To OC or not to OC

[shivver]

I'm not really sure what to think of this, and would love any ideas from anyone who cares to comment.



As a rather new writer, and one not so confident in my abilities (it occurs to me that a lot of the character of David in the current AU is based on myself), I like to search out and read advice from other writers. There's a fanfic writer on dA who puts out writing tutorials, and for the most part she has a lot of interesting and helpful things to say. I found one article she wrote called "10 No-Fail Tips for a Great Fan Fic", which she says is "how you can idiot-proof a good piece of literature". I read through them, and a lot of the tips aren't useful to me ("Say no to weird formatting" - not something I do since I'm pretty obsessive about presentation already) and others I already do ("Read your own stories" - I probably read, and then edit, my stories a good thirty times before posting them).

The one that I'm having a difficult time with is "Say no to the OCs." Here's the text of her explanation (I've been discussing this with her, which you can see at the original link):

When you think about bad fan fiction, there are a few things that throw up red flags within the first few sentences. Among those things are Mary Sues, original characters in general, and severely unexpected story content (like a dragon randomly showing up in the middle of Seoul dressed in a pink tutu.), all of which we fan fiction readers expect to see from young and severely inexperienced authors.

As an author, you will probably never need original characters. I just said something important: need. You're pretty smart, and you're a writer, so you probably already know the number one rule for writers: never have anything in your story that doesn't have a purpose. Within your fandom, you can probably find a character to fill whatever roles you might have need of. There are extremely few instances in which you won't be able to do so. As a fan author writing for fifteen years, I've only found one instance where an original character was necessary. If I can do that, so can you.

By using canon characters to fill roles, you'll dodge the deadly bullet of the OC (and also Mary Sue), and you'll also achieve a few other major plusses. Your readers will be delighted to see the creative use of a canon character. If the character is minor, many people will probably enjoy seeing them developed in your story. In addition to character development, you will find that you won't have to worry about a character inconsistency if you use facts provided by the canon. Making use of what your fandom provides is a great habit to have as a fan author.

In short:
Useless original characters make you seem like a crappy author.

Fix it:
Use canon characters to fill roles. Expand on minor characters if necessary.

Maybe I'm taking umbrage at this because I like creating OCs. Actually, I don't see how you can write for DW without creating OCs: the Doctor never stays in the same place for very long, so if you're using a known place, you have to create OCs or stick to the ten or so characters appeared in the episode. Also, almost everything I've written for the past few months (all of these AU stories for The Actor) have had tons of OCs, and in fact, in the last two long fics, Neighbours and Repercussions, the only canon character is David, and his status as canon is arguable, too. In no way can I consider these stories original fiction, as they're set in a copyrighted universe, and so all of these characters must be considered original, as they don't exist in the DW world.

However, I find this "tip" to be simplistic. There's something to be said about being too eager to create to the Doctor's next, most awesome companion, and certainly there are tons of terrible stories out there along those lines, but writing this new companion doesn't necessarily make the story bad. And on the flip side, sticking with a canon companion doesn't make the story good. In a more general sense, shoehorning a canon character into a role simply because "you can probably find a character to fill whatever roles you might have need of" is just as bad as creating an OC to replace a canon character because you want to write this cool character you thought of in the shower this morning. (I had a little giggle as I thought of an OC I created for "Out of Ashes" that I tried to replace with a canon character as a mental exercise. In Rome, months after Pompeii, Evelina gets accosted by a drunk youth who tries to take advantage of her and turns out to have been Quintus' friend who had moved from Pompeii to Rome six months before "The Fires of Pompeii" took place. How in the world would I have found a canon character to fit that? I suppose I'd have to go watch "The Romans" and choose some schmuck in the background. Were they even set at the same time? ^_^ )

Thus, I'm conflicted. I'm trying to keep an open mind, and supposedly this person has been a well-respected fan author in her community for fifteen years now so she knows what she's talking about, so what am I missing? In what way does a rule like this make a fanfic better than it might have been otherwise?

After thinking about all of this and looking at the article a bit more, I'm starting to think that the author really doesn't know what she's talking about. She got into an argument with another deviant, pretty much about the same tip, and here's an excerpt of something she wrote. (The "smarter approach" she refers to is the other deviant saying that she wrote her fanfic about the OCs themselves, rather than add them to the cast of main characters.)

