Some Tips for Creating OCs

[Kali Gargoyle]

This is a little *cougheightpagecough* something I’ve been working on for a couple days. It is in no way a set of concrete “rules”. It’s just some suggestions of things that I’ve found useful when creating and tweaking and rounding out original characters while keeping it an enjoyable experience.

Link: www.geocities.com/kaligargoyle/OCtips.html

I hope some of it is helpful. If anyone has any questions, comments, suggestions, resource links, or general fanfic advice they’d like to add, feel free to speak up! This should totally be an interactive thing. (Note: Don't ask for reviews of character profiles, that's what the Is Your OC Mary Sue/Gary Stu? thread is for.)

[Kali Gargoyle]

It feels great to be appreciated, doesn’t it? I don’t care, I refuse to let OC become a dirty word.

Anyway, for those who don’t want to go through the whole thing, I’m going to summarize the sections. (What, do people want me to paste the whole thing here?) Obviously, there are longer explanations at the above link, with examples.

Tip# 1: Don’t contradict canon! – Big one, pretty straight forward. You don’t have to limit yourself to only what we know, you can make stuff up based on canon, but try and make it believable. (Exception: AUs, as long as you label them.)
Tip# 2: Character Foundation. – Every character needs a good foundation, defining their core personality and role. Avoid defining them by relationships with other characters. Only a few words, certainly not all they all, but a good, solid core.
Tip# 3: Try to fit in, but be unique! – Every person, every character should be unique, but standards for the world should be kept in mind.
Tip# 4: Balance your character. – Strengths and Weaknesses. Powers and Flaws. In numbers and intensity, there needs to be give and take.
Tip# 5: Don’t make your character a "dump-pile". – Just piling a bunch of cool powers, traits, and abilities onto a character does not necessarily make them cooler.
Tip# 6: Watch those adjectives! – As a supposedly neutral narrator, describing your character as “beautiful” “gorgeous” “sexy” “perfect”, etc. makes you sound biased and can change how people view your character.
Tip# 7: Keep canon characters in character. – Please?
Tip# 8: What's in a Name? – Finding a name for your character can be hard, the temptation to use something one-of-a-kind may go against a couple of the above tips (1 and 3).
Tip# 9: Don’t fear change. – Making changes to your character may be necessary, either to keep up with canon, natural character growth, or because you have better ideas.
Tip# 10: They’re not alone. – Your character is not in a void. They will talk and communicate with others, react to situations, and have opinions on all of that. Speech patterns, body language, and mannerisms can help create a more realistic character.
Tip# 11: You are your past. – Your character has a past, and that past effects the kind of person they are, where they are in life, why they do things, everything. “Reverse engineering” your character may help you fill in pieces.

Come on, so how does everyone else come up with their characters (either fan characters or completely original ones)? Base them on the lyrics of a song? Find a name first and build on that? Find a role you want to fill? Just wanna draw someone cool-looking? Got helpful links?

[Atmos]

Great tips, Kali Gargoyle!

And what I like about the tips is that they not only help with build insight in OC development, but in character development in general. This advice is also great for role-plays are well as fanfics or any other writing.

You I knew of a role-playing site that had this really in-depth character sheet, that if you filled it out, it would garantee you of a vividly developed character, but alas! I forgot what site that was on (it's going to drive me crazy now).

To be honest, when inspiration of fanfics first started, I wanted to try and break some canon rules!
What it was was dealing with the fact that Aang was the last Airbender. Well in short, I've accepted that Aang is the only airbender (at the moment). I strongly believe that the airbenders will come back. How, I can't say, but my strongest argument of knowing they will comeback is the "avatar cycle." (assuming Aang has reached the 7th chakra and not produce any offspring of his own) The airbenders gotta come back because if they don't the cycle will be broken in the next 300 years when the reincarnation is in need of an airbender.

