Mary Sue Does Not Live Here: Creating Good OCs

[Honeybee]

So, when I first started writing, I swore I would never write OCs.

Then, I did an E2 fic. Archer needed a wife. Malcolm needed a girlfriend where things didn't work out.

Then, I wrote a T'Pol meets her father fic - and there were two brothers as well.

And then, I decided Trip's sister was alive in the MU - but would be very close to her RU self since she hid away from the world a bit.

1) In the E2 - I was creating love interests. Very easy to go Mary Sue. So, I decided first what kind of woman both Archer and Reed would want. Gave them a job. Then - I said to myself - what kind of flaws would these women have.

2) With Family Secrets - that was easy to stay away from Mary Sue land - The OCs were Romulans. T'Pol's father was complex and powerful. Brother #1 was insane but wanted to be in her life. Brother #2 was really cool for a Romulan but still a snob, a racist, class-ist and willing to kill you if you cross him. But humans started to grow on him - he had that in common with his big sis.

3) Elizabeth Tucker - A canon OC - since she existed on the show. I was really scared of the road to Mary Sue-dom since it was the first time I actively created a heroine. But the MU setting helped. I made her depressed and fearful in the beginning - then as she started getting a backbone - I had her fall in love with an a-hole. That helped keep her a layered character. My whole idea was that Tucker wanted to rescue his sister, but she was capable of rescuing herself - she just had to realize it.


Anyway - how do you create your OCs?

[bluetiger]

OC's are such a large part of what I write. TnT's children are meant to be the best of both parents but different from each other. T'Resa is the most like Trip, Morgan is the truest blend of the two, and T'San embraces being Vulcan but a hint of her father shows now and then.

I had Malcolm marry a much younger woman. He always seemed the type to end up so wrapped up in career that he forgot about a family until late in life. Helen saw Malcolm and fell hard, going after him like a force of nature.

I guess all you can do is write characters that sound true to your own ear and hope for the best. I did write a Mary Sue once on purpose, but I let T'Pol shoot her

[EntAllat]

I'd like to give a shout out here to Lady Rainbow for all her OC characters that pepper her stories and fill out the crew. They're not usually front-and-center characters but always add a little personality and diversity to the fic.

Also, another favorite fic author of mine - she does Trip and Malcolm friendship stories mostly - created an OC second-in-command for Malcolm who was so believable that she had me searching all over Memory Alpha for him before I even realized he was a OC.

All these topics make me realize I've got a lot of catching up to do with members fics ....

[Kathy Rose]

A writer I admire once told me that you should never have an OC play a role that could be done by one of the regular characters. That really struck a chord with me, and I've tried not to invent new characters simply to fill out a story. I try to make sure if I invent an OC, that person has a purpose. Saving the ship? No. Filling a position on the bridge because the other characters are occupied elsewhere, or being a member of an away team who has skills the others don't have? Yes. And definitely sometimes you have to have an OC villian.

That said, I deliberately set out one time to write a story with an OC Mary Sue. Yes, on purpose! I'd read so many Mary Sue's at that time that I was really disheartened. My main objective was to see if I could write such a character and make it meaningful to the story. But the OC wasn't the main character. Although she had a big part, the story was more how the main characters reacted to the OC. I think it worked.

[ladyrainbow]

I like writing about OCs...they make the ship more "lived-in" so to speak. There are 80+ people on board NX-01, it makes sense that you'd see them now and again, since it's such a closed community.

I tend to use the same ones for continuity in my fics. Like Ensign Trieste (Travis's second at the helm) and Quartermaster (Master Chief) Antoine Desgauld. The only OC that I "borrow" (and I always credit the creator) is Volley's Ensign Bernhard Mueller, Malcolm's 2IC in the Armory.

Most times, the OCs do contribute something significant to the plot line. For example, you see Desgauld quite a bit because the QM is in charge of a lot of stuff.

[Honeybee]

I always try and use a canon character first, only creating OCs when absolutely necessary. In Ember, Spark, Flame - I really wanted it to be Soval who saves TnT - but the Vulcan needed to be very confident and schooled in Syrranite disciplines. So, I had to use an OC. (Valrick actually appears in A Mirror Cracked briefly, playing the "Soval" part after Soval dies.)

[Aquarius]

A writer I admire once told me that you should never have an OC play a role that could be done by one of the regular characters. That really struck a chord with me, and I've tried not to invent new characters simply to fill out a story. I try to make sure if I invent an OC, that person has a purpose. Saving the ship? No. Filling a position on the bridge because the other characters are occupied elsewhere, or being a member of an away team who has skills the others don't have? Yes. And definitely sometimes you have to have an OC villian.

That said, I deliberately set out one time to write a story with an OC Mary Sue. Yes, on purpose! I'd read so many Mary Sue's at that time that I was really disheartened. My main objective was to see if I could write such a character and make it meaningful to the story. But the OC wasn't the main character. Although she had a big part, the story was more how the main characters reacted to the OC. I think it worked.

This is one of the soundest things I've heard on the subject. Brannon Braga also said something to that effect when I took a Star Trek writers workshop from him and Rick Berman and Lolita Fatjo years ago, in terms of fatal mistakes not to make when sending scripts to them for consideration.

[THE Rigil Kent]

The problem, I think, in going out of your way to avoid creating a Mary Sue (or Gary Stu, if he's male) is that you (general you, not specific) might strip out anything that makes the character interesting. What I try to do when I'm writing is just ignore that concern completely - one person's perfectly acceptable OC is going to be another's Mary Sue - and focus on the needs of the plot. It also helps me to have a pretty clear idea of the character's strengths and weaknesses before I start ... and it is essential IMO that they have weaknesses, both in terms of skillsets and personality. I also tend to fall back on my old D&D dungeonmastering skillz (yeah, I went there) and assign at least one contradictory personality quirk to each OC I create so they stand out. Trip, for example, would probably be Introverted (in terms of his personal life), which conflicts with his outwardly gregarious personality.

I'm actually okay with an OC outshining a Main Character ... as long as it makes sense. For example, drop Trip and Unnamed Security/MACO into a situation, and it's perfectly logical to presume that Gary, the Security guy, is going to be a better shot than Trip or know more about explosives, or that sort of thing. Of course, the minute Gary starts outshining Trip in terms of engineering, well, then we've got a problem.

Another thing I always try to adhere to is the old writing maxim wherein every character believes they are the hero in this story. Doesn't matter if they're a nameless redshirt doomed to get sucked dry by the salt monster, they still think that they're The Man (or Woman, as the case may be.)

[Aquarius]

Right. These things have to be put in context and perspective. We expect the OC security person to be a better shot than anyone (except maybe Reed) because it follows that he or she has had much more training and experience. No one is saying an OC can't be good at something.

It's a whole 'nother thing when 15 year old Ensign Ebony Breeze who happens to be Hoshi's cousin and already has PhDs in pyrotecnics, cosmology, and rocket science--and, by the way, Trip's leaving T'Pol for her because he's into goth chicks with the ability to teleport using only their minds--picks off every bad guy she aims at, and she's never touched a phaser before in her life does it.

Ok that's kind of an exaggeration, but I put it that way to make a point.

[THE Rigil Kent]

It's a whole 'nother thing when 15 year old Ensign Ebony Breeze who happens to be Hoshi's cousin and already has PhDs in pyrotecnics, cosmology, and rocket science--and, by the way, Trip's leaving T'Pol for her because he's into goth chicks with the ability to teleport using only their minds--picks off every bad guy she aims at, and she's never touched a phaser before in her life does it.

Well, it's a good thing she isn't half-Betazoid, because that would just be too much.