It pretty much goes without saying that Mary Sues suck my nonexistent balls, but what about an author sticking a well thought-out, well developed original character in his/her fic?

Have any of you ever come across an OC in HP fics that don't suck? That don't make you want to kill the writer? I haven't. Actually, is it that common at all? I'm more of a writer--I confess I don't read many fics (one of the reasons I joined this forum was to correct this)so I honestly don't know.

I was thinking of writing an OC for a Independent!Harry fic, but I wanted to ask you folks (since the majority of you know your stuff and could help a girl like me out with suggestions for what not to do as well as what would make it worth reading) here at DLP.

The character would be female. Potentially (probably) a love interest for Mr. Potter. Older--in her mid twenties. At first I was going to have her be a rogue Malfoy or a rebel Black like Tonks but I can take or leave that.

She'd be a double agent, working both sides. So you really don't know if she truely serves Voldy or if she's really serving the Light...

Anyway, the details on this thing are slowly eeking out so I don't have anything solid yet. I just wanted to get your opinions on OCs.

EDIT: Ha ha, you know what I just realized? She sounds just like a damn Mary Sue! Fuck...

 

I don't really write fanfiction aside from a few gross out parodies... But I do write a fair amount of original material.

What I usually do before writing anything original is ask myself what personality strengths v. flaws I want my character to have. This is the first way to make sure your character isn't a Mary Sue/Gary Stu.

Giovanni's First Law of Mary Sue-ism dictates that if your Characters greatest weakness is really a strength then you have yourself a Mary Sue/Gary Stu.

Giovanni's Second Law of Mary Sue-ism dictates that if your Character is more involved in terms of "camera time" than your main Protagonist/Antagonist then you may have a Mary Sue/Gary Stu.

Giovanni's Third Law of Mary Sue-ism is that if you can't pretend to be your character without feeling like Superman/Women then you have a Mary Sue/Gary Stu.


Works great with original stuff -- not sure how it will transition into fanfiction, and there are obvious exceptions to all three (Unlike the Laws of Thermodynamics). The third one does provide for some interesting situations though -- especially when you call your friend at 2am on his cell phone acting in character as a Southern Preacher (a walking stereotype that I needed for maybe one paragraph of a story for creative writing).

If you want to see a truly great character look at Ignatius in Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces or look at Patrolman Mancuso (from the same book).

Damn, I've gotta get around to actually writing the fanfic I have planned out -- lots of stock characters (hippies)... But oh well. *chastises self*

Also, if you aren't sure about a character, go to someone who you know will give you brutally honest criticism.

Basically, it's all about balance.

 

Here's my take on this.

If your going to introduce an OC they should have a reason a reason for being in the story and some way of furthering the plot of said story. It is, in my opinion, better to know about your character before you start to write them. Assign the character a set of goals, some traits, an history, faults, a speech pattern, and the like to create a character with some semblance of depth and personality.

Faults is the big one. A Mary Sue is someone that is perfect, when in real life nobody is perfect. So give you OC a fault to make them seem a hell of a lot more real to the reader.

I've not really tried to write OC's much. I'm still in the planning phase of my original work and haven't really had the opportunity to do such in my fanfiction (though my most recent story will contain some OC's), so I could be wrong.

 

Sure, I've seen a few things like that - such as the Hero's Path story for one. Plus there's that very crazy ShrugDuckie series about MarySues as evil magical parasites infecting normal wizards and witches. That's a good, messed up, story.

-J

 

OC's can be well done but they rarely are. The problem IMO is that either the author's OC is actully the author themselves or the author loves in love with the OC that they created. In either case the author can't bring him or her self to create the character taht they had created. There are exceptions of course:

Potter: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1617442/1/
A few well done OC's including Harry's adopted father

Hero's Path: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2869936/1/
The author is a member of DLP and has the best OC's of any recent story

Apprentice Potter: http://draco664.fanficauthors.net/Apprentice_Potter/index.php
Harry/Hermione/Blasie(fem) while I didn't read the whole thing its a good long read. The author is a member

Happy Red Prince: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2366955/1/
This fic by LT2000 one of the mods here has great charaterizations overall and has a few good OC

 

I've always heard that you should take a friend of yours and mold your OC along the lines if that person. Thats all well and good if you are creating a character that is just plot filler or something along that lines. I don't know about you, but I don't know that many people that are hired killers or dark mysterious people.

My take would be to choose someone from history that fits the roll your OC is trying to fill, and fuck the person up a little. That way you have a character that is original to the story, but also has an influence somewhere else.