SOOOO...that was my biggest reason for setting my fanfic in the future (100 years later). I wanted one of my characters to be an airbender. But I also wanted him to be a "villain" as well. Of course how would an airbender (learning their techniques from the peaceful monks) turn out to be a villain? Well I made so I came up with a flurished enough history of the character for him to turn out that way. But his history will slowly unfold through the story.

Of course a reader might end up not likely such a big mystery at the start the story. So that's when I was compelled to balance it out by making another character - one with a not-so-mysterious history. In fact, I decided to reveil almost all the key parts of the character's history right in the beginning of the story. That way the reader can fell secure with at least one character. But of course I would have to make this character unique enough for the reader to fancy.

Sooo...with the condition that I wanted to start the story at the Earth King's palace. Now I decided I would not have any royalty as main characters. (No no no). Royalty (I believe) has to be the most overused aspect of a main character in the entire fantasy genre. So I went with the character being a simple palace guard. So I thought hard about the palace guard. I thought back to the episode, The Earth King, and pointed out that their were no female guards (at least from what I remember). So I decided to make the guard female. I also wanted to make it a little more of a challenge and try to avoid the group of main characters from all being "benders." So the female guard was a non-bender. Of course she would have to have some impressive skill to be a non-bending palace guard. So I decided to give a katana along with with some good skill.

Now for thinking of her personality: I thought of what it would be like to go through the training and such have to become a palace guard - a trained official has been trusted with their lives to protect the the almost God-ful Earth King. So I figured she got to have the hard attitude to express her allegiance and go through the rigorous training (as well as deal with potential sexism). So this character would be the type who would take her job (too) seriously as well as have the much confidence and fearlessness. Of course I had to give her some flaw: she's secretly venturesome, and can overreact during very unexpected events. And its her flaws I count out to lead her through the story.

But I also decide to keep some general ideas...but with twists . For instance I have a firebender who's out to get an airbender (sound familiar) but it's the airbender that's the bad guy and the firebender has different reasons for his capture. And you got to have a flying steed, no? So instead of an sky bison, I gave the firebender a dragon.

And there are others characters that show up along the way...
You could see them in action here: Avatar: NCD

But yeah, that was pretty much the thought process of coming up with the characters for my first fic. (Though I think its the chapter lengths that tend to scare people away )
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Another big inspiration of fanfics is "fanart." While scrolling through some art, I this pic of a sandbender by doozigitis, gave me a sudden light bulb over my head. So that's when I decided to start to develop a character and the insight of a sandbender: A Wind in the Desert

So yeah.....

BTW - Kai Gargoyle, do you have any fanfics?

[Kali Gargoyle]

I tried to write this in as general terms as I could, so it could be applied to many aspects of character work. I also didn’t want anyone to feel like I was pointing fingers at individuals. I’ve been creating OCs since before I really understood the term, I vividly remember creating TMNT fan characters when the old cartoon first started (a girl turtle, she had hair and boobs and everything. Obviously, this was also before I understood the term “Mary Sue”.) It’s only been in the last couple years that I could divide my stories from my self-interest to put simply “myself” in the story and make better characters.

I’ll have to take a look at your fanfics, it sounds like you’ve got some great characters.

Yes, I do have some fanfics (FF.net account), although none of the Avatar ones have OCs (and the other fandoms’ fics are old and bad, don’t read them.) Unless you count my sentence sets, Shades and Tints. BTW, sentence sets, a set of prompts where you write a single sentence for each prompt, is a great way to creatively develop a character/s without writing a lengthy story or just writing facts into a profile. It’ll make you consider character details that wouldn’t even come up in the story, try ideas, see what works. Very fun.

I do most of my work in art form, specifically comics, and I have many of them on my deviantArt account. Although I’m having trouble formatting my “Matao at the North Pole” story into comic form, so I may write it as a fic. I do end up doing several sketches of my characters, especially expressions, to help develop them. I’m a visual person, that’s how I work.

