Writing original characters or otherwise

So, there was this amusing and interesting blog post about how to write original characters, written by several well-known fanfiction authors known here on fimfiction. I'm sadly (yet!) to be considered as such. But since I decided I needed some typing excercise and get myself into the mind-state for writing, I decided to share my own thoughts on the matter.

Writing OCs is not difficult, not more so than writing already-established characters (in fact, I'd argue that writing already-established characters is actually harder but I digress). Both are, essentially, just character. How can you write a good character? To write a good character, you have to understand one, single truth (or at least, what I consider to be one) of writing and storytelling general:

Stories are about people.

Stop here. Go back and read that sentence again. Think about it. Consider it. My following ramblings will essentially be exploring that single, above truth. If you truly thought about it, you can actually stop here and still leave wiser. Confused a bit? OK. Stay with me and allow me to explore that truth.

Let us, for a moment, go outside of our pony-filled lands of imagination and take a view of us, humans. Since time immemorial, we have told stories. We have told stories before we even developed a writing system, using paint and cave walls to immortalize our view of the world. Stories are more important than we would think. We are told true stories, false stories that aim to tell us a truth, stories that tell us how the world works,stories that tell us who we are and what is it we do on this world. We even use stories to tell our past, our present and even our future.

Let us dial down the "Grand Narration of Wisdom" dial a notch. How can stories do all this? The answer is my previous, grand wisdom: stories are about people. We tell stories about people. Even when we don't, we tell the stories to people, for people and in the end, about people. Even when we tell stories about, say, machines, our choice of audience and the subject matter again involves people into the question.

How does this relate to writing characters? Simple: characters are one of the most important tools that a writer can use to represent people. In a story, characters are people. When we see a character, we judge them. A writer can control how that character is judged, that is one of the tasks of writing. We constantly judge people, it is within our nature, perhaps even in the nature of social cognition. We may try to consciously withhold judgement, but certain conclusions are always drawn.

For example, after reading OW's own description of his character, my first judgement is that his OC is a example of mental equivalent of masturbation.

Now, OW could tell me that this is not the case. That his character has depth, background, personality, etc. This may all be true, but due to the (confusing) way he introduced him, it is hard not to see them. His character just contains far too many hard-to-swallow ideas and concepts. Half-minotour and half-griffon? I'm not even touching the biology of that. Adopted by a pegasus? So he (or she?) is an orphan? Absurdity is piled atop world-canon-law-braking absurdities. But overall, what story are you even trying to tell?

Because your story has to be about something. In the end, it will be about people. A character that magically overcomes odds, gets everything anyone would want (wealth, love, respect, etc) more-or-less effortlesly is not a person. It is a god asserting its dominance unchallenged. Having "flaws" do not change that, not even minor injuries change that. What changes that?

First off, characters are only a tool in your toolbox. If your story is about your god-like character dominating everything the story is ,again, an exercise of mental masturbation. You need to step back and reconsider what your story is actually about. If all your conflict is that of anyone foolish enough to challenge your god-like character, you have a problem. The problem will persist if you try to add anything atop of this, even prejudice against your OC's race. Because if your basic idea upon which the story rests is bad, the story will simply crumble.

I swear I had more ideas here but I forgot what they were. Oh well.