A Question About Reusing Characters In Other Stories · 7:47am Jun 21st, 2020
HI Everyone
As I wrote in my last blog, I'm on a hiatus from writing pony stories. But while I may not be typing away at the keyboard, that doesn't mean ideas aren't swirling, coalescing, and taking form, and one of them really got my attention today, but in a way I never would have expected:
It involved reusing my characters from The Monster Below trilogy.
Now, this story is NOT a sequel, a remake, or in any way related to the MB series (it's an alternate universe story where Nightmare Moon won); it's a standalone story with Silverspeak taking on a different role besides 'Depressed Earth Pony who wants to become an Alicorn in the hopes that it'll make him happy'. I'm not sure if I'll do this story or not, but I like the idea of revising Silverspeak, Beakbreaker, Gusty, Onyx Shield, and others, while giving them new roles to play, having their relationships be different, etc. while essentially having the same personalities. However, I can't recall ever coming across an author trying this idea out on multiple stories, with the characters essentially functioning as actors who take on different roles in different stories.
On the one hand, it could be an exciting way to see characters taking on a new role that's unrelated to their previous outings, much like how it's enjoyable to see, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger's various roles throughout his career. They may be different, but his personality is largely the same. But on the other hand, it runs the risk of feeling lazy and the result of an uninspired author who can't be bothered to come up with new material. My excitement for this idea may be gone by this time next month, but I'm still curious to know what you all think of this concept.
Thoughts?
The only issue I can see with this would be some sense of dissociation between the characters and their respective stories. The audience may have already formed ideas about the characters and their environments from the previous stories, so putting them in another different environment would feel out of place, not to mention out of character.
Besides, it's more fun playing God and creating new characters and worlds from scratch, wouldn't you agree?
I can see it being done.
Despite the fact that I have never actually written any fic, I have thought about my OC (profile pic) being in different universes and scenarios while still being the same horse (mainly normal fim universe and foe).
Now this does come from the fact that I never went through with writing anything, so doing that with characters from a full, complete fic seems a little less natural than for my OC but I think its still reasonable to do so.
I say you should give it a shot