Just because I don't write a certain story doesn't mean the characters will never see the light of day. In fact, a lot of the time I come up with a setting long before I know who's in it, and in times like this, I take a look at some of my "abandoned" characters to fill the void.
For example, the current cast of New Fiction Idea #40 consists of Cahokia and Axum from Man in the Blade and Dobson and Crick from Mount. Given the totally different universe, they're not precisely their old selves, but what fun would it be if they were?
In another vein, I've taken fan characters for fan fictions and turned them into fantastic creatures for OCTs. How would this character react to having powers? What powers would fit this one? What powers would be the worst for this other one?
It's really quite similar to writing Alternate Universe fan fiction—take a character from one place, put them in another, and see how much changes or stays the same. It may seem a bit like cheating or copying, but there are only so many character traits out there. Why try to put together an entirely new set every time when you can just take an old friend or archetype and tweak it?
And some of my characters are just too dear to me to be left behind altogether. If I can't write them in their original setting, why shouldn't I pick them up and put them somewhere else? I think they deserve a place in my stories outside of my head, and I'll try not to make them wait in line too long.
How about you? Copy-pasting any characters of your own?
Personally, I don't really care about most of my OCs to transplant them from one story to another, and the ones I do like are already in completed or partially-completed fictions. However, I do a bit of the same thing with plot points, for example, the 'bush-burrows' in Unstained were from a dream which I had and converted into a rough draft for another Hunger Games FanFiction.
ReplyDeleteI can also identify with what you said about putting fan characters in AUs, because I've been experimenting a lot with that recently while working on my new crossover FanFiction. It's made me aware of how simultaneously challenging and exciting it must have been to write the Brutal Series, as well as Ace Tribute - what sort of traits does the character retain; how is their canon backstory transformed into their backstory in the AU; what parts of them change? It's a very fascinating way to explore a character.
I agree with everything you said here, about how it's better to transplant a character into something else than abandon them entirely. It's true that there are only a certain amount of character traits in existence, and there's no point in trying to create someone from scratch when you've already got a well-formed character ready to be used!
Yeah, I'd say the same. The majority of my OCs don't get the time to grow on me, so new ones might just be subconsciously related to them.
DeleteIt is! That was probably my favourite thing about the Brutal series characters, although I'm more excited about converting plot points in Ace Tribute.
Really the only OCs I care about are ones for FanFictions (like Arkel, Laurel, my Slovakia OC, etc...), because I don't really write much original fiction.
DeleteChoosing their ages and districts is really fun, for some reason. It's difficult when a lot of the characters are adults, though.
Character transplanting... Well, you know i warp other peoples character's and shove them into my stories under new names.
ReplyDeleteI also make a ton of fan characters that I shove into new stories of my own. Most of the time if my character are switching stories, that's how I know my old story is full/complete.
Mim
That's an interesting note. Yeah, Man in the Blade is pretty much over, so maybe that's why I felt the need to put Cahokia elsewhere...
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