That "smarter approach" is actually what I find most offensive. That's not fan fiction. That's original fiction, and it needs to be kept separate from fandom as a whole. Fan fiction is fan fiction. Literally fiction for fans who enjoy something. They don't enjoy your (or anyone else's) original characters and have never gone, "My god, you know what I need to read today? I need to go see if SpecificPerson has a story about their original character I've never seen before!" It defeats the purpose of fan fiction. Fics shouldn't be about original characters. If people wanted original characters, they'd go read a book.

It seems to me that she defines "fan fiction" completely differently from how everyone else does, and if she's doing that, then her "tips" for writing good fan fiction have no bearing on reality. And she's rather toxic. Someone asked "Is there a name for stories where fan oc's live their lives in the same place that is familiar to a fandom?" and she replied "Yes. Bad fan fiction." It does bug me that she's listed as a "professional writer", and thus these tips of hers have more perceived weight. It's terrible because you know some fledgeling writer is coming across her stuff and is being told she's doing everything wrong because she's writing what she wants and not what this woman thinks is "no-fail".

Comments

[hezikiah.livejournal.com]

I agree with avoiding OC's as much as possible. I don't really tend to use them much and then they're not major characters, just a compliment to the main.

I've read A LOT of fan fiction in my time and I will agree that most of it written with OC characters as main characters is usually just plain awful, with very few exceptions. That's why I try to avoid it as much as possible

The only exception with that are "Witnessing the Protector" and the sequel "The Guardian's Secret," which are told from the point of view of someone who has no idea who the Doctor is. My reason for using an OC in those stories is because I thought it would be interesting to explore what the Doctor looks like from a first-person epistolary (journal or letter writing) viewpoint. It was purely a personal literary challenge (and it has proved to be a HUGE challenge!). I can tell you with absolute certainty that the OC in those stories is not a Mary Sue at all. I was sensitive to that stereotypical problem of using an OC and worked very hard to craft an OC that wasn't super cool or couldn't be damaged or knew all the answers. In fact, the character in those stories is almost everything a companion is not. She's very vulnerable and flighty in the first story and it's only later she begins to emerge as a stronger person.

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree that working with OCs, especially as main characters, is difficult, and that fanfiction that is about the OC is, a majority of the time, not well-written in general and therefore not good fanfiction in specific. However, I might also point out that a majority of fanfiction, at least at general sites like ffnet, is not well-written. Having an OC might be a good indicator that the fiction is not going to be good, but not having an OC is not a "no-fail" path to a great fan-fic (especially if you take her implied advice that you should shoehorn in a canon character at all costs). This "tip" glosses over the real problem, which is understanding how to design and use characters correctly.

I also disagree with her overall premise, that fan fiction is fiction written for the fans and therefore writers must write what they know the fans will want to read. Thus, she argues against OCs because no one wants to read about them. I don't agree with her definition, and I don't agree with the idea that all writers must have the same goal when writing fan fiction. My stories set in the DW universe are fan fiction, no matter who they're about, and I write for many different reasons; giving people want they want to read is not one of them.. I do know that if I write about my favorite OC, most readers won't even open my story and give it a chance, but that's my choice. (And I know from experience - all of my current stories are about my favorite OC, and I think three people in total are reading them. That's fine by me. I wrote what I wanted.)

Thus, neither of her premises are sound, at least with respect to me as the fanfic writer that I define myself as. Have a good reason to have an OC - now that makes sense. Work really hard to make your OC believable, someone the reader can really care about - there's another. Unless your story really needs it, don't have the OC upstage the canon characters - that's a good idea. But not having OCs is a no-fail tip to great fan fic? I really don't think so.

(I've always wanted to try the epistolary form! Good job tackling that!)

[hezikiah.livejournal.com]

Everyone has different reasons for writing fan fiction and I agree that her definition is way too narrow minded. I think OCs work well in the right situations, but those situations are few and far between.

For what it's worth, when I do use an OC as a main character (and not just in DW, but in other fandoms), I think it's fun to do the Mary Sue test just to make sure I'm not writing an annoying OC. It's at http://katfeete.net/writing/suestart.php

My current OC scores a 7, which is really low and I'm very happy about that. Epistolary is a huge challenge because you're only telling the story from one viewpoint and it's harder to understand what motivates other characters when compared to omniscient third-person narrator. On the other hand, it keeps those others characters a bit mysterious and that works out perfect for the Doctor. If you want to read the first story, it's on my Master Archive under "The Guardian's Secret." There's pictures, too, since the OC is an artist. The sequel gets really timey-wimey and is a pain to write, but also a lot of fun (that one is still in the works). http://hezikiah.livejournal.com/28288.html

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that Mary Sue test! It's actually rather helpful. I have two OCs I've been working with. One scores a 9 simply because he needed a career and I figured I could most realistically depict him if he worked, like I do, in a software development studio (though he does not have my job). He'd otherwise be a 3 or so. The other is a 43, which on the entire scale (0-295) isn't that high but the automated analysis system said is dangerous. On the other hand, it's difficult for a Time Lord OC to not score high.

