Story Question - Which woudld be better, an OC or a Canon Character? · 5:55am Jun 15th, 2018
I've got a new book in development, and thanks to my very generous patreons on patreon, I got a new writing self-help book with some rather interesting things to say on character design. More specifically, how to design characters based around each other so they have naturally generating conflict and cooperation. This has me at something of a dilemma.
In a story based around saving the mane six from alien abductors, involving planet hopping and sleuthing to find them: would you rather have one of the m6 escape capture at the beginning of the fic, or would you rather a random pony decide to mare up and go save their heroes and saviors for a change?
Both ideas have merits. If say, Rainbow escaped her desire to save her friends is easily understandable and requires no establishment at all. What's more the story would hold the fandom appeal of being a story focused around the M6 and about them. On the other hand, we all like an underdog story and the M6 are effectively Elite Shocktroopers (a demi-god in Twilight's case) when it comes to adventuring and saving the day. It would be very interesting to have a story based around saving them with the person doing the saving being a nobody who they have saved countless times before. Wanting to repay people who have saved our life is easily understandable, but would require a bit of backstory to explain why you might literally leave the planet to repay that debt.
I think we all know I prefer to work with OCs, but in this case I am not certain which I would rather do. Both hold equil appeal to me. The book I ma reading right now would let me do more with having the main character work off the secondary characters better, since I could design an OC from scratch and have all elements of their background set up as required to make their current behavior and personality believable. Rainbow (for example, could be anypony) is much more locked down as I would need to work with and around her established backstory for the show, but a lot can still be done.
At the end of the day, either I go with a Canon Character who will be more limited in characterization and interplay with other characters due to being already established and appeal to the fandom at large but loose some of the underdog appeal, OR I go with an OC and have much more freedom to create an interesting character, but then require establishing their character in story and loose some fandom appeal while potentially making a better story.
I am down for either. So what would you prefer?
I would go for using an OC for your story idea. It would be interesting wither or not the OC would be a pony or anyone of the non-pony races we know about in the MLP universe. I wouldn't mind seeing an Changedling OC of some kind.
OC
Why not both?
Rainbow doesn't exactly know how to SPACE. She would NEED a crew that's both capable of providing the skills and resources she doesn't have, and keeping up with her (Figuratively, at least).
If you set this in Equiverse Beta then you know who my vote would be for.
Remember when we talked about changebug space adventures? Yeah.
Considering this is an MLP story regardless, I'd go with Rainbow.
Now I say this, but either could genuinely work. However, by going with Rainbow you utilize a character who already has a significant following, and avoid the dreaded connotations of the OC, who have sadly been tainted by far too many Mary Sues and frankly other terrible works of writing in fanfiction (and lets be honest, some original stuff too).
You are absolutely right in that an oc could be easier to work with, and offer more freedom for your story. This is where I point to the above issues with OCs, but also point out you could make an OC work. You might have less viewers, but you would still have the main 6 involved, and a good story is a good story regardless of original or canonical characters.
That being said, there is absolutely no reason to not include critical OC characters that can contribute massively to the story. This is a setting that's literally leaving Equestria. You have massive amounts of room to create characters, as you are practically dropping MLP as a whole into a brand new setting entirely unknown to them. Here, you can get creative, have fun with original characters.
And I know Rainbow is a bit restrictive because she has an established history, but that makes her more interesting in some respects. Having a character already established means you can influence and mould her character in new and interesting paths based on her experienced to the practical sci-fi environment she finds herself in.
I'd have to vote OC or really, how Pseudonymous put it, both. Mainly because you get to flex character creation a bit more when creating an OC than when emulating a preexisting character.
4883087 It would already be both. The starship will be provided and helmed by a friendly xeno.
Eh, if your already doing a xenos than I'd say Canon. But not a well established Canon.
Do someone we only know a couple of things about, like Maud, Lightning Dust, Gilda. Then you can develop them significantly, as well as exploit the relationship they have with the 6.
Or a random background pony if you want to do almost as much as when making an OC. Like Drom did with 'the Rise and Fall of the Dark Lord Sassaflash' Sassaflash' is clearly an OC in the skin of a background Pony.
Personally I think going with a canon character would be better. i think the restrictions of working with a already established personality and making them fit into different situations can make for a better fan-fic story of this type.... I think the idea of how Rainbow Dash deals with things like aliens and high tech space stuff just sounds more thought provoking then the idea of random pony X doing the same. It give a better picture in the head of the reader.... Sure an OC could be used to great effect in a lot of situations. But I think with the "alien abductors" and having the main 6 and a standard pony world. I think a canon character is the way to go.
I'd go with Rainbow! But that's just personal preference
Also there is of course the fandom appeal... Going with a canon character is more likely to get people to actually read it.
You should use both. Even if Rainbow escapes, is she really able to rescue her friends by herself? Probably not. Would anyone else she knows know stuff about space? Probably not. This also allows for an OC that has selfish intentions, such as money or fame that would accompany rescuing a princess. Those two personalities would breed conflict naturally, as RD’s loyalty clashes with OC’s greed.
...I'd actually go with a secondary character from the show. Like one of the m6's sisters or spike or heck, their parents or really any of their friends...
It really depends on what you want this story to do in regards to your audience.
However, this seems more like you want to try something out, so, yeah, do that.
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Honest question: In both of these cases, whats difference between this and just making a new character?
