#ff101

          What we usually see in child OCs is that they are cut back emotionally and mentally to the age of a common 3-year old. Pervocracy wrote a great memo on how to handle children while they worked as a childless nurse. I will summarize that memo and add my own notes as well. It will be cited below for your convenience.

          From the time of birth to a year old, the child is a baby. They can crawl and walk, and may have a few words or be able to recognize people, may know parts of the body “Can you show me where your feet are?” but they are essentially small animals. You have to be gentle and affectionate, and don’t expect them to cooperate. Babies cry, but more often than not they cry as a means to communicate.

          A child aged 1-2 years old is a bit more difficult. They have more mobility and have gained more of a voice. The “terrible twos” come in to play here and the child is able to walk and run around. Often children at this age are dependent on the response of their caregivers. If a child falls, they only will make a big deal out of said fall because their caregiver does. They cry because their caregiver has clued them in socially that they are hurt. That’s why you see a lot of moms tell their babies, “it’s okay!” or “you’re okay.” They have to reassure the child that they are in fact fine so the child does not react. Children at this age can speak, but it may still be simple sentences. They can’t get deep yet. They also will recognize strangers and want to avoid them.

          A toddler/preschool child is around the age of 3-5 years old. They are more socialized, given this is the age where most children go to daycare, preschool, or kindergarten. They are potty trained by this age. Do not write a 3-5-year-old OC and have her still in diapers. That isn’t realistic. These kids are also fully mobile, and this is the age where you can start seeing the baby’s personality. Are they a hyper child? Do they like animals? If the child dances, most dancers start pre-ballet classes at this age. Do they want to go outside all the time or are they more comfortable spending time inside? Babytalk from the child, ie: mama, dada, I want, etc. Is not realistic. Again, the child may have simple sentences, but they’ve learned enough words at this point to not have to resort to speaking like that. These kids are easily distracted and likely have been weaned off naps. Parents can still babytalk these kids, a phrase here which means speak to them in that sweet little-kid voice, but the baby will not babytalk to their parents.

          A small child is roughly the ages of 6-10. These kids in America are already in school. A 6-year old is the average age of first graders, and a 9/10-year-old is roughly a 3rd grader. They will not respond well to babytalk. These kids want to be treated like adults but may still have childlike tendencies (may still pout, whine, cry, etc.). They have been fully socialized by this point as they will have had years in daycare or school racked up at this point. They are outgoing and less afraid of strangers. Most prodigy children who play an instrument will have started their instrument around age 5 or 6 (source: was a prodigy child. Started violin at 6). They like to see cool or fun or gross facts and are eager to learn and joke around. At this age you’re still watching Spongebob unironically, so treat them as such.

          A preteen is around the ages of 11-14. The child, if it’s a girl, may experience her first period, the child, if it’s a boy, will go through puberty. Girls may develop quicker, as many boys can recall a point in like 5th grade where all the girls were suddenly taller than them. These children are fussy and frustrated because they think they know more than they actually do, but are still treated for the most part like kids. They still need bedtimes and house rules and restrictions, but they don’t want them. A child will likely learn swearwords and start using them out of sight of their parents around the age of 12. This is also where a child’s cringe phase comes in because they will be going through middle school, which is the worst time in every kid’s life and a time that they all want to forget.

          A teenager is around 15-18. These are young adults. They have freedoms, mainly the ability to drive a car, but their life experience is limited. Around this age is where a child would get a girlfriend or boyfriend. No sex at this age. Don’t do that to your OCs. In Harry Potter, we often see writers jumping the gun and having their OCs hook up with Draco Malfoy in the third year. That’s too early for a kid. That kid would still be a preteen, and their life experience is limited. They also would be incapable of giving consent for something like that. Wait until they are 15-18. In Harry Potter fanfic, that would be years 5-7. This age of OC will want some autonomy away from their parents. If they visit the doctor’s office they may want to go alone. If you offered them a sticker at the doctor’s office, they’d take it ironically. They may experience early stages of depression, anxiety, or stress that can be caused by their school or home life because they have more expectations placed on them. They may have hobbies or be involved in after-school activities. A 17-year-old or 18 year old will be thinking about college.