Thanks also for the link to your master list! Some time soon I'll check out the epistolary story - I'm very interested to see how you did it!

[dtstrainers.livejournal.com]

I think it all depends on the story and the author as to whether OCs work or not. I've read some fics by talented writers that were absolutely gorgeous, where OCs were integral to the advancement of the story. I've also suffered through fic in the hands of less-experienced writers where the OC is a thinly-veiled version of themselves.

What I find obnoxious about the experienced writer's conceit is that she presumes to know all the possible permutations of fiction and that what works for her works for everyone. There are plenty of books on the bestseller lists that I couldn't be paid to read for various reasons, but that doesn't mean I think they're bad. I feel that this writer is laboring under a list of 'rules', perhaps as a crutch for a lack of imagination.

After all, at one time, every character ever written is an original character at one point.

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

This kind of reminds me of a story that Richard Feynman once told, about when his artist friend was teaching him to draw while he was trying to teach the artist science. In science and math, of course, there's usually only one right way to do something. However, Feynman watched his friend's teaching technique very closely and he noticed that rather than teaching, he was guiding. I remember the sentence he used to describe this was something very close to this:

He couldn't say, "Don't make your lines thick like that," because some famous artist did use thick lines just like that and made it work. He had to teach me how to draw by osmosis."

I think it's the same way for writing, and probably for any form of art. You can't make hard, fast rules like that.

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

I absolutely love your line about every character having been an original character at some point! It really all comes down to the author working with the character well, whether or not it's an OC. I've seen plenty of fics where the writer uses only canon characters and messes them up just as badly as they might with their own.

[doctorxdonna.livejournal.com]

I think this supposedly 'pro' author sounds like a douche canoe. The point of fanfic is that anything can happen, whether it's canon or not. And I agree-OCs are completely necessary in some stories. Including OCs does not make a fic bad, nor does using canon characters make a story good. I would ignore this person's so-called writing advice and do whatever the hell you want to. Who died and made this bitch queen of the internet and writing fic?

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

It really sounds to me like she has this very narrow definition of what a fanfic is and simply discounts anything that doesn't fit, and feels that she should teach everyone that her way is best. Her style is very imperious, and I'm definitely not finding what she says to be worth much.

I really, really like the phrase "douche canoe", by the way.

[doctorxdonna.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, I personally don't read a whole lot of fic with OCs as main characters, because a lot of it is kinda bad or with Mary Sues, but it's unfair to paint all fic with the same brush. Some fics with OCs are really well done. It depends on the story and the writer. But fic is not one size fits all, not even a little bit.

[katherine-b.livejournal.com]

There is an easier way of looking at it: is there a character that already exists in the series that could do what the OC does? In almost all cases, the answer is yes. It's very hard to find a hole that only an OC can fill. (And you have to make sure that you aren't just taking another character and turning them into an OC. Their character has to stay true to themselves in those actions.)

There is a simple fact about writing: while you are the only person who is writing, you are writing for yourself and you can do anything you like! Create as many OCs as you want. Have them be perfect, and amazing, and inventive, and powerful, and everything else. Subvert characters into completely other people to put your OC at the heart of the story. Whatever you want to do.

The change comes when you take your story and send it out into the world. If you are already using other people's characters, i.e. writing fan fiction, then you are sending out your story to an audience who already knows, or EXPECTS TO KNOW, the people you are writing about. And THEY will very quickly spot if your OC is a fraud or a weak copy of someone else. They may not tell you because people are afraid of the response they will get if they offer concrit. But they will remember and they will check your future fics. If they see that little 'OC' in the character list, they won't bother to read any further.

If none of that bothers you and you feel you don't need those readers anyway then by all means go ahead and write as many OCs as you like. Some people do enjoy reading them for the same reason you like writing them - because it means they/you get to insert themselves/yourself into a fic. But many people dislike said fiction for exactly the same reason. They have come to read about the Doctor and his companions, people they already know.

But it's your decision in the end.

