Everything Wrong With DETECTIVE COMICS Fanfictions

DON'T NO 3: Out of Character Syndrome

Now let's be really honest here...

We have all seen this too many times to ignore it.

Have you ever come across a fanfic where a certain character is portrayed very differently from how you would expect him/her to be, based on your information of canon.

Anyhow, the point is that the Out of Character syndrome or commonly referred to as the OOC syndrome is what's affecting a lot of authors on this site.

The OOC is basically when authors twist up a canon character so badly that he/she ends up as a wholly different character.

Now I am definitely not saying that you must fit characters into canon stereotypes, of course you can bend the rules here and there. But please do not bend it to such an extent that the character becomes unrecognizable.

Consider a few examples (honestly, there are a lot of characters suffering from this but I can't include all of them so here it goes).

1. Joker being a nice guy who's only putting up the pretense of the villain to expose the actual bad guy of the story... I'm sure you all know who that is...

2. Batman being evil and using his vigilante identity to cause havoc in the city but nobody knows that except the lovely OC who later reveals that he was the bad guy all along and the villains were actually innocent.

[Tbh I would read it an AU fanfic where Batman actually did turn out to be an evil character but it would require a lot of justification on the writer's part. Writing Bruce as a bad character just for the sake of Joker or some other villain stealing the spotlight is something that even I wouldn't do though you all know how much I hate Bruce but still... No character bashing allowed].

3. Superman and Lois being bad parents to Jon and Connor for no reason whatsoever. Or in some stories, Jon is the favorite child and poor Connor gets neglected.

[I feel like I will be repeating this gif several times later on too because it sums up a lot of Connor reactions throughout this book].

4. Nightwing (Richard Grayson) being an asshole to the rest of his siblings because he's the eldest and quite literally a dick.

[Excuse the language. As for the gif, I'm sorry I had to... Couldn't let this moment go to waste].

And basically any character you can think of being portrayed as a very crappy version of themselves. Once again, if it's done in a troll story then that's another case but for a fanfic that you are seriously writing, don't do this please.

Avoiding OOC Syndrome:

The only way you can avoid having characters turn out as entirely different beings, is to keep your personal opinions aside, watch the movies, read the canon material carefully, do a little bit of research, ask your fellow friends about what they think about the character's image and personality and after you have a clear layout on each character's outlook set in your mind, then start writing.

It hurts readers to see characters twisted into mangled versions of themselves. So please don't do that. You can hate a character as much as you want but please, don't let your personal views bias your writing.

[I try to keep my personal grudges with Bruce Wayne aside when I am writing his character in my fanfics. I hope my bias doesn't mangle his personality, to those of you who have read my stories, let me know if it's just as I expect or if you find me writing him as OOC too. I really want to know this].

The problem with DC's canon (especially the comics) is that there are too many of them and you can't keep track of all that's going on in the multiple timelines and issues. I haven't read the comics tbh and I've not watched all the movies either. But that doesn't mean I don't do research and we will be discussing the alternate ways you can do your research on characters and timelines if you haven't read/watched all canon material later on.

What are your tips and tricks for avoiding OOC syndrome in characters? Let us all know in the comments.

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That is all for today.

Stay tuned for the next chapter.