made up character.

[shadowmaster sushin]

Anyone on here make their own character, based on the books/movies/manga/comics they read? If so, and you want to talk about made up characters maybe swap ideas for other characters, message me.

[Xiam]

My brain's a bit ******** up, so I need to ask for clarification.

Are you talking about an OC in a fanfic, or an expy of a previously-established character? Because that's not exactly making up your own character, is it? It's just taking a previous character, scraping off the character's old name, and pasting a new name over it.

[Hurbadachurba]

Xiam

My brain's a bit ******** up, so I need to ask for clarification.

Are you talking about an OC in a fanfic, or an expy of a previously-established character? Because that's not exactly making up your own character, is it? It's just taking a previous character, scraping off the character's old name, and pasting a new name over it.

theres a word for it: plagiarizing...

[Xiam]

Hurbadachurba

Xiam

My brain's a bit ******** up, so I need to ask for clarification.

Are you talking about an OC in a fanfic, or an expy of a previously-established character? Because that's not exactly making up your own character, is it? It's just taking a previous character, scraping off the character's old name, and pasting a new name over it.

theres a word for it: plagiarizing...

Well, maybe. There are a lot of characters out there that are practically clones of other characters and nobody really says a thing.

But it is preferred, yes, to make up your own character from scratch unless you intend it to be a parody or an homage. In which case you'd better be damn good at it.

[panty sniff]

Xiam

Hurbadachurba

Xiam

My brain's a bit ******** up, so I need to ask for clarification.

Are you talking about an OC in a fanfic, or an expy of a previously-established character? Because that's not exactly making up your own character, is it? It's just taking a previous character, scraping off the character's old name, and pasting a new name over it.

theres a word for it: plagiarizing...

Well, maybe. There are a lot of characters out there that are practically clones of other characters and nobody really says a thing.

But it is preferred, yes, to make up your own character from scratch unless you intend it to be a parody or an homage. In which case you'd better be damn good at it.

Well, there's a very limited amount of basic character archetypes. Sure, people use these arechytpes differently, but at their essence, every character is a character that has been used and reused over and over again.

[Xiam]

panty sniff

Xiam

Hurbadachurba

Xiam

My brain's a bit ******** up, so I need to ask for clarification.

Are you talking about an OC in a fanfic, or an expy of a previously-established character? Because that's not exactly making up your own character, is it? It's just taking a previous character, scraping off the character's old name, and pasting a new name over it.

theres a word for it: plagiarizing...

Well, maybe. There are a lot of characters out there that are practically clones of other characters and nobody really says a thing.

But it is preferred, yes, to make up your own character from scratch unless you intend it to be a parody or an homage. In which case you'd better be damn good at it.

Well, there's a very limited amount of basic character archetypes. Sure, people use these arechytpes differently, but at their essence, every character is a character that has been used and reused over and over again.

Yeah.

What I like to do is pick from an archetype, then try to figure out what makes a person act like that, or subvert it. Either way I gotta go into "talking" to them or watching them in situations to see what they're like as a legitimate person, rather than just sort of "This is the stoic guy, this is the nerdy guy, this is the evil guy..."

[Kyousouka]

Xiam

What I like to do is pick from an archetype, then try to figure out what makes a person act like that, or subvert it. Either way I gotta go into "talking" to them or watching them in situations to see what they're like as a legitimate person, rather than just sort of "This is the stoic guy, this is the nerdy guy, this is the evil guy..."

This, sort of. Characters fall into archetypes, but that doesn't mean they should be created as archetypes or that they should be limited to being archetypes.

In real life, archetypes are in the mind of the observer, and depend on the situation. One person might be their best friend's nerdy Q, their parents' naive but idealistic hero, and when things get bad, they might be someone else's mysterious saviour and another person's helpless damsel in distress.

Stories gain clarity from having archetypes be less fluid and less numerous per character, but that doesn't mean they have to be fixed. When you create stories, always consider how the characters perceive each other and how they would act in certain situations as people rather than an archetypes. Let them fall into archetypes as needed, don't make them be archetypes.


tl;dr: Archetypes are descriptive, they should not be prescriptive (except in meta works).

[Xiam]

Kyousouka

Xiam

What I like to do is pick from an archetype, then try to figure out what makes a person act like that, or subvert it. Either way I gotta go into "talking" to them or watching them in situations to see what they're like as a legitimate person, rather than just sort of "This is the stoic guy, this is the nerdy guy, this is the evil guy..."

This, sort of. Characters fall into archetypes, but that doesn't mean they should be created as archetypes or that they should be limited to being archetypes.

In real life, archetypes are in the mind of the observer, and depend on the situation. One person might be their best friend's nerdy Q, their parents' naive but idealistic hero, and when things get bad, they might be someone else's mysterious saviour and another person's helpless damsel in distress.

Stories gain clarity from having archetypes be less fluid and less numerous per character, but that doesn't mean they have to be fixed. When you create stories, always consider how the characters perceive each other and how they would act in certain situations as people rather than an archetypes. Let them fall into archetypes as needed, don't make them be archetypes.


tl;dr: Archetypes are descriptive, they should not be prescriptive (except in meta works).

Very much so, yes.

I have a character who by all rights should be a "jock" archetype but is actually majoring in like... biology, I think.

And is smarter than the main character, haha.