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8 – Do you write OCs? And if so, what do you do to make certain they're not Mary Sues, and if not, explain your thoughts on OCs.
FIRSTLY. YOU CAN STUFF YOUR MARY SUE WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE, a thoughtful and informative discussion of what a Mary Sue is and is not and how the term is used to police and punish prominent female characters for being too, you know, female. And prominent.
Ahem.
Do I write original characters? Yes. But I don't think I've ever written one in a lead/romantic role (sorry, Hector and Alyosha, I will figure out how to write that story about you EVENTUALLY, I swear) because I tend to be busy smooshing together the guys I like best from canon. Or exploring their individual manpain in some fashion.
(That said I have written some near-OCs, like Arkady Jole and many of the ladies involved in the Stargate SG-1 Bechdel Test Fix-Its, characters so minor I have to make up part or all of their names. But since I'm extrapolating all these characters from their actual appearances in canon, because of their actual appearances in canon, I choose to assume that's a different thing.)
Anyway: when I write original characters it tends to be because I have some ecological niche in the story that I can't fill from canon. This includes kids (Ianto Jones, Junior; Ada O'Neill; David Fraser; many, many children who never saw the light of day in stories never written or yet to be written), villains (Williamson in Missing Persons), and other assorted secondary characters (the hockey player Ray has sex with in Hawks & Hands, Jole's Tonton and Tatie, extra Vorkosigan armsmen, and so on).
I worry a lot about whether the kids I write will turn into Mary Sues, in the sense of being excessively perfect and taking over a story that's really supposed to be about canon characters. For them, I try to remember all of the least-convenient behaviors of kids I know, and also to make sure that every scene with a kid is really serving to show something about the adults in the scene and moving the plot along. Also, no baby talk ever. Luckily I keep writing children who can be plausibly argued, from the parenting they have received, to be very mature and articulate for their ages.
On the other hand, when it comes to adult OCs, I will cop to making them as perfect as possible in whatever niche they're filling. I regularly figured out what Williamson would say or do in a given scene by just thinking up the most perfectly creepy thing he could do and then going with that. He was a Mary Sue of creepiness and villainy.
Oh, and for the record Bo is a total Mary Sue. She's an original female character with an uncanny bond to the central male character(s), who adore her beyond reason. She warps the entire universe around herself. Only horrible characters hate her or are jealous of her. All will love her and despair. And so on.
( All 30 questions under the cut. )
FIRSTLY. YOU CAN STUFF YOUR MARY SUE WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE, a thoughtful and informative discussion of what a Mary Sue is and is not and how the term is used to police and punish prominent female characters for being too, you know, female. And prominent.
Ahem.
Do I write original characters? Yes. But I don't think I've ever written one in a lead/romantic role (sorry, Hector and Alyosha, I will figure out how to write that story about you EVENTUALLY, I swear) because I tend to be busy smooshing together the guys I like best from canon. Or exploring their individual manpain in some fashion.
(That said I have written some near-OCs, like Arkady Jole and many of the ladies involved in the Stargate SG-1 Bechdel Test Fix-Its, characters so minor I have to make up part or all of their names. But since I'm extrapolating all these characters from their actual appearances in canon, because of their actual appearances in canon, I choose to assume that's a different thing.)
Anyway: when I write original characters it tends to be because I have some ecological niche in the story that I can't fill from canon. This includes kids (Ianto Jones, Junior; Ada O'Neill; David Fraser; many, many children who never saw the light of day in stories never written or yet to be written), villains (Williamson in Missing Persons), and other assorted secondary characters (the hockey player Ray has sex with in Hawks & Hands, Jole's Tonton and Tatie, extra Vorkosigan armsmen, and so on).
I worry a lot about whether the kids I write will turn into Mary Sues, in the sense of being excessively perfect and taking over a story that's really supposed to be about canon characters. For them, I try to remember all of the least-convenient behaviors of kids I know, and also to make sure that every scene with a kid is really serving to show something about the adults in the scene and moving the plot along. Also, no baby talk ever. Luckily I keep writing children who can be plausibly argued, from the parenting they have received, to be very mature and articulate for their ages.
On the other hand, when it comes to adult OCs, I will cop to making them as perfect as possible in whatever niche they're filling. I regularly figured out what Williamson would say or do in a given scene by just thinking up the most perfectly creepy thing he could do and then going with that. He was a Mary Sue of creepiness and villainy.
Oh, and for the record Bo is a total Mary Sue. She's an original female character with an uncanny bond to the central male character(s), who adore her beyond reason. She warps the entire universe around herself. Only horrible characters hate her or are jealous of her. All will love her and despair. And so on.
( All 30 questions under the cut. )