kaitou | Original Characters versus Mary Sues

So I've been working on this a bit, though it's not as coherent as it ought to be yet. But when I was at Anime Boston, and going to all the writing panels, I was really struck by how much people wanted to talk about OCs and Mary Sues. When

twigcollins and I briefly touched on it, that's when all the hands went up. And then the next day at another panel, a huge chunk of time was eaten up by discussing OCs. So obviously this is something People Want To Know About.

And so when I was in Japan and stuck in a waiting room before I was allowed to go visit a plant, and after I'd made a list of all the knitting projects I have planned, I started to write up My Thoughts on ~~Yaoi~~ Original Characters.

I think Twig really, really nailed it on the head at our panel when she said that the role of an Original Character (OC) is to illuminate the main characters or to move the plot along. Really, you could stop right here, which I think is what she tried to do, but everyone wanted clarification. Everyone wants to know that their precious OCs, the characters that they actually came up with using their own imaginations are not dreaded Mary Sues, and that they have done a Good Job. Which is only natural. When you're writing fanfic you don't have to worry that someone thinks Kamui is a stupid character...that would be CLAMP's fault, not yours (as long as you haven't made him too OOC).

I tend to think there are 3 types of characters in any story, Main, Supporting and Bit. There's a bit of a sliding scale here, but it's roughly true.

Main characters - These are the reason you're writing the story. Without the main characters, your story goes nowhere.

Supporting characters - These characters will be part of the main plot, and can carry a subplot of their own. Gloucester is a supporting character in King Lear. He interacts with Lear, but you could cut out the whole bit with Edgar and Edmund without significantly impacting Lear's story. (Though it would hurt me, because I love Edmund)

Bit Characters - These are your RPG shopkeepers. They are only in the story to help your Main and Supporting characters get from point A to point B, or to illuminate a point (is this sounding familiar?).

When you're writing fanfic your OCs should be in the same vein as Bit Characters. This isn't to say that they can't have personality, and that readers might not love them....it's just that, frankly, they're not the point. It's not even to say that they can't be POV characters, it's just that the reason they're a POV character is because they're highlighting some aspect of the Canon Character (CC) that we wouldn't get otherwise. There are plenty of Star Trek fics that use McCoy's daughter Joanna this way.

Speaking of Joanna, ask yourself...do I really NEED to create an OC? Try to use Canon Characters where possible. There are probably bit characters that already fit what you want, or have so little character development that they can be made to fit what you want without distorting the character. This has been pretty well done in HP fandom. Since JK likes to give out names and then not develop them. Plenty of fic writers have done great things with Pansy, the Patil twins, the Creevey brothers, the house ghosts...

This was pretty badly handled by Squeenix in Advent Children. There really isn't any reason for Denzel to exist. No no, I know the latest version did a lot to improve the movie, but there's nothing that you need Denzel for that couldn't be accomplished by a canon character, say...Marlene. The audience would have had a much bigger emotional attachment to Marlene suffering from Geostigma and going evil than some kid we've never seen before. Also, we never really needed 3 Sephiroth wannabes either. (Amazingly not one of the three even rates his own wiki page).

But in this case you've decided that you really need an Original Character, a minor canon character just isn't going to cut it. And you want your OC to be awesome OC, but you don't want them to become Mary Sues. How do you accomplish it? Not that I'm an expert, but here's what I think it's important to keep in mind when you're writing OCs.

1. Careful on the appearances. Honestly it doesn't matter if they have highlighter-green hair, or mousy brown...that's not the important thing. The important thing is how much time you spend on it. The only reason you want to be descriptive of OC appearance is as a characterization shortcut. The accountant with the bow tie and sweater vest is not comfortable with the CC suggesting get in on an embezzling scheme. The chick with the Celtic Knotwork Pentacle tattoo can tell your CC which park has the fairy ring you're looking for. In this way appearance is a shortcut to character, so you can show not tell (not that subverting these things isn't awesome).

Compare two of the heroines in Tamora Pierce's Tortall books. The Song of the Lioness Quartet follows Alanna, a girl who goes undercover as a boy to become a knight. She's tiny, with flaming red hair and amethyst purple eyes. And those eyes are brought up a LOT. Physical description wise, Alanna hits a lot of Mary Sue buttons. Then the Protector of the Small series brings in Kel, the first girl to follow openly in Alanna's footsteps. The things that your remember about Kel's appearance after reading the books is that she's built like a tank, and has a fantastic poker face. You could give Alanna raven black hair and silver eyes, and it wouldn't really change anything about who she is. If Kel were slender and her eyes reflected every thought...she wouldn't be the same character.

tl:dr don't waste words on an OC's appearance. The reader doesn't care, and will fill in the blanks with their own imagination. The only reason to elaborate at all is if something about their appearance will automatically tell the reader about who the OC is.