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

See, I disagree that it's very hard to find a hole that only an OC can fill. Maybe this is peculiar to me, because I like writing "from the outside looking in", meaning stories about minor characters and their lives before or after meeting the Doctor. In a lot of these cases, there must be OCs of various importance created to flesh out the story. It would be very difficult to write a story of how Billy Shipton finally found his way back to Sally without at least one OC, unless it's completely description and no dialogue. If he has a nurse tending him on his last day, there's an OC right there.

However, I don't think it's too hard to find cases in more traditional fanfics where OCs are necessary. The first thought that came to mind was Tentoo/Rose: without OCs, their world is populated by only four other people: Jackie, Pete, Tony, and Jake. Then there's the Moffat companions: almost any mention of family or friends will involve creating OCs. Rory doesn't have a mother. None of them have siblings shown or mentioned. Or friends, except for Mels and a couple of one-offs.

It's definitely an author's decision: do you flesh the world out the way you want to, or do you try to attract readers by staying firmly within canon? But adding OCs doesn't automatically make the fic bad, and I think it's poor advice, because the advice-taker isn't told why OCs are dangerous.

[katherine-b.livejournal.com]

Give your argument, I have ask what role your OCs are playing. Are they just a way of viewing the scenes or do they add to them? Could your narrator of the nurse be changed to reflect Billy's POV instead? Would this add to or detract from the scene? You would argue that she has to be there and that's your right, but as a reader (and particularly if you asked me for concrit) I might argue that her role should be played by Billy or by Sally, or even by the Doctor or his companion who could also fill that role and add a fun little timey-wimey twist to it.

As for the Ten II/Rose fic, if you add yet more characters to an already reasonably sized group of people, you risk confusing your reader, who doesn't have such a firm grasp on your fic as you do and is also only reading one part per day, if that often. Hence they might also begin to question the necessity of the OC.

Rory's mother is interesting because they you have to look at the role they play in the fic. Apart from my previous point about whether someone else could fill that hole, why are they in the fic? If you are doing it just to show Rory's relationship with his mother and how that differs from his father, then yes, you can include her without worrying. But if it's to show how Rory gets along with his family, it makes more sense to focus on characters the reader already knows than to bring in new ones.

Perhaps the author of the article should have said that adding OCs makes readers fear that the story is bad, because that's often what it does. Do you care about your reader or is what you write more important to you? Does it bother you that, if a reader misses a first part with an OC, they are less likely to read a later part of a fic because they will have missed far more backstory than they will do with characters they already know? If that's fine to you, have fun with your OCs. It's just something to keep in mind.

[purplecat]

Even if you switch to Billy's POV, unless you've got an entirely descriptive "thoughts inside his head" piece then he's going to interact with someone, at some point, and picking some canon character (e.g, given the time frame, a UNIT character) would actually look more forced, I would say, than creating an OC>

I think its a real divide between people who write fairly plot-driven stories that tend to mimic the "adventure of the week" format of a lot of canons and people who write more relationship focused stuff, where adventures are only mentioned in passing as a background detail, if they are mentioned at all. The former is almost impossible without a decent set of OCs for the canon characters to interact with, while the latter generally doesn't need additional characters and indeed OCs can often seem distracting and shoe-horned in.

[katherine-b.livejournal.com]

Weirdly this response did not appear in my email and I nearly missed it!

Given how ill Billy is, a 'thoughts inside head' piece may not be a bad choice, but it clearly wasn't that of the OP so it doesn't necessarily apply here. I personally wouldn't find it forced to bring in a pre-existing character because it saves you providing a background for them (why does Billy trust them, how does he explain time-travel by angel to someone who may not know about aliens, how will Sally know where to come to him, etc.) and cuts out lots of unnecessary explanation.

I certainly can see what you're saying about the divide between character stories and plot-based ones, but then it comes back to the role played by the OC. Very rarely will someone, given the chance to bring in a brand new character who (excitement!) gets to interact with the star of the show just have them giving directions to the nearest town. I can't recall the last time I read a fic that then didn't have that same character miraculously reappearing at just the right moment to save the day and revealing at the same moment the clue needed to solve the whole mystery or something similar. They are then well on the way to being a Mary Sue, and that is why so many people are nervous about reading them. If they genuinely remain in the background, aren't named in the summary, etc, the reader will be able to accept them for the simple reason that they won't even notice they existed in the first place. (And it's this thought of their precious character being forgotten that pushes the writer to move them to the front of the action in the first place.)