          Notice the progression as the ages go up. A 5 or 6-year-old won’t have the pressures of a 17-year old, but they can still hold a conversation and do similar activities to the teenager. A 1-year old will speak in baby talk, but that window is very small and narrow, and in fanfiction we often see it carry on for much longer than it should. Babies grow faster than you think. They develop faster too, and you don’t want to limit your OC’s ability for growth because you’ve shoehorned them into one specific age. Child OCs deserve character growth just like adult OCs. The fun part about writing kid OCs is that the audience can see them grow into what would be already-developed personality traits and hobbies in an adult OC. The things that would get added to your internal character bio get to grow and blossom right in front of us. If you write a child OC, give them the chance to do that. Give them the chance to grow.

          Finally, most Harry Potter or Percy Jackson fanfics start the OC off as a first-year, which luckily for us is the same age as a new camper at Camp Half-Blood. Both are 11 or 12. We had a note for young OCs in Fanfiction 101 Unit 3: Please Stop Using Emily Rudd. I will reiterate that point: these OCs are 11-12 at the start of the fanfic. You should not be describing how “strikingly beautiful” an 11 or 12-year-old is. On top of that, children don’t notice things like that. Save attraction for when they’re like 14. That’s when it’ll have a more meaningful impact.

          Next week we’ll be getting more technical. The next unit is a topic the Editor and I have a lot of experience in, and hopefully, we’ll be able to bring in some outside perspectives.

Xoxo, Gossip Girl.

Sources:

     In my own personal opinion, eye color does not need to be described immediately. You can save small descriptions of your characters and sprinkle them in throughout the story, rather than dumping an appearance in one paragraph. In one instance you can describe what a character’s wearing, and in another later on, describe their hair as they pull it away from their face. Describe it as it changes from the normal. Jeremy Scott’s The Ables is a great example of character description and characterization. The main character is blind, which means that the cast gets by on contrasting personalities. We don’t know the ethnicity of many of the characters until we’re halfway through the book, and the main character only learns his basic appearance because it’s been described to him by his parents. Things like eye color and hair color and how tall someone is don’t matter as a whole. What matters is how it can be applied and further the story and the personality of the character. A character having curly brown hair? Don’t necessarily need that. A character who takes the time to curl her brown hair every morning? That tells me something about that character. Small moments, and giving descriptors through details can really help you avoid the paragraph dump. 

     Character Bios are the bane of my existence. Do not put character bios in the beginning of your fanfiction. All you’re doing is giving me a paragraph I’m not going to read. Character bios are lazy writing. It’s low-hanging fruit to mention them as something to not do. There are so many ways to incorporate detail into a story. By putting in a character bio, you tell the reader that you either: don’t know how to incorporate these facts, are too lazy to incorporate these facts, or don’t care enough about what you’re writing to incorporate this information that we must know immediately about your character. In addition, we don’t need to know your character’s favorite color and the music they like on page one, so why do that to yourself? Not caring about your work can ruin a fanfiction. If you don’t care about what you’re putting out there, how can you expect your audience to care enough to read it. 

     Another important aspect of characterization is show-don’t-tell. Which we’ve all heard, but I’ve rarely seen it used. When used effectively you can draw the reader in, and allow them to use context clues to draw their own conclusions. A good rule of thumb, and the Show Don’t Tell 101 is that you show emotions, and tell feelings. You don’t need to tell me how the floor swayed under someone’s feet and they felt as if they were underwater. You can just say they felt tired that morning. However you can show emotion, and show the full range of anger and pain when someone’s upset to convey properly how that character is feeling. This is something that requires a light touch. It ties in with context clues and foreshadowing. I shouldn’t know from the third line of dialogue of a Shane Dawson fanfiction that the OC has an eating disorder. I shouldn’t know when exactly two characters are going to end up together, or when two characters are going to split apart. It should come as a surprise. An example I can give is a story I have of two spies who fall in love. From the first chapter, it’s obvious to the reader how this world is a game to them, and how they click and exist on that same wavelength. Chemistry can be obvious. Banter can be a fun way to express chemistry. What wasn’t obvious in this story, was that one of the spies would be killed by his own organization. What wasn’t obvious was how this would shape the other spy, who became the main villain of later works. If you make the narrative obvious I want you to then surprise the reader. Because you yourself will get bored. That’s why you see a lot of fanfics get dropped after three chapters- the writer has it all planned out how something will happen, and this plan becomes boring, but they don’t try to change the plot to make it more exciting. Throw in a wrench. Shoot someone. Spice it up my dudes. 