2. Your OC doesn't exist to be awesome. I really get where the super talented, cool, amazing, nice, kickass, selfless OCs come from. You think to yourself, they've got to be pretty amazing to hang with the CC. If my OC is going to interact with Aang and crew, then they must also be some kind of Bender or Warrior, right? Eh. Maybe. Whatever.

But just like how cool the OC looks, it doesn't matter how cool the OC is. It's not about them, it's about the CCs. If your OC is an astrophysicist working for the Stargate program, well, they work for the Stargate program. That's all the reader cares to know. They don't care how many degrees, or credentials the OC has, or that they take judo and and paint watercolor landscapes on the weekends. They're going to get their plot point done, and move on. As the writer you may know how great they are, but telling the reader is going to slow down your story, and set off Mary Sue alarms.

3. Instant BFFs set off warning bells. CCs are actually allowed to like your OC. It's just that an OC becoming an instant best friend and love interest has been so overdone that it sets off a reader's alarm pretty quickly. This is one of the places you should really try and see if there isn't a bit CC you can use instead. Anyone that important, the ex they never quite got over, the beloved childhood friend, you would expect the canon to have mentioned already exactly because of how important they are. But when you write the OC interacting with a CC the two important things to remember are:

a.) There has to be a reason why the CCs like or dislike your OC. They're funny, thoughtful, condescending, passive-aggressive...something. It's not just 'cause.

b.) The intensity of an CC's feelings for the OC is in direct proportion to the role they serve in the story. The ex-girlfriend OC that serves to prove to the CC how much they really love whoever you have them set up with is going to evoke a much stronger emotion from them than the waitress OC that tells them 'yeah, I think I saw so-and-so here earlier.' This also works vice versa. Depending on the universe and characters your working with, your OCs may be utterly indifferent to the CCs.

Variations on a Theme

Original Villains - You do have more leeway with Original Villains, they clock in more like supporting characters than bit characters. So they can have more scenes to themselves, more descriptions and more eccentricity.

Kid Fic - Kids are pretty popular OCs, because we like to see the CCs being all mushy and parental. And the younger the kid the more you can play with the above rules without risking Mary Sue territory. Baby means you can get away with lavishing more descriptions, specialness, and the CCs will be naturally besotted with the tyke. But a teenager? Forget it, you're straight back in Mary Sue territory. Yes, even if you remember to make the kid yell things like 'I hate you, you're not my real dad!'

But with kid fic more than most types of OCs, you DO have to make sure that they have a distinct character. Let me make that more specific...they should have a character that is not an exact copy of a parent or caregiver. Think about it, how much did you have in common with your parents at age 7? And more important than anything, remember that a kid is a kid, not a small adult. I don't care how precocious they are. (And if there's magic or superpowers or anything involved, please don't make the kid...the most powerful being in the universe. TV Tropes calls it Goo Goo Godlike. Unless you're playing it for laughs, it feels like you've jumped the shark.)

All World, no CCs - Using the canon world, but not necessarily any of its characters. This can overlap with Kid Fic, in that this is often 'The Next Generation' featuring all the CCs kids or grandkids. I think this is mostly popular with things like Star Trek and Star Wars where there's a huge, extremely detailed universe to go play with. Honestly I don't have much advice for you here, because this isn't a subgenre I'm at all interested in. It's not a subgenre that many people are interested in at all, really. But you should write fanfic to make you happy, and if this is what does it for you, go for it.

Examples of Kickass Original Characters:

cesperanza is consistently amazing at everything she does, and OCs are no exception. 'The Bodyguard' is a Due South fic featuring an aging Russian ballerina who is doing her best to get in Fraser's pants. She's an antagonistic force that pushes Fraser and Ray K together (moving plot forward) and forces the characters to examine not only sexual harassment, but the effects of being a honest person in the closet and how that effects your life and relationships. And Olga also manages to be bitchy, haughty, selfish...forgiving, brave, funny and smart in her own right.

