Original Characters in Fanfics?

[Butterscotch]

What are your thoughts on using orginal characters in fanfics?
Do you like reading fanfics that use original characters, or not?
Have you ever written a fic that used an original character?

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In my opinion, I generally don't like stories that heavily focus on an orginal character. There are exceptions, like Elpitha, but generally I find that the new character is somewhat annoying. They often tend to overshadow the characters we already know and love. =/

I don't usually use an original character unless I have to.

[Candyapple]

it doesn't really matter to me, but personaly, i find it gets a bit boring always reading about the same characters all the time. i love the story Elpitha and I tend to enjoy stories that have new and interesting characters.(like Elpitha) but either way, i like them, if they have a good storyline.

[fxeni]

I think it adds variety to the fanfics, as long as 85% or more are the characters we already know. Not to say that all the fanfics are the same, far from it, but a little variety never hurts.

[VenusAdept]

It's always nice to blend in new characters with some original ones.

[grim]

is it bad to use orginal characters?

[Butterscotch]

grimsweetie said:

is it bad to use orginal characters?

Sometimes. It depends on the story.

[grim]

admin said:

grimsweetie said:

is it bad to use orginal characters?

Sometimes. It depends on the story.

oh ok

[Pickle]

It matters on how you put the original characters. In most stories with original characters, it seems that the main characters is all poweful (or is the only one that notices being attacked). However, games like Harvest Moon is okay since it's not really one of those games. Sure, a few may be bad, but adding an original character comes out pretty nicely (usually). You get what I mean?

[Kyattsuai]

I hate one type of OC the most. Mary Sues and Marty Stus. Other than that, I'm not to against them. They just can't overshadow our old favorites. I'm too partial to OCs who are chidlren of the canon characters or siblings or stuff like that, either.

[Balto]

I like both. But sometimes, the "not OC" becomes overused and monotone. OCs adds more mysery to a fic. You don't the person and it's way of seeing things. That makes a point.

[Delgado]

To me, it all depends on the type of Fanfic. If it's got absolutely NOTHING to do with the original storyline, then sure, it's aight to put in original charries. It's when you put something in to explain what happened in a previous part of the story that makes it more difficult, such as in Friends of Mineral Town, what happens between the flashbacks and going to the farm?

[Cary]

Yes and no... It's a difficult decision. The key point is that the original character must not be an incarnation of the writer in the story, a often called Mary Sue. The original character must flow smoothly into the story and play a proper role, as if he/she had been originally cast in the story to begin with.

On that note, the two most popular Digimon fanfic writers, Renafan and RedRover, both use original characters extensively, but the characters feel like they belong, instead of feeling tacked on. In fact, the introduction of Kouchi in the 4th season of Digimon seemed far more out of place than those two fanfic writer's original characters (OMG, how corny is the old evil twin seperated at birth concept?). And the worst of all was Malomyotismon in the 2nd season, an old villian, who had supposed to been dead, upon which there had been no hinting of him being alive for 3 years, suddenly coming back alive at the end of the season out of nowhere to be killed in two episodes as the big ending to the show. Go figure.

Wait, I totally went off on a tangent.

Oftentimes original characters work best when they fill in a missing hole in the character basis. Such as the Shadow Goddess in HM fanfics fulfilling the role of the evil invert of the Harvest Goddess. For every yin there is a yang; for every good god in a religion, there is a evil opposite.

One of my personal preferances though lies in the semi-original character. This is a character who was significantly underdeveloped, or a minor supporting role, made much more important. In Nightmare, I essentially turned Jack into an original character, by completely rewriting who he was. I could have just as easily replaced Jack with an original character, and most people wouldn't have had any real difference in the story, because he was so close to an original character in my fanfic to begin with.

...

My personal favorite fanfic writer is The Create Card, a writer of many Cardcaptor Sakura and Digimon fanfics. Between his 17 CCS stories and 19 Digimon stories, he created 2 universes, upon which a continous plotline of relationships developed, different from what occured in the Animes. And in the later stories, the characters were affected by things that had occured to them in the past stories (and in later stories he'd constantly put footnotes telling which story contained an event some character would refer to from time to time). And inevitably, characters had to be introduced which weren't originally part of the series, but were needed for such a realistic continous living, because life doesn't remain static. People enter and leave our lives, and so he had characters do the same. And thus he made many original characters, which were every bit as important as the traditional characters, and melded in, meshing, belonging, as if they were part of the fluid stream. And, with his original characters, I can say quite firmly that I believe the story contained within his fanfics to be better than the story portrayed in the series. In fact, the success of his story is most likely because of his original characters.

So there you have it, my opinion on original characters. They are potentially the most powerful tool in a fanfic writer's repertoire. Used properly, original characters can propell a fanfic writer above and beyond all other fanfic writers. But like any tool, they will only work if used properly. If the tool of original characters is improperly used, nothing will result except for the damage and perhaps even the destruction of a fanfic.

On that note, I am not confident enough in my own writing skills to use an original character in one of my fanfics other than as a very minor supporting character (such as the Shadow Goddess).

[Cary]

allmighty said:

I don't even read fanfics with original characters

You did... You read Nightmare.

[momo]

I like to add original characters to all of my HM fanfics. I can flex the story around more if i do.

[zinovia]

yes, it's great to use original characters!

<_<

everyone should use them! It should be illegal not to use them!

>_>

shouldn't they?

v_v