     We titled this chapter Please Stop Using Emily Rudd because one, we see Emily Rudd, as well as other girls who will be in an imgur album at the end of this chapter, way too often as the main OCs in fanfiction, and two, they represent a saturation and an insecurity in the market of main characters. We as writers don’t need to rely on these girls, and we actually keyhole and limit ourselves when we stick to stereotypical goth/emo girls (ex: Eugenia Cooney, Aly Antorcha, and Taylor Momsen face claims), or pale girl with dark hair and green eyes (Emily Rudd) same thing different descriptor for Nina Dobrev, or that red haired girl with green eyes who I couldn’t find a name for but she’s in almost every Harry Potter and/or Weasley sibling fanfic so you know who I’m talking about. 

     These girls should not be the standard of OCs. On top of that, not every OC has to be “strikingly beautiful” some of these OCs are like, 11-12 at the start of the fanfic. It’s ok to not describe how pretty they are. On top of that, not all of the world looks “strikingly beautiful” and that shouldn’t be a character descriptor. When one fanfiction I read had the love interest describe the OC as, “nothing to look at,” they contrasted everything else I’d read before because they made the beauty in that character not about what she looked like but her actions and who she was as a person. She became more beautiful as the fanfiction went on because of her personality, and by the end of it, it made sense that the love interest fell in love with her because he loved her as a person, not as an object. That’s what it boils down to. These girls don’t have to be pretty thin models and celebrities to be good face claims. Spending less time on the appearance, and more time on the personality makes for a character more beautiful and more believable than if you used some model. Don’t feed the manic pixie dream girl trend. 

     Moving on. Your character should not fill a hole or replace a member of the cast. They should bring a new perspective and add, not take conflict from the original work. For example, if you are writing Harry Potter fanfic, the character should not be composed of all the attitude Harry and Ron didn’t get in the movies. If you write Sherlock fanfiction, the character should not be the voice of reason to apologize for Sherlock’s antics while still doing the same things as him. In my own Psycho-Pass fanfiction, my character should not be a manifestation of Shogo Makishima’s soul. All these things do are fill holes in the story without adding to the narrative. If they were removed the story wouldn’t know they’re gone. If you can add conflict or alternative plots to the narrative, making the characters and the cast go through something they didn’t go through otherwise, you make the OC matter more. There used to be a beautiful Harry Potter fanfic that got deleted, where the OC went on full fledged adventures without the cast. She did her own thing, hanging out in the Harry Potter universe. This fanfic worked because the OC was the star of her own narrative. She wasn’t hanging on to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco. They did their thing, and she did hers. It made for a great fanfic that I’m very sad to have seen the end of. Try and give your character something to do that doesn’t involve the cast. Think of it like fanfiction’s version of the Bechdel Test: Can your OC go through a chapter of fanfiction without relying on the cast. 

     Let’s revisit our darling, dearest, dead, Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Ravenway. Using what we’ve discussed in the previous paragraphs, I am going to attempt to fix the introduction given by our dear Enoby in Chapter One of My Immortal. Pray for me. 

     By Year 7 at Hogwarts, I had given up on the uniform. I’ve been at this school for too long to keep wearing the same damn thing, and as soon as I’m done I can bow out of button-ups and itchy sweaters. Professor McGonagall had a fit when I walked in last year with purple and red streaks in my hair. I smile as I imagine her face when she sees my miniskirt and corset. I sloughed in front of my mirror, carefully winging out my eyeliner and dabbling my lids with red eyeshadow. I popped on a black lip, blew myself a kiss, and felt stupid for doing so. 

     McGonagall didn’t even let me make the Great Hall. She marched me back, and forced me to change into the school uniform. I added pink fishnets and combat boots, and rolled my skirt up before heading back down to the Great Hall. My classmates gave me a wide berth. As I walked past a cluster of Slytherins I could hear them whisper. 

     “Fangy bitch.”

     “Say that again?” I said setting my sights on them. “Do you really want to insult me now? I haven’t even had breakfast yet, though I could make an exception.” They scurried off. I flipped them the bird as they went, and carried on downstairs. Remus Lupin was the best thing to ever happen to this school. Yeah, he was a werewolf, but I felt a little less alone. At least there was more than one monster running around here. 

     Next week we will be discussing names. Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way will make a return, as well as some other names that are uncomfortable and cringy to read. This is your warning now, that in 2 weeks we will have our first exam for Fanfiction 101. I did say in the introduction that there would be an exam, and it’s on its way. We will give you more information next week when we see you to discuss Nameberry.com. 

