30 Days - day 8

[graculus]

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.

Unless you're not writing anything with plot, I would have thought it would be difficult to completely avoid writing OCs of some description.

And to my mind, the main way to avoid them being Mary Sues (or Gary Stus, for that matter) is to make sure they're not perfect. After all, if your new SGC member knows more languages than Daniel, can fight better than Teal'c and wire up alien technology with Windows 95 better than Sam, chances are you've failed in your mission... ;)

Comments

[cycnus39]

I think a good supporting OC does their job in the story but does it on their own terms. You have to have a sense that they have their own lives to be getting on with.

I've never felt the need to write a main character OC like the one you exampled above because why?

[captain-tiv.livejournal.com]

It all depends on the OC.

I have one OC that's not really a Mary Sue, but she's a really good scientist and excels in her field. She's also been overlooked by her peers. Her main role was to be secondary character who helped move part of the story along. She wasn't meant to be a major character or play a major part.

Another OC I had that I dearly love was Gus from my Conspiracy Series (may I get finish it someday). I needed a mercenary who could work undercover, so he had to be good at what he did. He had a team he worked with, and they worked well together. I think I was able to keep him from being a Marty Sue because he wasn't perfect. He had high cholesterol from eating too many doughnuts, stuff like that. :) He was just plain fun to write.

I don't like perfect characters, but I do love characters when they're competent in their field. If they're a good basketball player, then it's not gonna work if they're tripping over their shoestrings on the court. *g* Now, a botanist with hay fever could be fun...

They need failings just like real people. They need bad habits and people need to call them on them. They need to have issues, phobias, neuroses, psychoses, maybe a touch of OCD even. *g* They need to have little quirks unique to them.

[leethet.livejournal.com]

As I say in my response to this one, any OC who has any romantic relationship with a canon character is going to be labeled a Sue/Stu by someone, even if s/he isn't one (and they very often are!).The canon character/OC romance seems to step on some people's fannish toes.