As I've said everywhere though, if you want to write them, there's nothing stopping you, just as long as you don't hold it against people if they don't want to read them.

[purplecat]

Your replies are making me wonder if we mean the same thing when we use the term OC. I mean any character in a story who isn't a canon character but in 99% of cases it would be extremely weird to list them in the summary since they aren't the centre of the story.

But for most casefic (which I realise is the term I was reaching for when using "plot-driven" because, obviously romances have plot too) you need them for the set-up of the case, at the extreme, if you are writing something involving a murder you are going to need an OC for the murder victim unless you are going to go canon divergent, and probably for murderer to. Dr Who stories tend to involve a monster leaving a trail of bodies, and all those need to be OCs or you'll be canon divergent. I'd distinctly side-eye anything that called itself casefic which claimed to have no OCs (though I wouldn't expect to see them in the header unless they were a real historical personage or something), as much as I'd side-eye a romance between a canon character and an OC.

I'd also kind of side-eye something that obviously shoe-horns in a canon character into a role that doesn't really fit them, just for the purpose of not having to create an OC to fill that role. If nothing else, it's often a sign of an over-obsession with continuity which is a whole other different signifier of badfic (or at least mediocre fic)

[katherine-b.livejournal.com]

Hmm, maybe that is the problem. I consider OCs such as those the author of the article is writing about primarily to be the opposite of that, to be those characters (like the ones that appear in some of the OP's stories) who not only feature in character lists but also in summaries and sometimes titles.

I do try to avoid using those you describe at all, but I must acknowledge that having them as background (although that's less of an issue in written fic than in TV-land where you have to have people to fill out a scene) is sometimes a necessity. Still, for a fandom with such a long history as Doctor Who, I actually like the call-backs because it seems like it is acknowledging all that history without being massively obvious about it. Clearly we have different takes on that, which is probably fortunate because it would be very boring if we were all the same.

I'm interested, though, that you expect to see OCs, or even a large enough number of characters that one might expect to see one or more OCs, in a romance. Maybe it's the way I've written them in fanfic but I do tend to use them as reflections on events that had been rather than fictional events that produce feelings that may or may not have been visible in the original media, hence my own side-eyeing of there being a huge population of OCs in such stories. (That said, as soon as there is even a hint of romance between a canon character and an OC, I'm so, so out of there! We can go and gripe about it together, which is nice for a change. *lol*)

[purplecat]

I think it depends upon the romance. Something that's quite tightly woven around canon, I wouldn't really expect to see OCs in because, of course, all the events have preset canon characters (though you could potentially use the OC for an outsider POV on the romance as one of the canon character's neighbours (which I've seen done well, though admittedly in a crackfic) or something) - on the other hand where the romance spins off from canon (e.g., a lot of the MCU fic after the first Avengers movie) you may end up with more OCs coming in depending upon how tightly the romance is focused on interactions just between the two paired characters or whether its supposed to be a slow-burn off a whole load of wide events. But I think, in general, you get fewer OCs in romances because the focus of the story is much more heavily on two (or more) of the canon characters and you don't need a wider set of events and settings to drive it along.

I tend to find when I first get into a fandom I write more romance/character focused pieces, probably just as I'm sort of finding out what I think and feel about the characters and then when I'm more comfortable with them, I start writing more casefic type things.

[katherine-b.livejournal.com]

I tend to find when I first get into a fandom I write more romance/character focused pieces, probably just as I'm sort of finding out what I think and feel about the characters and then when I'm more comfortable with them, I start writing more casefic type things.

It's interesting how different people are. I tend to start with the casefic stuff because it's usually closer to the show's format and then start branching off into the character-focused pieces/romance as I get more comfortable with the characters.

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

I think louisedennis nailed the issue in her response to you, that my problem with a rule against OCs is that my stories are for the most part plot-driven and not relationship-driven. Plot-driven stories require new characters, especially for DW, in which the Doctor rarely visits the same places and people twice. I'm not at all against choosing your characters to best suit your needs or considering using different characters to change/enhance your story. It's just that the more I think about it, the more it seems that the only way to apply such a rule to all fanfic is to severely limit the definition of what fanfic is.

[katherine-b.livejournal.com]

If that's your opinion, as I said above, then that's fine, but just as you have the right to choose what you include, readers have the right to approach your fic with pre-existing concerns about the roles of such characters in the stories you want them to read. As a writer you are not allowed to begrudge them that as they are doing you the favour of reading your story as much as you are doing them the favour of writing it.