I hope this isn't at all what you meant to imply, but... I can't think of any diffrence between that and an OC, aside from not getting to choose the character's appearance, name, and fundamental background details. Those background details are the very basic ones, the kinds that shape everything else about a character. Example: Born in a rural farming town = probably grew up poor, got little education due to rural schools having little funding, spent most of their childhood working their family farm, likely had few friends but has a strong relationship with siblings. Those basic details snowball into a full character pretty fast. With any of those options all I would get to do is pick from a limited pool of personality elements. It becomes next to impossible to have the a character I want to tell a story about (not totally impossible, I've done is many times after all. It's just harder and pretty old hat for me at this point.)
The result is those options boil down to "I would prefer it if you created as little as possible." To be honest, it kinda feels like you think I'm terrible at character design :c I hope that's not what you mean because that really hurts.
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I want to tell a story people will enjoy which happens to have ponies in it.
4883325 I dont want to have another large-cast story. I'm not good at those.
Whether you do an OC, a main character, or both, it's more important that you have fun writing it, Meep.
I love seeing your OCs, and yet at the same time how you build off of the main characters is fantastic, like you did with Luna's Knights and your take on the Mane6. Of the main characters, I tend to agree that Rainbow would be very interesting to see in this situation. So either way you go, I'll be happy with it. Just make sure that you are.
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He probably would if this was in Beta...but anything set in the Beta universe at this point has the DBZ scaling problem. They've become far too powerful for anything approximating a normal adventure to not be derailed completely. Any further stories in that 'verse almost have to be under the 'Comedy' tag if they try to be adventures, because the characters there would just curbstomp any challenge. Their last story ended with them being on friendly terms with bloody Yog Sothoth for crying out loud! You can't really go much further up on the power scale from there.
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Meep is a she, but Chem is a he. I was referring to Chem.
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It'd kinda have to be set in the time skip.
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You know I'm a long time reader, so yes it's misinterpreted.
I see two major benefits to writing a background characters. The first, part is that with the skeleton done you can really delve into the remaining character building. For example Maud, Limestone, and Marble all have pretty much the same background, but we see dozens of different authors delving into these characters in different ways. Some of the best stories on Fimfic do this... Though most deal with the almost fully completed mane 6.
Heck even you do it, I kinda hate the most popular Derpy, but you made her intresting and filled her in in a unique and special way that is totally different from the 'doctors companion' the 'winning pony' or my favorite in 'alarm clock'
The shallow is that it means you can have an OC that people recognize and click on when they see it. I hate marketing, but it does work.
I think your one of the best authors on Fimfic, writing intresting and fun characters is not your problem. If I ever ever fail to communicate that then it's because I was too tired to be writing and didn't realize that.
Disclaimer: this post was also written when I was tired... I don't get many not-tired moments right now.
4883391 Sorry for that misunderstanding. I'm not in a good place today. You've probably read one or two blogposts where I mention having chronic depression.
Thank you for clarifying, I see what your point is now.
The problem is I dislike those individuals. Note hate, dislike. Maud is a blank slate of a person who feels too much like ME only not fully dead inside, just mostly. Limestone is the kind of person I would avoid at all costs for the sake of my own sanity. Marble seems too shellshocked and submissive to her older siblings to have a personality, like FLuttershy except pushed there by constant familial bullying. She reminds me of how my sister IRL is effectively mute because she's been too scared of angering my step-mom for so long, she just stopped talking... Depressing, to say the least.
When I write characters I need to get deep into their heads, spend time there, and emulate them. I can't do it for characters I dislike. Why not? Brain goes "Nope. Not gonna. That one is boring/stupid/meh.". Fortunately I can do it with characters i hate, as long as an assbeating is inbound for them...
I plan on doing this story in a fresh universe. No prior links to my old stories. Why? DBZ syndrome. That universe is so full of powerful heros that there's no real adventure to be had. all problems can be solved with the flick of a hoof. As I intended for it to be. That universe won. It's safe forever. I guess that means I could have the wierdo from Ponyville who might be interesting in talking to aliens be Lyra... But isn't that a clishe? I dont know. I can see the merit sin having two ponies and an alien on this quest. But like, I feel one of those ponies should be a completely original creation.
Mabey it's because I stopped watching the show because... well, moral objections to villeins to be rewarded rather than punished... But I cant think of any characters I like who I haven't used to death in Beta. YOu know?
4883364 I did in previous blogs about this story idea, you derp.
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Even then...
Rainbow had Flash levels of super-speed, Rarity ended up owning a space warship, AJ ended up with close to Superman levels of super strength, Twilight ended up at magical power levels that would embarrass Dr Strange, Fluttershy seemed to be learning to telepathically communicate with the Kaiju, and Pinkie has always been a reality warper nearly on par with Discord. On top of that their allies included a party of elite vampire knights, a genius billionaire with resources to make Tony Stark envious, a robotic superpony monster hunter, a jet ai turned robotic pony, a giantess who also happens to be an elite sniper, a sane lich, and the god-emperor of Prance, among others.
That's specifically why the first stories after the time skip focused on a new mare who felt overshadowed by all these superpowers.
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- https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/814927/i-like-space
Literally the previous blog post :P
The cmc's! Do the cmc's!
I'd say a group of oc's go big andcthow afew different races in.
Why not use background ponies that don't really fit in all that well in the show like lightning dust, gilda, berry punch, ect, and mix them with a couple OC's? The OC's could reveal their backgrounds and past history to help bring the group together as well as help the background ponies to grow as characters and develop more defined personalities. That's the best I could suggest. I'm not a very creative person in the first place. Hopefully inspiration Will come to you and help settle your mind on a path that you can grow from taking. :D