     Supplemental Instruction: The aforementioned imgur album of overused face claims and OCs. Think of this like a newly minted banned book list. 

          If you’re straight or cis and writing a gay or trans character, you need to do your research to accurately portray the character in a realistic and believable way. An example we love is Todd Chavez in Bojack Horseman, who portrayed an asexual character, and Todd’s journey as he came into his own. Bojack Horseman also portrayed polyamory with Hollyhock, who was the adopted daughter of 8 dads. What we enjoyed was that Todd’s sexuality added dimension to his character. It didn’t reduce him to being the token LGBT representative, and it didn’t force him into a box where he could only focus on LGBT issues. Todd was and is so much more than that, and his sexuality is a part of his story, but it’s not the sole story.

Rick Riordan is a master of writing experiences that are not his own, and he cheated the system by basing his characters off of people he knew. This is a method that you can use. You can base your characters off of friends, public figures, etc. If you decide to not do that, googling what transgender men and women have to experience or what top surgery is isn’t enough. I would suggest looking to Youtube, where many transgender and LGBT  influencers have talked about their experiences. I would suggest looking to forums, Reddit being one of them. Yahoo Answers is also a really good source. What you want is as many experiences as you can get: ones that are similar, and ones that contrast. The goal is to combine them and make your own character in a melting pot of other experiences. You owe it to not only those who read your story but yourself to do the research. You want your characters to represent the communities you do, and the ones you don’t as best you can.

          Let’s move on to people of color (POC). The same rules we’ve discussed prior apply: A poorly written POC is worse than no POC (Looking at you Baljeet). In addition, that POC’s ethnicity should not be their entire personality, and if you are creating a character just to say that you have made a POC, then you have already failed. There are many issues we see when we find people of color in fanfiction. Among them are language barriers, naming, and a misinterpretation of cultural values and experiences.

          Putting words in a foreign language in the middle of fanfic is very, very common. You see it everywhere. In Avengers fanfic it’s Russian or Norse. In Batman fanfic, it’s any of the languages that the Batkids speak. The writers put in these conversations that sometimes go on for pages in another language, and then add an author’s note at the bottom with the translation. This is awkward, and when you read books, this is something you never see. If you want your character to speak another language, you don’t need to actually write the other language. Putting a few sentences through Google translate doesn’t make you a better or more dedicated writer than someone who adds the tag: “she was screaming now, all her words coming out in rapid French.” Tags can be used to dictate a change in language, and I encourage you to use them. Now, there are of course exceptions to this rule, and those exceptions usually lie in food, names, and things. Calling someone a name that is in another language is fine. Describing food in another language is fine, and things are generally ok. But that’s just for you. Your characters also have to speak the language.

          No one worth their salt or heritage is going to go through a moment where they start out speaking in their fluent tongue and then “forget” to switch back and forth between English and their native language. It is so incredibly unrealistic and awful and it lets the reader know someone who is not actually bilingual wrote this piece of work. When you learn two languages, here’s what really happens: you forget words. You have to stumble through words in your own language before you get to the one you need. You call things, “that thing.” You point. You sometimes say “what’s that called?” you find aspects of the second language, or even your own language stupid and you don’t want to do it. You get words mixed up and you make mistakes. That’s all okay, and that all happens, and should be written as such. One of my teachers never forgot the French word for spider because she got the shit scared out of her by one and didn’t know what to call it when she needed someone to kill it. My aunt took 3 years to learn Turkish by immersion and now can speak it fluently. You don’t even need to be fluent in every language, and many people only know a handful of words in one or a few sentences in another. That’s totally okay! If anything that’s more realistic because it’s super hard to learn a new language and speak it fluently. Don’t force your characters into a box like that. Let them make mistakes.

          Culture is a huge thing when writing POC. You have to keep in mind that culture shifts, and what may have been culturally huge for one set of characters won’t be as significant for others. You want your characters to interact with their culture in a way that is realistic, and not reductive. Kelly from the Office is a great example, as she invites the office to celebrate Diwali with her. Lara Jean from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is another example. We see her eat Korean food at home, and in the books, she still celebrates Korean holidays. Where the shift comes into play can be seen in Never Have I Ever where Devi is not as Indian as her parents, and we see her struggle with the culture. She still goes to Hindu association things, Ganesh puja, and she wears Indian clothes. However, she’s still a normal teenager out chasing boys and worrying about colleges. In Superstore the Muslim character prays 5 times a day, and still works at the grocery giant. The big takeaway is that these people have lives that include, but aren’t limited to their cultures. They aren’t reduced to stereotypes.