(BTW, you asked for people's opinions on this but you give the impression of only wanting to hear from the people who support you and not being willing to consider the arguments of those who don't. You also chose to take a general article about one person's opinion concerning writing as a criticism of your work when it was nothing of the kind. People have the right to express their opinions and not everyone is going to agree with you. That's really what concrit is all about. It's what makes it such a valuable tool when received with the right attitude and applied judiciously.)

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't see that anything you've said defends the original advice's point, which was that avoiding OCs automatically makes your writing better. Your point (and a substantial amount of the original advice's point) has mainly been that choosing to use canon characters over OCs is better at attracting readership, because readers both look for characters they are familiar with and avoid OCs because of the stigma that they are poorly written. And in fact, you said, If none of that bothers you and you feel you don't need those readers anyway then by all means go ahead and write as many OCs as you like. That in itself contradicts the original advice.

(I did say in a different comment thread on this that I don't write to attract readers, or write with the purpose of giving readers what they want to read. i just never said it directly in discussion with you.)

In fact, on this page and in a few other discussions I've had about this in LJ, I haven't yet found anyone who agrees with the original advice. It seems to be all situational: what story you're trying to tell, where it's set and what canon characters are around for it or can reasonably be expected to be around, what POV you're trying to take. I might also argue that while sticking to canon characters expressly to "dodge the deadly bullet of the OC (and also Mary Sue)" (the original advice's words) might prevent the current fic from being bad, it certainly doesn't help the writer improve. One is not likely to learn how to create a well-balanced character if they never try, and especially if they expressly avoid it because they're told they should never do it.

[katherine-b.livejournal.com]

Hmm, well, I was giving my opinion on your question rather than the article itself: In what way does a rule like this make a fanfic better than it might have been otherwise? I felt like (and maybe I'm wrong) you wanted to know that as a way of finding out whether people felt OCs were a good thing or not. The advice given by the original author already seemed pointless for you because you've written OCs so I took your entire reference here to consider how other people felt about OCs. *shrug* Clearly I have misinterpreted what you originally wanted to know, which was whether you should go back in time and never have written them in the first place, and would that have made you a better writer?

For me, the author of the article is doing what anyone who realises they have made a mistake in something they love has done in the past - warn people away from making the same mistake.

Okay, if you want that answer to how it makes your writing better then here is mine, but it's conditional on one thing - that you are writing fan fiction and using a pre-existing circumstance and set of characters:
1) It trains you to be receptive to character traits and to the norms of characters that are not yours so that you can replicate them in a way readers will recognise.
2) It teaches you to work within the laws of someone else's universe. Some people, when they write AUs with OCs, take the characters so far out of that that they might as well write original characters in an original setting instead because the characters they write bear no resemblance to the originals at all.
3) It forces you to consider your audience and their expectations of your stories based on the information you provide them AND the situation/world in which in which the fic is set.
Those are the three key elements in which fan fiction differs from original fiction and thus, for me, are the reasons to avoid OCs because you are in danger of failing to fulfil one or all of those.

BTW I should admit that, when I first started writing fan fic (20 years ago!! The horror!!) I indulged in lots and lots of OCs. And I learnt, painfully and humiliatingly, how bad they can be. That's the reason why I, like the author of that article, am quick to warn others away from them.

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's pretty much what I wanted to know. I find myself incapable of judging the quality of my own work. I can look at the number of reviews and favorites a particular story gets and feel good about myself when the number is high (by my standards), but I can't tell whether or not it's good, and it baffles me when a story I think is pretty good gets no positive feedback while other bits of mine that are complete tripe are popular. I am able to rationalize it when I know it's an unpopular subject matter (for example, no one reads my series about John Smith and Martha living at Farrignham, and I'm fine with that). but otherwise I'm pretty clueless.

(I should clarify that my wanting to know if a story is good is different in my mind from having the story read. I enjoy posting stories and receiving feedback, good or bad, but having people read the stories in the first place has never concerned me. It's flattering if they do read it, but that's never been a concern for me when writing. I write because I want to put a story that's in my head down on paper, not because I expect anyone to read it.)