You could name any of her fic, and I should stop at one, but I'm going to give you one more, because 'With Six You Get Eggroll' is the epitome of well done Kid Fic. This is another Fraser/RayK Due South story, and in this one there are 6 OC children...and every last one of them has their own personality, and is an utterly real kid. And they all tell you something about Fraser, something about Ray, something about their relationship with each other... it just rocks.

Another fabulous writer is

sam_storyteller, and in his Torchwood story 'the Rules of Torchwood Three' he goes one further and makes the OC the POV character. Now Nicholas starts off as a bit of a Ianto expy, which is a bit weird because Ianto is the character Nicholas is illuminating the most. But he really comes into his own as a character, that you care about, even though the point of him is to see how the rest of Torchwood functions and interacts with each other, both with and without Jack. Also interesting as he's an OC that grows and changes as a character.

In

out_there's Jeeves and the Tennis Coach, from Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster series, Bertie assumes that Jeeves is attracted to the handsome, kind and French! Tennis Coach OC, and has to decide what to do about his own attraction to Jeeves. Facet (the titular Tennis Coach) isn't an extremely well rounded character himself, but he serves the needs of the fic perfectly well to keep the plot tumbling forward. And then in the last chapter, Bertie meets up with bit canon characters Mabel and Biffy, who help highlight exactly what Jeeves sees in Bertie.

Obsession_inc has written a Iron Man Movie!Verse story, Concession, which is a dark, creepy look at Tony/Pepper. Bit Canon characters have been fleshed out...reporter Christine Everhart is our POV character, with Rhodey and Agent Coulson appearing. And Obsession_inc has created some smart, interesting original characters to show you Pepper's non-Stark life. In fact, neither Tony nor Pepper appear in the story at all, but the story is entirely about them.

And for non-fanfic examples (I know, weird, right?) check out Doctor Who. Doctor Who has some fantastic characters that only appear for an episode or two...which is similar to an OC that appears only in one fic. Nancy in 'The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances'... Madame de Pompadour in 'The Girl in the Fireplace'...The Doctor in 'The Next Doctor'...and of course Thomas Kincade Brannigan in 'Gridlock.' We'll never see these characters again (probably) but they're incredibly rich without taking your attention away from The Doctor and his companion.

In books check out Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries for incredibly rich and three dimensional bit characters. She also has a total Mary Sue hero, and an Author Avatar love interest. But they're GOOD. I know, I still can't believe it myself.

So there it is. I'd like to hear your opinions on all of this. I usually figure out my own opinions to things socratically, so it would be really helpful to me too. And I'd like to hear about any good examples of OCs you know of as well. Thanks to

twigcollins for inspiring this, and to

flidgetjerome for going over it and reminding me of things like villains.

Current Mood: thinky

Threaded | Flat

From:

aphelion-orion.livejournal.com

Definitely agreed on all points (though I can't say anything about the examples given, since I don't share the fandoms XD). The kid fic thing bothers me especially because a lot of canons don't bother to remember that the kid doesn't need to look/act/have exactly the same adventures as the parent(s), either. So you can kind of argue that a lot of people have bad examples to go by in addition to misguided ideas/judgment.

From:

flidgetjerome.livejournal.com

(Ann and I have been discussing this post via gmail for a while now and she asked me to post some of my emails as comments. I’ll be using a lot of comicbook examples because comicbooks function on a sort of time-delayed canon, where changes and updates will need to survive for several years before they’ll be accepted as permanent, for a given value of permanent.)

Additional Variations on a Theme

The Jonas Quinns - Sometimes a canon wraps-up and not all the CCs are going to be active or even alive by the end of it. That leaves a valid and often necessary slot to fill, especially in canons with ensemble casts. For example, Harry Potter kidfic that’s going to take place in Hogwarts and in the epilogue continuity is going to need a whole swath of OCs just to fill the teaching positions. Okay, so you can ignore Word of God and keep McGonnagal as Headmistress but you’ll still need someone to take her place as Head of Gryffindor.

It's a sort of OC that may be necessary and may need to be a bit more fleshed-out than normal OCs because it may need to interact with the CCs to quite an extent. The audience will probably excuse you for it, though, as long as they're not too obnoxious – remember you’re replacing a character people are probably fond of and anyone who takes their place will be met with wariness on the part of the audience and will have to tread lightly to get accepted.

OCs to fill a plot hole - This can be something quite major, like the introduction of Lucius Fox into Batman canon to explain who’s doing the day-to-day running Wayne Enterprises while Bruce Wayne is busy punching things. Or it can be something pretty minor, like introducing more female characters as cannon-fodder, just because it seems strange that organisations that have female officers as main characters oddly lack female soldiers in the rank and file.