          Naming characters is already rough. However, naming characters from a different background than you are even tougher. The Editor has a lot of anger towards Panju Weasley, from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Her exact words, as they were texted to me:

**

>Like Cursed Child where Ron and Padma has a kid named Panju.

>What the fuck is a Panju?

>That’s literally the dumbest name in the world

>All she had to google was Indian names.

>There are so many fucking lists.

>I dont even think it’s an actual name. Like it might be a nickname for some people but I dont think people have actually named their child panju.

**

          As usual, the Editor is very correct. There is a simple solution to getting around what we’ll call the Panju Dilemma- a phrase which we’ll use to describe terrible naming choices of POC. In Fanfiction 101 we had an entire unit centered around naming. Nameberry.com exists, and if they don’t have it all you need to do is Google the country of origin and the sex of the OC. Sometimes you can add in the year the OC was born, to really get a feel for the time period, but that doesn’t always work. For example, in one of our stories we have a cluster of kids from Syria. When it came time to name said kids, we Googled: popular Syrian names 2003. That’s how we got our OCs: Reem, Nour, Nizar, Jano, and Stella. Naming is very important, and you owe it to your readers and your characters to do them justice, and not saddle them with a terrible name.

          The final note of diversity we want to talk about is actual ability. Ableism is often overlooked in movies, shows, or books. It is something that is shoehorned in as an extra adversary for the OC or the cast, only *gasp* This time the biggest adversary is themselves. I hate that. I want to eliminate that because as someone with a disability and someone who has worked with kids with disabilities, you can absolutely write and code characters like that in so long as, and say it with me now, it is not their entire personality.

          You can totes write a character with anxiety and/or depression, so long as you don’t snub these very real mental disorders that millions face on a daily basis. You also have a duty, especially with anxiety and depression, to not glorify, glamorize, or romanticize either. Do not romanticize self-harm. Do not romanticize anxiety. Do not romanticize depression. They are not cruel tricks of life that befall beautiful intelligent women. It is not “tragically beautiful.” Depression and anxiety and self-harm are not a paragraph for you to lament on while the OC gazes longingly out the window at her lover. Anxiety keeps some people from talking on the phone they’re so nervous. It gives girls panic attacks in mall food courts because they don’t know what’s going on anymore. Depression isn’t your OC watching the rain in a hoodie and sweats, it’s not showering for days on end because you can’t find the motivation to. It’s having insomnia because you can’t sleep. Self-harm is not an OC’s love interest holding their wrists and telling them to stop. It is deep pain and numbness and hurting yourself to try and feel something. It is rubbing Neosporin on your cuts and hoping they go away. It is forcing your friends to keep it a secret because you don’t want anyone to know because what if they take it away from you. These mental disorders are not yours to romanticize. They are yours to show the growth and power and strength of your characters. They are yours to use to show how trauma has affected your character and can represent normality behind mental health and emotion and talking about things like this. Even more so than girls, writing a male OC with anxiety or depression is more empowering because you are allowing a character to talk about their feelings when that isn’t seen as acceptable by their sex. If you feel you are able to take that plunge, and you can do the adequate research to represent the disorder well, go for it.

          In addition to mental health, physical disabilities are often overlooked. I have a chronic illness. I have never seen in a book, movie, TV show, or fanfiction anyone with a chronic illness, let alone my chronic illness. That in of itself is a broad term, and I’ll let chronic illness mean anything from lupus and POTS to asthma and anemia. These disabilities make a character have to work harder, but hey, look at Captain America. The boy had every disability under the sun and he got out alright. No one is going to make changes for you. You have to be the change you want to see. If I want OCs with chronic illnesses, I have to write them and do them justice by not only my community but the communities that I don’t represent. Jeremy Scott’s The Ables is a great example of writing disability and using it as part of, but not a character’s entire identity. The main characters all have superpowers but are put in a class that doesn’t allow them to use said powers. This is because they are all disabled. The main character is blind and telekinetic, another can read minds but is in a wheelchair, another is a genius but has cerebral palsy. Their disabilities are a minor obstacle, but not the big bad, and that is a great way to write disability. People who live with physical disabilities or chronic illnesses have to deal with said limitations every day. To us, as time goes on it becomes less of the monster at the end of the story and more of an everyday beast. It becomes normal, and there are bigger things for us to worry about than just our disease. This speaks for every aspect of diversity we have covered in this chapter: The people with said note have to live with it every day. It is a common enemy, not the final boss. To treat it as such is to say that it is our biggest concern in life. I wish my chronic illness was my biggest concern, but I have other fish to fry.

