Star Wars Writing Tips and Tricks.

Original Characters.

Original characters.

Sometimes the bane of a story's existence.

When you have characters already established in Canon lore, such as Luke Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, Ezra Bridger, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-wan Kenobi, Quinlan Vos, Kit Fisto, Shaak Ti and Aalya Secura for example, people generally know what to expect of the character and how they will interact with each other and their surroundings, though this has its own problems and pitfalls for inexperienced authors just beginning their writing journey.

OC's are completely new characters that have to be sold to readers at a quick first glance as interesting characters without coming off as complete Mary Sue's/Marty Stu's to your prospective readership who have selected your book amongst thousands (if not millions) on Wattpad.

Sounds pretty daunting, doesn't it?

So how do author's pull this off?

The answer is with great difficulty; along with a lot of time and patience for when they are first starting out and they haven't quite hit the right readership niche just yet.

But why are OC's so hated and bashed upon by much of fandoms?

The problem with OC's is the tendency for the author to make them absolutely flawless beyond even the most ridiculous of circumstances. Think of someone that looks like the ultimate, make-up caked super-model and that's how they look when they roll out of bed in the morning without even trying, who then proceeds to look into a mirror and claim that they are the most unattractive person in the whole town/world/galaxy as well as being immensely overweight (rarely underweight), too tall, etc. despite looking like an angel incarnate.

Something's not adding up there...

Oftentimes they will be written as bratty teens that I roughly estimate are between 12 years — bitchy Yr. 9 girl (~14/15), as they are rarely boys, their eating habits indicate that they should either be immensely overweight or anorexic, they are seriously overpowered to the point of ridiculousness, have more money than some countries have ever seen in their entire existences but constantly claim that they are too poor to afford anything, and distinctly have no parental figures present, usually killed off in some horrific way that often will have very little bearing on the plot and development of the character as a whole.

And that is usually under the proviso that they had any character development to begin with!

So how do we fix this problem?

There is no single clear cut answer, but believability plays a massive part in the creation and subsequent enjoyment of a new character.

Many reading this will have seen the Clone Wars, whether the original or newer CGI one.
In the original Clone Wars that ran from 2003-2005, Captain Fordo, one of the ARC troopers who featured heavily throughout the three seasons of the show, was who I'd consider a well written OC. He shares many similarities with the well-known and loved Captain Rex, but had his own personality about him that makes him my favourite character from the original Clone Wars. As it was so short, only about 2 hours and 10 minutes for all three season, it was difficult to introduce many new characters that stood out. Captain Fordo is the only one that I can name off the top of my head that was a good character.

Three years after the end of the original Clone Wars, the much more well-known Clone Wars series was released in August, 2008. Many familiar faces, such as Anakin, Obi-wan, Plo Koon, etc. returned as well as the introduction to the clone troopers portrayed by the amazing Dee Bradley Baker that has been the best received rendition since the release of Attack of the Clones. From this show, we were introduced to numerous clone troopers that all left their mark on us in more than one way for some. These include Cody, Rex, Domino Squad, particularly Hevy, Fives and Echo, Tup, Kix, Jesse, Hardcase, Waxer and Boil, Wolffe, Niner, Bell, Appo, 99, Sinker and Boost, Gregor, Dogma, Cut, Fox and so many more.

But of course, the ultimate Clone Wars OC comes from this second rendition of the Clone Wars from 2008-2014. We all know that I am talking about the one and only Ahsoka Tano.

We literally witnessed this character grow from being a 13 year-old rash, stubborn and slightly abbrasive Padawan to the cool, calm and collected 16 year-old Jedi at the end of season 5 when she decided to leave the Jedi Order. We watched her struggle through the Clone Wars as Anakin's Padawan, learn the struggles of command and losing those under her command, have to find her way on her own without her Master or the Jedi Council before she lost faith in all she'd ever known and then simply walked away from it all. Her fate was left unknown in the wake of the end of season 5, until the season 1 finale of Rebels.

As Ahsoka does not appear, nor is she mentioned in Revenge of the Sith, there was a fear as she grew more popular with the fanbase that she was going to be killed off in the series finale of the Clone Wars. I will definitely say that I had this fear as my littlest sister has been an eternal fan of Ahsoka Tano, being born the year that the Clone Wars film was released with the first appearance of Ahsoka Tano. She and I both cried at the season 5 finale when she simply left the Jedi Order, though I was immensely thankful afterwards that they had not killed her off.

With Rebels, Ahsoka returned and we saw how the interim years had treated her in the wake of Order 66 and the destruction of the Jedi Order as she had embraced the path of a Grey Jedi. Her showdown with Vader was much anticipated, much like Obi-wan and Maul's showdown in Season 3 of Rebels. Ahsoka represented to Anakin/Vader all that was his past, the past he had destroyed. She couldn't be his hope, his redemption, and the creators knew this. That was the role that Luke Skywalker fulfilled in the Original Trilogy.

Ahsoka is what I see as an ultimate OC, as she is Dave Filoni's own personal character that has had such an impact with more than an entire generation of Star Wars fans. At the same time, I also put all of the clone troopers in the same boat as Ahsoka with well written and well portrayed OC's. With the exception of the few clone troopers in Revenge of the Sith, almost every single trooper in the Clone Wars was an original character that was so effectively and beautifully portrayed that they resonated with the audiences who watched the series from start to finish.

So why can't we have more characters like Ahsoka and the numerous clone troopers throughout the Clone Wars?

While we don't have teams of writers together in one place all contributing to same story arc and episodes within each arc, we do have the Wattpad community that can provide feedback on what they like, what they don't understand and what they find unbelievable about the characters. You will receive criticism in anything you do, from people not liking your story or characters, to providing insightful questions that you hadn't thought of in the context of your story and its characters.

These criticisms can be both positive and negative, and you need to take both onboard if you want to improve your characters and overall story.

So what do you think?
Are Star Wars fan-fictions better with or without original characters?

Next up, Problems of Original Characters.

Feedback is greatly appreciated, and further topic suggestions are open!