30 days of fanfic, day 8
Jul. 3rd, 2011 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestWell, the show is over, and I did not have to repeat my onstage experience - our leading man had his op early on Saturday morning and performed with his arm in a sling on Saturday night! And my mugs and plates went over very well.
Now perhaps the tunes from Pirates will get out of my head and let me sleep.
Day 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.
Actually my first fanfic had a Mary Sue in, because my 'heroine' there had all the men on the starship being interested in her, and she managed to get off with Data as well as giving him some good advice. But I think she comes off quite well in spite of that. And the narrator of Buzz was christened 'Ensign Sue' by a reader, which I thought was not a bad idea.
I did for a while intend to write a Trek story called 'The Tale of Tiffany Tempest'. The beginning went something like this:
As the new Astrocartography officer materialised on the pad, I heard Ensign Dawes gasp beside me. I wasn't surprised. Lieutenant Tempest had a tumble of auburn curls, kept back with one of those wide band things like Cdr Troi wears. Her eyes were huge and the most incredible colour, a blue so deep it was almost violet, all the more vivid against her pale, porcelain skin. Her blue science uniform hugged a slender, shapely figure, but she'd probably had the uniform specially tailored to fit so well over her long legs. She smiled at us both. Dawes practically melted.
I hated her on sight.
However, I never really got into it after that.
I don't know that it's absolutely necessary to make sure OCs are not Mary Sue's, because these days I think fandom has such an all-emcompassing definition of 'Mary Sue' that it's probably hard not to create one. My own definition is that Mary Sue warps the story and the environment around herself. I remember beta-reading for someone who had created her own beloved character to send to Hogwarts. This character instantly became friends with the Trio; she was better at magic than Harry, more book-learned than Hermione, and knew more about the magical world than Ron. It would have been a much better story if the canon characters had done everything between them, but the point was that the writer *wanted* to be in that world, so she created her perfect character in order to do that. It's probably a stage we all go through.
I don't, at present, write a lot of OCs… there's not a lot of call for them in popslash, because there's usually someone around in canon who fits properly into the story. I did have an idea for a great fun Mary Sue who'd be a journalist, a bit older than Chris, and who'd tour with them for a while and end up having sex with all of them (separately, I should add). Consciously and deliberately a Mary Sue, but I liked her! No reason to write the story, though, and given that popslashers are not much interested in het, no point.
Now perhaps the tunes from Pirates will get out of my head and let me sleep.
Day 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.
Actually my first fanfic had a Mary Sue in, because my 'heroine' there had all the men on the starship being interested in her, and she managed to get off with Data as well as giving him some good advice. But I think she comes off quite well in spite of that. And the narrator of Buzz was christened 'Ensign Sue' by a reader, which I thought was not a bad idea.
I did for a while intend to write a Trek story called 'The Tale of Tiffany Tempest'. The beginning went something like this:
As the new Astrocartography officer materialised on the pad, I heard Ensign Dawes gasp beside me. I wasn't surprised. Lieutenant Tempest had a tumble of auburn curls, kept back with one of those wide band things like Cdr Troi wears. Her eyes were huge and the most incredible colour, a blue so deep it was almost violet, all the more vivid against her pale, porcelain skin. Her blue science uniform hugged a slender, shapely figure, but she'd probably had the uniform specially tailored to fit so well over her long legs. She smiled at us both. Dawes practically melted.
I hated her on sight.
However, I never really got into it after that.
I don't know that it's absolutely necessary to make sure OCs are not Mary Sue's, because these days I think fandom has such an all-emcompassing definition of 'Mary Sue' that it's probably hard not to create one. My own definition is that Mary Sue warps the story and the environment around herself. I remember beta-reading for someone who had created her own beloved character to send to Hogwarts. This character instantly became friends with the Trio; she was better at magic than Harry, more book-learned than Hermione, and knew more about the magical world than Ron. It would have been a much better story if the canon characters had done everything between them, but the point was that the writer *wanted* to be in that world, so she created her perfect character in order to do that. It's probably a stage we all go through.
I don't, at present, write a lot of OCs… there's not a lot of call for them in popslash, because there's usually someone around in canon who fits properly into the story. I did have an idea for a great fun Mary Sue who'd be a journalist, a bit older than Chris, and who'd tour with them for a while and end up having sex with all of them (separately, I should add). Consciously and deliberately a Mary Sue, but I liked her! No reason to write the story, though, and given that popslashers are not much interested in het, no point.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 08:03 pm (UTC)You're welcome. :P