          What we have done here is not an all-inclusive list of diversity. This chapter took 2 weeks to write because the Editor and I wanted to do right by our community. Not just the communities we proudly represent but the communities we don’t. There are many more nuances and aspects to diversity that are out there, and what we have presented is our best. Yet it is still incomplete. If there is something important that you feel we have left out, we sincerely apologize. We acknowledge that what we have written here is not all-encompassing for diversity. We wanted to talk about issues that are common occurrences. However, what we have covered is not the end-all of what’s out there. We apologize for the delay, and to make up for it, our next unit Writing Children will be published at the same time as this one. We sincerely apologize for the delay.

          A common exception to writing flaws in superpowers is DC or Marvel Comics. I have seen many many times the scene where, “an OC’s file gets passed around and we the audience get to read a laundry list of superpowers including but not limited to fire, ice, air, metal, lightning, etc.” I understand that superheroes in DC Comics have an abundance of superpowers. Look at Wonder Woman or Superman. Do not fall down that rabbit hole. You will struggle to write conflict for your character if you give them that many abilities. Hell, Superman’s own writers struggle to write conflict for him. It’s why he’s the most iconic but ultimately most boring character. On top of that, the “passing around a file” scene is another very overused cliche. I understand that it’s an easy way for the audience to see what the OC can do, but I think we as writers can challenge ourselves to be better than that. In addition, don’t take away the choice to share from the OC. If we’ve learned anything from X-Men, it’s that superpowers aren’t always taken well and some would rather die than be seen as a mutant or a freak. We know that these unnatural abilities are strange and confusing and that the people who have them need time to grow. They don’t need their supervisors outing them to God and everyone. Let your characters share their powers on their own terms. Let them have a special moment with the cast where they get to feel wonderful and special and magical. You’ll reveal more about the OC’s personality and develop a deeper relationship with the cast. Here’s an example.

          Let’s say we’re writing Avengers fanfic. Let’s say we give our OC control over light. Here are two scenes that are revealing the same information to Captain America. One is done on the terms of the OC, who we’ll call Astrid, the other is done by Nick Fury.

*****

          Astrid led him back to her room. It was like his own, the same size, and the same basic tidings- bed, dresser, desk, chair. While his had been dark gray, as had the rest of the team’s, Astrid’s was bright white. Steve noticed heavy black curtains tucked back from her window. The black stood out against the white of the rest of her room. She had a smile on her face. Her eyes were alight with excitement, and she pointed up at the ceiling.

          Covering the ceiling of Astrid’s bedroom were over a hundred hanging crystals. They had different shapes, sizes, and lengths and all swung from the ceiling on thin clear strings. Astrid turned off the lights. She pulled the black curtains out and covered her window which plunged them both into darkness.

          “I had to beg Nick for these. I told him it would be good practice.”

          “Practice for what?” A light turned on. It took Steve a moment to realize the light was coming from Astrid’s own hand.

          “No one’s really told you what I can do yet. I wanted to show you myself.” Carefully, she pulled one of the crystals down and let it rest in the palm of her hand.

          Rainbows bounced off the walls. Tiny refractory lights bounced around the room, off each crystal that was a brilliant gem in the darkness. Off the metal of Steve’s shield. Off the brass buckles of Astrid’s shoes. She grinned merrily, a beautiful cascade coming around the both of them.

          “It takes me forever to fall asleep. I never want to stop looking at them.” Steve smiled, studying the way the light danced on her walls.

          “Yeah.” He breathed. “I get it.”

*****

And the other, done by Nick Fury.

*****

          Steve sat at a roundtable with the rest of the team. At least, he thought he did. Looking around, he could see one person missing from the group.

          “Where’s Astrid?” Fury and Coulson exchanged a look. Coulson handed over a file and strode out of the room.

