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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 don't have anything against writing OCs. In fact, the two big fics that are right now under "in development" (but quite in advanced stages, whee!) are going to have a huge cast of OCs in them, and I've already tried a bit playing with OCs in What's Past is Prologue.
How do I make certain they're not Mary Sues? Well... I might be giving here the unpopular answer but... I don't.
It's simple. Take one of my favourite characters of all time, The Doctor, and put him through one of those Mary Sue litmus tests. He comes out the biggest Mary Sue that has ever been written. And he's a wonderful character.
It's not that Mary Sues are wonderful characters- they're often aren't. But let's admit it. None-Mary-Sues aren't always all that wonderful as characters, either. Over at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pitry_rewatch I find myself talking about this a lot, but at the end of it, I think that the same thing that creates an interesting human character also stops your character from being a Mary Sue. To wit: make it as human as possible.
So I don't write my OCs as plot devices. Obviously, they're there to serve the plot, especially if my focus is canon characters. But they're people on their own. Which means that they should be allowed to do things that are not directly relevant to the plot, they should be allowed to have inane conversations or do silly things and even make it harder for everyone else, even if they're full of good intentions. They shouldn't have one trait.
That's what I tried to do with What's Past Is Prologue - my readers will have to tell me if I succeeded. But I tried to make sure that even though Marvin was my McGuffin and token bad guy, to show why he's not only "allowed" to hang out with the others but even wanted, why they consider him a friend. So I made him somewhat obnoxious and over-excited and happy to mess around with others and have some ridiculous arguments. Same with Noble - she was the leader but it was important to me that she's not limited to her function in the story, i.e to be a leader.
I think I succeeded, but that's one thing I can't actually judge.
( rest of days under the cut )
I don't have anything against writing OCs. In fact, the two big fics that are right now under "in development" (but quite in advanced stages, whee!) are going to have a huge cast of OCs in them, and I've already tried a bit playing with OCs in What's Past is Prologue.
How do I make certain they're not Mary Sues? Well... I might be giving here the unpopular answer but... I don't.
It's simple. Take one of my favourite characters of all time, The Doctor, and put him through one of those Mary Sue litmus tests. He comes out the biggest Mary Sue that has ever been written. And he's a wonderful character.
It's not that Mary Sues are wonderful characters- they're often aren't. But let's admit it. None-Mary-Sues aren't always all that wonderful as characters, either. Over at
pitry_rewatch I find myself talking about this a lot, but at the end of it, I think that the same thing that creates an interesting human character also stops your character from being a Mary Sue. To wit: make it as human as possible.So I don't write my OCs as plot devices. Obviously, they're there to serve the plot, especially if my focus is canon characters. But they're people on their own. Which means that they should be allowed to do things that are not directly relevant to the plot, they should be allowed to have inane conversations or do silly things and even make it harder for everyone else, even if they're full of good intentions. They shouldn't have one trait.
That's what I tried to do with What's Past Is Prologue - my readers will have to tell me if I succeeded. But I tried to make sure that even though Marvin was my McGuffin and token bad guy, to show why he's not only "allowed" to hang out with the others but even wanted, why they consider him a friend. So I made him somewhat obnoxious and over-excited and happy to mess around with others and have some ridiculous arguments. Same with Noble - she was the leader but it was important to me that she's not limited to her function in the story, i.e to be a leader.
I think I succeeded, but that's one thing I can't actually judge.
( rest of days under the cut )