That said, yes, when I see advice like this, that not using OCs will make my story better, I try to apply it, both to stories I've done in the past and to things I"m working on now and in the future. And when it doesn't make sense, I wonder what I'm doing wrong. After all, this person's an expert, right? From your comments, and from everyone else's in all of these threads, I've gathered that this is really meant to be more like "consider what you're trying to do with the OC and replace it with a canon character if possible", to encourage the author to be more analytical about what he is trying to do with the story, despite the rather dictatorial tone of the advice. It's also meant to apply in general, not to a specific story, as implied by the article.

I agree with your three points. Because I'm mostly a canon writer and have always found the most fun in trying to depict the characters as they appear in the show, they aren't new to me, but I can appreciate how many fanfic writers need to be instructed to think in that manner.

[purplecat]

The "no OCs" thing makes me want to grind my teeth and its terribly prevalent throughout fanfic writing. I'm lucky, in a way, that my main fanfic writing fandom enthusiastically embraces OCs and has vast swathes shared among various fic writers, but its completely atypical and the fondness of half the fandom for OCs caused some major drama early on. Interestingly part of the divide was clearly between people who wrote more plot-based stories (and who needed the OCs as extras and one off supporting characters) and people who wrote more romantic stories, or porn, who had no need for extra characters outside the pairing they were interested in. The "Mary Sue" label I loathe even more, it stops people inventing female characters and, these days, can get used to bash even female characters in canon.

I imagine we've all read a fic where a few paragraphs in you realise this is mostly the authors wish fulfilment fantasy about how they, personally, are so wonderful that the Doctor/Sherlock Holmes/Harry Potter/whoever will fall in love with them and look up to them. 99% of the time those characters are not nearly as interesting as the author thinks they are and the suck all the interest out of the story. There is a (much rarer) variant on this where the author creates their ideal girlfriend/boyfriend and has the main canon character fall in love with them, but the effect is much the same.

I came across a term I much prefer to "Mary Sue" which is the "Wotaguy". A wotaguy character is one that the author thinks is completely and utterly amazing, the reader is expected to have a "Wow! What a guy!" reaction to this character and very rarely does. I think it's fair to say you should absolutely avoid wotaguys in fan fiction - that status is reserved for canon characters, but wotaguy is also well worth watching out for if you write original fiction as well. A lot of people accused Rose of being RTD's Mary Sue (which, WTF?) but I think for a lot of people she was a wotaguy, they didn't think she was nearly as amazing and special as RTD did and that really rubbed them up the wrong way (of course, an awful lot of people simply adored Rose which shows how much of this is in the eye of the beholder).

So, basically, I give myself total permission to use OCs so long as they are not being consistently compared to a canon character and coming up looking better and more amazing than that character. In the case of Doctor Who, the thing you should probably be wary of is creating an alternative companion for the Doctor unless you have really good reason to, but otherwise, if you are actually writing plot/adventure-based fan fiction OCs are an absolute necessity.

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

Yes! I think you're absolutely right that plot-driven stories require far more OCs, and that's where I'm having a problem, since I primarily write plot-driven stories.

I do admit that I will avoid most OC stories, though the ones that I specifically avoid are the ones with the summary, "Laura is the Doctor's newest companion..." for very much the same reason that you gave for not writing them. However, I'm aware that that's how people will approach (or not approach!) my OC stories and I'm fine with that.

I like the term "wotaguy" much better than Mary Sue. I've noticed that people seem to have different definitions for "Mary Sue" (the perfect character, vs. the wish-fulfillment character, vs. the overpowered character), and it's nice to have a word with a consistent definition/connotation.

[katherine-b.livejournal.com]

If you've found that then that's fortunate for you because it only seems to occur in a tiny minority of fandoms for the reasons that you and others have stated there. In Doctor Who, though (which I reference here because the OP writes it, as do I), I always think it's notable that there are rarely episodes with a cast of characters larger than six (on top of and sometimes including the Doctor and his companion(s)) and I think that has to do with a lot of the speed of most episodes. If things move too fast, people will get confused with lots of people to 'meet.' So if people are looking for stories that reflect the format of the show, they will be put off by something that steps so far away from their expectations. As you say, if the character is wish fulfilment, that only makes it worse.

I haven't yet met the "Wotaguy" concept and while I'm not mad on it, I can see what it was introduced. (BTW I think Rose got that title when she kept reappearing because people thought RTD couldn't bear to let her go. Similar things have been said about Moff and both Amy Pond after her appearance in the finale, and River, particularly given that she has now been shoehorned into a Big Finish adventure with the Eighth Doctor).