After the series is over and I have all the canon information, I'll start on my longer fics. I want to do a long story centered my character Amaya that weaves through canon events. I also have a past Avatar that I like working with. I’ll get to those fics eventually. Man, I wish I was back in the days when I could whip out multi-chaptered fics like nothing. I'm getting old. XD

[Atmos]

Cool, I'll be sure to check out your deviantart page when I can. Oh and you have a past Avatar?! I definitely what to check that out. (Don't know why, but my favorite fanfics are the ones that take place in the past or future.)

Oh and I found this really good character sheet on the web. I'm going to set the characters's bios throught this sheet.
www.eclectics.com/articles/character.html

SO ANYONE HERE WANTING TO MAKE AN INDEPTH OC, CLICK ON THIS SITE!!

[Kali Gargoyle]

I’ve done very little with my past Avatar character (I’m still entertaining the dream that an Avatar-based book/manga series will pop up and I can do her story for that. Yes, I know I’m delusional.) She’s a waterbender from the Northern Tribe because I wondered what that would be like. Women aren’t allowed to learn waterbending, only healing, but the Avatar has the duty of learning all the elements. From the start, I have that interesting conflict. I’ve changed some of the details of her story since first posting her bio, and I’m keeping it secret. XP

The past Avatar story appeals to the OC creator in me because I get to create everyone. I did use the “Avatar goes on a journey to discover his/her destiny and accept it and save the world” plot idea, but with different twists, obviously a different path to acceptance and different world crisis.

Ooh, that character sheet is good. You can keep track of lots of information. Personally, I like developing characters more... organically, but that’s a good resource. *makes a note to add to links*

[Atmos]

Yeah, I don't make as many notes of my character/stories aas I should so it definitely helps with some of my organization.

*Gasp!* And I love that plot overview of your story already.

And I definitely know wht you mean the "inner OC creator." That's why I think I'm having a lot of fun making up my story, heheh.

And I came across another site
www.geocities.com/poetess47/100questions.html
Though it's more of a questionaire. But it still helps point out a lot for a character.

[Ryth76]

Once again, thank you for putting this together I've been having a persistant muse for a fanfic with an "OC" (who was in the show), so maybe that would come in handy for whenever I break down and work on it. I feel so self-conscious about writing an Avatar-fanfic, so I'd have to coax it out of my system.

Ooo... I remember the first chart from back when I was really into writing to be published! This brings up so many memories...

There's one I know of... it was really, really extended. I can't find it though. Anyway, here's another that I have used in the past:

www.episodicreview.com/ep101/writing/charactercht.htm

This might also be useful.

www.writersvillage.com/character/index.htm

Usually I don't use a character a lot until I have some form of a chart made for them. Unless they are really minor characters, and then I wouldn't be using them a lot anyway.

[writer]

I am the OC slave-lover girl. I have like dozen OCs, however, they are pretty munch by canon rules. I bent a few by the time line like my trio.

My only gripe, Kali, is that you OC ship and I don't like that <<

[Ryth76]

^So says the guy with the 'other Airbender'. I'm not fond of that either. Unless you meant years before Aang got out of the iceburg <<

Seriously, though, that's not all Amaya's purpose in her stories is and Amaya is a lot more original and realistic than a MS. Granted she's shipped with Zuko, but that doesn't make her "Ohmygasp! MS!" because she is so well thought out, I think, for an OC and Zuko seems pretty IC in the story. None of this "heal Zuko's woes/save the world/be uber powerful/hate Zuko, then become his twu wuv" stuff.

Technically, she could be considered a minor Mary Sue just for the OC-shipping, but most OC characters relating to popular characters do have some factor that could be considered slightly MS-ish. Namely, their relationship to said popular character-- even though that is technically okay, since there's no law saying they have to fall for one of the characters in the show (at least, not with Zuko... yet)-- given the OC is well written and realistic.

Eh, but we're just expressing personal opinion on the subject... If I was going to write an post-series fic, I'd use my Zhi Wang/teenaged Hope character (she's semi-OC, since she was in the show as a baby) and she could almost be considered MS for her relationship to certain main characters.

