Writing Tips and Reviews

Talking About OCs

When I say "ocs" I mean a character that's created for a series you didn't make. A fan character? The terms aren't that specific anymore. This will cover many things about ocs that bother me and ways to fix them. Again, as always with my writing tips, these are subjective opinions. If you're okay with these, then that's fine.

Adding Too Much:

Many new writers don't know how to write or make a proper outline for a character. They add traits and powers/abilities that comes to mind but never really think about how to balance those traits or what can be included and what can't. Characters who are immortal, invincible, have all the powers, "more powerful than everyone else" are what we call Mary Sues. Or super satan.

When trying to write an oc to work for a future fan fiction, I had the worst time working with everything. This quote from a friend analyzing the oc should say everything: "a phantasia character having rays knowledge comes into vesperia world and merging with xillia, have zestiria companions.......
and learned phrases from symphonia (KoR)...ya right very super saiyan".

The oc itself is a mix of Vesperia, Rays and Zestiria with little awareness of how those worlds work. I will be rewriting the review I made of it in the future, because now that I look at it, it's clear that the creator has no idea how to make an outline or who Duke is, at all.

A way to fix this problem is to make multiple ocs or to make multiple versions if you don't want to get into making a whole new outline. But that's the lazy way of doing it if you're doing it for every trait. I have 9 ocs now, each one is a representation of a different part of me and each one is different from the last. Something new writers aren't good at.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, people are all different, you can't copy and paste an entire bio, change the names and now call that a "different character". That's why versions can be helpful, while still lazy, all that has to be changed is a small piece. And sometimes new versions can be worse, depending on the writer. Kaila and your continuance to add more OP to an already OP Mary Sue.

For example, Eira Velorum, my Xillia/Mega Man OC has two versions, TWO not Twenty, and both are different. They are from different worlds and must be restricted in the rules of those worlds. More on that later. Eira herself is different from Khione Isa, my Vesperia oc, and both are different from Laurence Monochrome, my Kingdom Hearts oc. Each have a distinct personality and set of abilities along with who they are in general. Yet, each are a part of me. So it is completely possible to make multiple ocs with some of the traits instead of making just one with all the traits.

Not Being True To The Series:

If you're not being true to the series you're better off making a character that isn't tied to one. If you're making some changes clarify what has changed and what hasn't, the core of the story should be in tact. If your oc is coming from a completely other world and travels to worlds, go the Fate Grand Order route. Look that one up.

"As for the time travel/world saver. Vanessa's idea of the character starting off in a completely different world is the best. And you'll need to explain in detail why she's traveling and why she's immortal. As for Immortality, it's not a race, it's a power/ability. Characters can have immortality but their race is still what they were before.

Motivation also means a whole lot when creating a character and what from I read, there's really none.

And you need to do research on Duke, because he wouldn't just pick up a girl and immediately fall in love with her. (And "because she's immortal" is not a reason to like someone unless you're using them.) Eira And Jude were childhood friends before they were lovers. Khione and Yuri worked for the same person and spent some time together before they decided they like each other."

Right here is a message I sent Ruki based on the mess that is her oc as I was trying to fix it to make it work for the fan fiction. Which wasn't happening. Immortality doesn't not exist in the Vesperia world, world traveling is a thing for the spin off games, and Duke is hard to get to know. As a friend states "it's possible for him to find her but he would drop her off at the nearest human settlement."

When making an oc you need to be true to the story, even when making your own series and characters, they need to be true to the world you've created. You need to do research on what's allowed and what's not allowed, some stories have loop holes, others can have some changes, but a change as big as a immortal human in Vesperia is not going to happen. Especially if there's no reason for it.

"Why did you mix three tales games into one oc? Do you know how hard that is to work it?"

"Because she's time traveler, get new mission task and she was being sent to save world."

So, Fate Grand Order? But that would actually make sense if the oc did go the FGO route. Instead we get a place where all three Tales worlds are combined and no set rules, no reason for them to be combined and nothing to work with. In the spin off games, it's said why the characters are there. Sometimes they're summoned, as with Reve Unitia, and sometimes they're born in that world, as with Asteria and Link. And with each spin off is a different world with set rules.

Everything needs a reason, why are those characters brought together? Story? A certain character? An item? A prophecy? I hate the reason "just because". It's lazy and leaves holes in the story. If you want an oc who world travels, has knowledge of multiple worlds, and has friends from multiple worlds. Fate Grand Order. It's impossible for an oc to be born in world A but have all this knowledge about worlds B and C when the worlds have no stated connection to one another. And they can't have friends from world C if they have only lived on world A. 

In conclusion, do your research and plan out what you're going to be writing. Ocs take time, it takes research, thought and devotion to make one and even more to make a good one. It's easy to say "I like these traits so I'll stick them all into my oc" without any thought about how to balance those traits. It's hard to think of what traits go together and how to balance them, and if you have to have an oc with a certain trait, making a new one could be your best bet. An immortal and invincible oc with all the powers is boring.

Do your research on the media you're basing your oc off of. Going too far out of the line is bad writing because they need to be restricted within the world's rules. And "it's my main oc" is not an excuse to add everything onto them. It just means the attention is mainly on them.

Moderate your oc and their abilities, if you go overboard step back and think about it. If they don't follow the rules of the world either make up a reason why or take away those aspects of them. Alternate universe can be an explanation for major differences. Vanessa's phoenixes can be explained that way, the world is Zestiria with changes. So not the original game, an alternate universe.