          “Agent Dawes is currently occupied. We thought it best to tell you without her.” Fury slid the file across the table. “Along with being an Agent of SHIELD, Agent Dawes joined up because of her… condition.”

          Steve opened the file. He could see a picture of a much younger Astrid looking back at him. Her date of birth, her parents, everything was laid out before him. When he flipped the page he found page after page of notes.

          “She can do what?”

          “We don’t have a real name for it yet. Just light manipulation.” Steve kept reading. The reports dated back years prior, with medic referral forms, personal statements, and even more photographs of Astrid.

          “Is Astrid a potential threat too, Director?”

          “We all are. Agent Dawes recognized her own risk ahead of time.” Fury took the file back. “She’s been training for years. She has it under control. Stark and Banner already know about her-”

          “I’m the last to know?” Steve said angrily. He looked at Tony and Bruce.

          “Hey, not my fault you got here late.” Tony turned back to his phone.

*****

          Do you see the difference? See how much more personal the first one is? Not only do we get to see Astrid actually use her powers, but we get a moment of bonding and trust between her and Steve, whereas in the second one her personal information is being divulged on her behalf. Not by her. It’s beneficial to make these superpowers personal, in the sense that the OC should be able to tell people on their own. Let them establish that trust with their team, and don’t shove it off to Nick Fury or Coulson or even Batman. It’s their gift, they need to share it on their terms.

          Superpowers and The Rules of the Universe go hand in hand in many ways. What I mean is the Rules of the Universe apply to superpowers as much as they do to timelines and cast desires and canon. When you write superpowers, they have to make sense with the world they live in, and not every OC needs superpowers. If you look at Twilight, you’d most likely have an OC with more subtle, less combat-oriented abilities (see Edward’s mind-reading or Alice’s seer talents). If you give an OC something heavy combat-oriented in this universe it feels a little clunky, and a little more like the Avengers but vampires instead of vampires with talents. On top of that, not every vampire needs to have a talent. It’s totally okay to have a vampire who can’t do anything special. I’m more compelled to read stories with those characters because they seem more realistic. It’s okay to have a character less important to the Volturi than Edward or Alice, or less gifted than Jasper. You can explore their individuality without tying them or limiting what makes them special to “they are a vampire and they have a gift.” Another example is Harry Potter. In that universe, the only extraordinary gifts we know of are Olcummency and Parseltongue. One is something you’re born with, the other takes patience and practice. It would be unrealistic to give a Harry Potter OC additional gifts. It would be rare to give them either of the aforementioned gifts because if something is described as rare in the canon, it shouldn’t include your OC. Your OC is not an exception to something’s scarcity.

          Let’s talk about powers themselves. I have several gripes with superpowers, and we are going to discuss all of them. First and foremost, something that kind of shows your own ass as a writer is using the -kinesis phrase of a superpower beyond the common ones people know (telekinesis, psychokinetic, etc.). It looks like you just googled, ‘list of superpowers’, and found atmokinesis and put it in because you liked the description. Who talks like that? No one knows what those -kinesis phrases actually mean we just use them because we think they sound cool. Don’t tell me that the character has atmokinesis, just tell me they can control the weather. You don’t need to use big words to make your gift sound impressive. It’s what they do with the gift that makes it impressive. Going off of this, not every superpower needs to be combat-oriented. You don’t need to give people super-strength, invulnerability, or fire powers for them to matter or be useful. It’s actually more creative and more unique if you take a superpower that isn’t combat-oriented and find a way to make it mean something. The best example is the Tumblr post that will be linked below, where the OC’s main ability was helping. It was helping out wherever they could and trying to make a difference and making the lives of their friends, who had some of the “strongest” superpowers in the universe, better. It is beautifully written, an incredible short story, and shows the value of being there for others versus trying to save the day. If you are writing a character with superpowers, I would absolutely recommend reading it.

