The Swan Song of Creativity in Fanfiction

Original characters. We pretty much all use them, once in a while. And once upon a time it was perfectly okay to do it, but that’s rapidly beginning to change, as some characters are becoming as predictable as the poorly written text that spawns them.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a few annoying individuals with the writing talents of a rotten banana that spoil it for the whole lot of us. I remember not so long ago when the order of fics I’d read would go something like:

1. Stories filling in plot holes or running parallel to it.

2. AU stories.

3. Stories featuring original characters.

4. Drabbles.

5. Poems.

6. Mary-Sues (blatant author self-insertion fics).

After months of trolling through fanfiction of varying degrees of quality, I began to change my opinion somewhat after I could pick the ending of a ten-chaptered story before the end of the second chapter. It now goes something like:

1. Stories filling in plot holes or running parallel to the plot.

2. AU stories.

3. Drabbles.

4. Poems.

5. Rants.

6. Mary-Sues and original character stories.

This primarily changed because it becomes screamingly obvious that a lot of authors nowadays forget the whole ‘individuality’ and ‘creativity’ bits, and prefer to go for the girl-meets-boy, girl-and-boy-get-in-trouble, boy-and-girl-get-angry, boy and girl fall in love thing and it’s a dulcet choir of chirping little birdies from there on in.

That, and because Mary-Sues and OC fics are terrifyingly becoming one and the same, whether the author stipulates it or not. All too often it appears that an original character is ‘the avatar of the author trying to look badass’* or, even worse, the author desperately wanting to canoodle with a fictional character. For crying out loud, these characters are nothing more than paint on cels, and no matter what y’all say, I really fail to see the appeal of Midvalley the Hornfreak.

But you do it, you might say. Well, that’s true, I do rely on original characters a lot. But anyone who knows a damn thing about me realises they’re nothing like me – I’m nasty enough as it is, and way meaner than anyone I make up. If you read any of my fics, you should discover that none of the OCs are alike. Jadali (from Jadali’s Tale) is sensible, Minda (from Daffodils) is an airhead and Amethyst (also from Daffodils) is wise, even if she does scrimp on details.

Original characters should only be used to make real characters interact in a specific way, and that is their only real purpose, as I see it.

As for blatant self-insertion, I don’t understand it, and never will.

For crying out loud, people, use your imagination when you make up original characters for the sake of your audience which is probably collectively sick of being able to guess the ending without even trying.

~Owari~