People tend to be more merciful to these guys, especially in canons where the world is essentially a character in its own right. In this case the OC is still there to support a main character, it's just that the character is the world.

Upgrading OCs to Main Character Status

This is incredibly difficult, one mis-step and you’ve stuck with a Mary Sue again, and while I think it can be done I think it can only, ONLY be done if you’re writing a long-running series. The amount of time involved is critical, you need to have enough between the beginning and end of the story to get feedback and find out that the OC actually has garnered a lot of the affection of the fandom and they'd like to see more of them. Without that audience support this is going to go horribly wrong.

Amadeus Cho from Marvel comics is a good example of how this works. He was originally created to fill a logic hole ("Why are there no goddamn Asian-American heroes except Jubilee?") and to be a new side-kick for the Hulk (Cho's intelligence highlights the savagery of the Hulk and the equal intelligence of Bruce Banner). The latter ended up not happening as the World War Hulk crossover was in process soon after and Hulk was either off-planet/invading/in-stasis for the next couple of years and so they made him Hercules' side-kick instead. A few years on, while Hercules is temporarily dead, he's now headlining the book and Bruce Banner is now one of his supporting characters.

I really need to emphasise getting feedback from the readership first and giving it time. A lot of people hated Amadeus and thought he was a Mary-Sue when he first appeared because he's way way smart and something of a huge brat. Part of his story with Herc, and again, this was serving to highlight a side of Hercules that’s there but usually neglected, Hercules the father, was getting him over all this anger he had. For comic books this went very fast, Amadeus went from supporting to main in 4 years, but there were still over three years of actual stories in between. Power Girl, who follows a similar development path, took 12 years to get her first miniseries and 33 years to finally get her own series.

From:

m-steelgrave.livejournal.com

Oh man, Concession creeped the hell out of me. I almost wish it weren't fanfic, because with a slightly different premise it would make a fantastic film.

That said, I agree with pretty much everything you've said here. Whenever I think I'm veering into Mary Sue territory, I file her away to use in an original work later. It's a sort of Mary Sue graveyard.

From:

ickaimp.livejournal.com

Not very constructive, but as far as I can tell, you've covered all your bases.

Another good example of an OC, IMHO, Elisabeth Culmer's The Way of the Apartment Manager, if anyone's into Naruto.

As a ficcer, I'm always leering of OCs, which is why I'm a crossover queen, never make up a character when you have a logical reason to bring someone else from a different series.

From:

siliconmage.livejournal.com

I would just like to mention Roman Gemini as an awesome OC.

From:

mewsrissicat.livejournal.com

Been dying to comment on this, so I'm really sorry that I'm late to the party. *sheepish*

Reading over this, I found that overall the feel of the post was far more instructive, rather than collaborative. But then on second thought, I realized that it was exactly appropriate to the venue that you were writing it: Young/new fanfic writers are looking for a guide. They've probably gotten plenty of encouragement from friends, but not always a good critical guideline. Nicely done.

One point that I interpret differently from you: "There really isn't any reason for Denzel to exist. No no, I know the latest version did a lot to improve the movie, but there's nothing that you need Denzel for that couldn't be accomplished by a canon character, say...Marlene."

Everything you said in the first half of your post is spot-on to support the existence of Denzel. He accentuates the personal growth of Cloud in that Strife allows himself to trust - and be trusted - by another person in his life. Not Tifa, who he's known all of his life, or Marlene who has the "safety net" of her father. But someone who is really, truly dependent on Cloud for protection and guidance. Cloud's habit of running solo may seem to be a "cool" trait, but it's also a cover for him being too scared to let anyone else close to him.

Also, Denzel states that he wants to be as strong as Cloud. Just as Zack was Angeal's successor, and Cloud was the successor of Zack, a case could be built that ultimately Denzel is introduced to be Cloud's protege.

From:

soranokumo.livejournal.com

Some really good advice here, though I think that you might also wish to throw in a caveat somewhere that yes, there are OCs out there that manage to bend/break the rules and still be well-loved, but generally they're by more experienced authors. Experienced authors know the rules, which is exactly why they can break them. They do it right, j0.

I can't really comment on the examples, either, sadly, but I will say Dorothy Sayers managed to make the entire Divine Comedy comprehensible and accessible in a language other than Italian... she totally deserves to do wonderfully Mary Sue heroes that still manage to be good. XD The woman was amazing.