[writer]

^So says the guy with the 'other Airbender'. I'm not fond of that either. Unless you meant years before Aang got out of the iceburg <<

<< Umm wise-guy. The Trio are Retros. Meaning they lived in the BEGINNING of the war. They all died before Aang awaken. Accually about 30 years before.

So please insert your foot in your mouth. As for Amaya. She's a very thought out character, and wonderfully disigned. I just feel that OCs don't need to be shipped with Canon. There is no such thing as a minor MS. Either your MS or not. Yomi and Mao are Gary Stus if you want to point out the fact that they angst alot. But they also connect to Chiko and that accually balances out, as foster parents with more responsblity then they could handle.

And honest Ryth, why are you defending Amaya? She's isn't your OC. Let Kali fight her own battles, Kay?

[Ilise]

Bard Child- Is there a battle? There's just people who care about people OC shipping, and people who don't... There are no sides, there is no fight. I guess Kali has the right to make her OCs shipped, eh? It's not really a big deal- I mean, you can do whatever with your OCs, make them ship canon, and if someone minded, then they'd say so and it'd still be your character. Big deal.
And about Ryth- if she thinks that the OC is cool, then she has every right to say so. It will not change your belief that shipping OCCanon sucks, so what's the problem?
Hee. Sorry that I exploded- I'm kinda a rights freak... And I'm not too pushed either way with Canon OC shipping.

Anyway, back on topic- these tips are awesome, thanks!

[writer]

arrowedavatar said:

Bard Child- Is there a battle? There's just people who care about people OC shipping, and people who don't... There are no sides, there is no fight. I guess Kali has the right to make her OCs shipped, eh? It's not really a big deal- I mean, you can do whatever with your OCs, make them ship canon, and if someone minded, then they'd say so and it'd still be your character. Big deal.
And about Ryth- if she thinks that the OC is cool, then she has every right to say so. It will not change your belief that shipping OCCanon sucks, so what's the problem?
Hee. Sorry that I exploded- I'm kinda a rights freak... And I'm not too pushed either way with Canon OC shipping.

Anyway, back on topic- these tips are awesome, thanks!

Again I was talking to Kali about Amaya. It's her OC, she can defend it if she wants too. And I think Amaya is cool too, I just don't like fact that she's pretty much Zuko "friend." and "love" It's nice that Kali gave her own storyline that doesn't consit of her tagging along Zuko. So seriously, get off my back. This doesn't include you. ArrowedAvatar.

[Ilise]

I feel left out and non included. Sob. [/sarcasm] Again... I was not on your back, neither was anyone else... And what's there to defend? You have the right to your opinion as much as anyone else, so why should she 'defend' herself when you also said nice things about her character?
I am not on your back. I never was. I doubt that anyone else is. We have clarified that you have your own opinion and it is perfectly reasonable. It seems that this conversation is closed.

[Kali Gargoyle]

LOL! I’m happy that people like my character enough to defend her, but seriously, it’s not a big deal. OC shipping is like regular shipping in that not everyone is going to like your pairing (there are certainly pairings I avoid like the plague. XD) OC shipping gets even more slack, and I am fully aware of how most people feel about it. *points to text under her avatar* Deep breaths people.

*shrugs* I could defend my character with long rants about how I think she’s not a Mary Sue but really, it’s pretty pointless. I’ll admit I created her to put her in the “Zuko’s love interest” role, Zuko is a character I like, I based a lot of Amaya’s traits on myself. There are people who like her and people who hate her. That’s the business. Meanwhile, I’m over here having fun at my OC shipper party! ;D

She has some Mary Sue-like traits, every character does, even the canon ones. But I don’t think one trait makes a character an instant Sue (with the exception of things like a second Avatar, double or misc. bending, etc. and those traits change from fandom to fandom.) Like I’ve said, it’s all about the balance and using common sense.