autre pays, autre moeurs: since it's a different land, you will have to bring to life as such.

Thank you, I'll keep that in mind.

So it sounds like you only really have a problem with a specific type of OC fic and you're using it to write off the entire concept. It's all well and good to say that OC fics tend to come off a certain way in your experience, and I've made similar gripes on here and wouldn't necessarily call it invalid, but you're making broader statements than your own distaste with the idea can really justify.

See, I'd agree with your statement if my complaint didn't apply to over 90% of OC fics.

Once you get over 50%, I don't think you can call it "one specific type" anymore.

edited 27th Feb '15 9:55:12 PM by Hyp3rB14d3

I don't know where you got those numbers, but even granting that there's a certain trend in OC fics to behave that way, it doesn't mean that the concept is inherently bad. Most shipping fics I see are thinly-veiled and shallow attempts by the author to couple themselves with one character by proxy of another, but I wouldn't decry the very notion of a shipping fic because the ones I've seen piss me off.

It should be said that most shipping fics I've read were written by Mykan. Still.

edited 27th Feb '15 9:55:50 PM by ShengDongJiXi