I have always found it hard to just create someone on the fly. Of course that could just be me... Oh well.

 

Ah well I'm a screenwriter, so making people up isn't really that hard for me. But making them a good addition to a world that's already been thought up and enriched by another person is kind of.

Thanks Brooklynight I'll check out those fics.

 

You can't really talk about OCs without mentioning this fic, Daughter of Darkness; its probably got one of the best OCs I've ever seen in a fic.

I think there is quite a large problem with reviewers automatically branding OC characters Mary Sues, even when they do have distinct distinguished characteristics and values. I'm not too sure that the large majority of FF.net actually completely understand what a Mary-Sue is. If you just slap a canon name on that character, though, everyones usually happy with it, which is very strange.

 

I've written a fair share of OC's but I don't think anyone of them was Marry/Garry Sue, simply because they either hadn't factored much in the story, or if they had, they were complete losers.

But to write a new, mysterious, cool female character, who steps into the Potterverse and gets together with Harry... Heh, you'll need a miracle not to end up with this character being labeled a Marry Sue.

My best advices are these: Use her for something else besides romance - a new magical concept, access to a sacred magical object, part of a secret society, anything. Make her either magically or emotionally strong; NOT both. And whatever you do, don't EVER, under ANY circumstance, write from her POV.

That's the best I can do. As for my contribution to "the best OC in Potterverse" competition, this is my favourite: Harry Potter and the Nexus by by WoMo. It has one of the most original bad guys I've ever seen.

 

Good advice sir. I don't intend for her and Harry to fall in love. Actually, I wanted him to be in love with someone else--a cannon character who isn't available to him--so he uses her for temporary satisfaction...bleh.

I need to really work on the story first but you guys are helping. I appreciate it.

 

Your character, I'm sorry to say, definitely sounds like a Mary Sue from the summary. Hopefully with our help, you can avoid her.

Now, it's possible to write an OC into the Potterverse and not cringe. Well, actually, I can't think of any stories off hand that are good and have an OC. But I think it is theoretically possible.

But before you write her in the story, ask yourself this: Is she necessary to the plot at all? If you respond with, "Yes, she's central to the plot!", then you have a problem. If you think she's just kind of there to help the plot, that's okay. If she's not necessary at all, don't bother writing her in, and just use canon characters instead.

Hope I helped.

 

Anyone can choose to make their fanfic however they like. But truthfully, I rarely distinguish between original characters, Mary Sues, and self insertions. To me it's unoriginality through "originality."

If you're making fanfiction for yourself, then what do you care what others think of it? But if you're making it for others, then stick to canon as much as you possibly can. Because no one has any predisposed interest in a new character. Even if it's merely taking a last name half mentioned once, and turning them into a main character, to me that's significantly preferable to an OC.

I think the main reason for this is that in the case of HP, there's still a book 7 coming and we can potentially see that character again, and perhaps compare yours to what happens. Or more likely, someone else can write their own version of that character. But an OC is yours, not the collectives. And it's the stuff in the collective that is far more interesting. Even if you don't have a name, someone's parents are a requirement to existing and in my mind not an OC. Like we know Luna has a Dad. But a brother or cousin? That'd be an OC. Someone's brother, sister, cousin, child = made-up crap I could care less about.

For me, I doubt I'll ever have a "main" character that's an OC. If I did, it was simply because I made up a little side bit that ended up working and grew into something more. But when it comes to brainstorming and coming up with a plot or idea, I try to focus on working from what you have to start with. Rather than simply imagining without limits.

 

I concur with what has been said above. I would add that in the case of your particular character if you simply named her "Daphne Greengrass" or "Lisa Turpin", you'll likely avoid any accusations of Mary Sue-ism (unless you go completely over the top with it).

On a side note, why do we have so many fics with Daphne Greengrass as a love interest or antagonist or both, and so few with Turpin? It seems like she only shows up when the author needs a name for the person who beats out Hermione for top marks.

 

Actually, my sister (who is writing a story with OCs in it that I think is quite good) suggested that I just make her Tonks. Tonks is a damned shape shifter, so I can just make her look like I want her to look and writer her the way I want. Of course, her appearance would change from time to time but it would still be my character only she'd be written as Tonks?

I think I could give it a try--I have wanted to try and write Tonks, and to avoid some of the typical Harry/Tonks cliches I see out there...

 

I think the best way for an OC to avoid being labeled as a Mary Sue/Gary Sue is to make a really bad first impression and just start building up from there. And if you want to make her a passing love interest for Harry then you should just make him describe it as lust.