As I said above, it's the author's choice, but the readers also have the right to approach any fic featuring an OP with preconceived fears, or to avoid them altogether. That's the reason I tend who warn people off them if they happen to ask for public opinion as the OP did here.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Och. Very rigid thinking on her part. And something I take umbrage to.

I'm not generally fond of OCs. The reasons being that I too have come across many that are...badly done or just unnecessary. On the other hand, I have written OCs just to be side characters (and brief ones at that) that have taken on a new life and just became part of the tale despite me.

I say write what you love. And if a character feels right and makes themselves part of the pattern within the weave, just let them be that pattern.

It makes it worse because as a 'professional writer' AND a fanficcer, her word would be gold. And she seems to set in her thinking. The key (for me) to being a writer is 'never say never', stay flexible and adapt. That way you are always improving, learning and growing as a writer. I would have listened to her a few years ago. I find myself dismissive of her words now. If she wouldn't read my work, I would hardly take offense. It's not as if she would understand the concepts put forth in the first place.

And I'm not keen on the 'write what others will want to read'. Tis the same thing that drives people that CREATE Mary Sues. I let my characters tell their tales. Hand-crafting something for an audience smacks of falsehood to me. And the concept is distateful underneath. Write what feel right, what feels good and what you enjoy. If someone else likes it, that is marvelous. But anything less would be cheating yourself.

*HUGS*

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

At first, I never really understood what it really meant by "telling the story I want to tell" or "characters taking on a new life". Having never written before, I always thought it was a process of working out a plot and then writing it out, especially for people like JK Rowling, who write these intricate, complicated stories. That's my heavily left-brained thinking for you.

And then I started writing because of a story that popped into my head while watching "The Girl in the Fireplace", and I started to understand that the story comes from inside. The seed isn't a rational process. You might develop it rationally, but the story you want to tell is very, for lack of a better word, spiritual.

A few months later, I wrote The Actor, and the character of David stuck with me and had these stories he wanted to tell, in two different AUs. That's when I really understood the concept of the character taking on his own life.

And that's really what bothers me about this OC "rule". If you follow the rule, you're forcing something on the story for very nebulous reasons - "it'll be a better fanfic" (which I still disagree with; how can say that about every fanfic?) or "you'll attract more people to read it" - without a guarantee of good results.

I've seen it said many times in these discussions that as a fanfic writer, you have to write what your audience wants to read. As I think about it, I think it's exactly the opposite. The official writers have to write what the fandom wants to read/see/hear. Fanfic writers have the freedom to take that fandom beyond the expected bounds. Yes, many people will avoid things that aren't familiar, that aren't what they're looking for. If you want to stay within the safe boundaries, which will attract more readers, great! But there's so much more to explore out there, and you shouldn't limit yourself simply because a character, or a plot point, or anything else might be unpopular.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Well said, dear one. Well said!

*Applauds!*

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

If I try to sum this up—I think this author makes a good point as a general rule, and is indeed looking to set a list of general rules that are true for fandom as a whole. However, there is no such thing as a universal rule. You will always find an exception, most of all when creativity is concerned; the very point of creativity is that you are supposed to follow your own idea, and work on it to make it worthwhile and unique. That person has a good point and their opinion will probably prove about accurate in most cases, and also probably be worthwhile for beginner authors who are actively seeking guidelines to avoid common "beginner traps". However, their opinion is not going to be valid for everyone and I do believe they are being too close-minded, and apparently unwilling to have some dialogue with people who think differently. If you are a good, hard-working author with a solid idea, you can pull off an interesting OC. And even if you are a beginner, not very confident author who has an idea and is feeling insecure, if you are willing to work hard on your story and make it something truly good, it is not fair that you should be discouraged from pursuing your project, because it may very well turn great. It may not be the majority, but are we fanfic writers because we like to follow the majority? Er, not the last time I checked. Fandom people like to explore every and all things, the mainstream huge pairings, the super-minor character no one else remembers the name of and yes, the OC's if we like.

In short:
Giving advice and general rules is good. Thinking your rule is iron and true in every single case is bad, unhelpful and unconstructive.

Fix it:
Pull your head out of your arse.

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that seems to be the consensus - a general rule, not applicable necessarily to making this story better, but instead to improving your writing as a whole, if you don't already understand the difficulties and limitations of using OCs. I think I"m going back to what I was already doing, which was writing whatever I want to write. :)

(Love your "in short" and "fix it". :)

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

*nods* Sounds like a very good conclusion and/or reaction! :)

(Love your "in short" and "fix it". :)
*winks and curtseys*