          Finally, make it make sense. With superpowers, it’s kind of like the old saying, “if you describe a hammer hanging on the wall you better use the hammer before the end of the story.” Don’t describe something that you won’t use. So things like controlling taste, smell, temperature, those are things we never see used in the narrative, so there’s no need for the character to have control over them. If you’re struggling to come up with superpowers, the Editor and I have a few methods we’ve developed over the years to get off of and stay off of the superpower list websites:

I like to have my superpowers mirror the character’s backstory. I have a character who was kicked out of their home at 16 and therefore became a “hearth” where they could bind one location to appear at many, and with the turn of a knob bring the group from New York to Seattle to London. I did this to represent the character making their own home once they were exiled. Another example is a character who was almost killed in a tsunami. They can breathe underwater, and swim impossibly fast. You can give characters with a passion for drawing the ability to bring inanimate objects to life, characters who went to Antarctica as a researcher who came back with ice powers, characters who lost their twin that can multiply themselves, or characters who suffered amnesia that can now modify the memories of others. It’s fun to tie the gift to the story, and to me personally, it feels more cohesive when I do that. However, this isn’t for everyone. When you do this, the character’s superpowers shouldn’t become their whole personality. That should never happen in the first place, but especially here.

Another method we’ve used and we like is contrasting superpowers. If your character is blind, give them telekinesis (Scott 2015). If your character is afraid of heights, give them the ability to fly. If they’re afraid of dogs, make them talk to animals. Learning to get over their fears and weaknesses in the grand journey of mastering one’s powers shows growth, and shows character development, and we should never shy away from an opportunity for character development.

A final method that we’ve recently adopted is genetics. Something you see in Avengers fanfics is that the OC was inexplicably kidnapped and experimented on by HYDRA despite them having no shortage of volunteers as we see in Avengers: Age of Ultron, therefore, the existence of these OCs who are usually kidnapped doesn’t make sense. That is only mildly my business. What is my business is these test subjects having powers that don’t really make sense or that we don’t understand how they got them. It would make sense realistically, that a character who HYDRA experimented on would have powers that affect their vulnerability and less “shoots fire out of their hands.” This is because we can only assume that if they’re not using an Infinity Stone, they’re splicing and combining genes from animals to make a perfect soldier. If that’s your cup of tea, using a genetic connection to explain someone’s powers, go for it. The Editor and I have been using recently is the idea of gifts passing through generations. Let’s return to our new hero Astrid. Instead of being experimented on by HYDRA, having a backstory where she was maybe mugged or is afraid of the dark, or a backstory where she loves creepy-crawly dark spaces, we can say the following:

**

          “Wait… How many people can do what you can?” Tony looked up from his phone to Astrid, who had become engrossed in her newest prism. “Hey! Glow-stick!”

          “Mmm?” Tony tossed her his phone. “Oh… you don’t have to friend him.”

          “Why isn’t he here?” Astrid stood up and walked back to Tony, handing him his phone.

          “Why isn’t who here?” asked Steve.

          “My brother Jeremy. He’s like me.” She shrugged her shoulders. “He didn’t want to go. I texted him when Director Fury reached out, and he didn’t want to give up on his Northern Lights project. My cousins said no too.”

          “What do you mean, your cousins?”

          “Didn’t you know? I thought you knew everything Stark. My gift’s genetic. It’s been in my family for generations. I have my brother, and like, 3 other cousins who can do what I can. I’m the only one who responded to Director Fury’s text.” Astrid sighed. “If my cousin Dixie were here, she’d tell me that means I’m the idiot of the group. C’est la vie.”

****

          You can totally make superpowers genetic. It’s something that isn’t done often and is very fun because you can get into subtle mutations or variations of the same power. With Astrid, since we know she controls light, maybe the gene mutates with one of her cousins who can bend light in a way that they appear invisible. Maybe one of Astrid’s children can make the light into solid objects. Try making your superpowers a recessive gene. It could be a fun way to showcase the OC’s support network and give an explanation for their gifts that’s uncommon.

Our final note is that if you are writing a character with superpowers, we want to see the character learn to use those powers. It is so boring to have a character come out of the gate with gifts that they’ve mastered perfectly, OR, have a character initially struggle, but learn and master their gifts in 1 training session. That’s so boring to the reader, because there’s no development, and there’s no struggle. If a character earns their powers and is experiencing the new and wonderful, we want to see that struggle. That way at the end of the story when they have near-perfect control the ending is so much more satisfying because we know what went into that. Look at Avatar: The Last Airbender. The final fight with Ozai and Zuko’s final fight with Azula is the ultimate show of growth and mastery. You clearly see that neither of these boys are the same kids from the beginning of the series. The same is true for Percy Jackson, where all the Olympians have moments where they have powers, but don’t know or can’t use them. Let us see the struggle. It makes the journey more worthwhile. And, speaking of Avatar, no more “can control the four elements.” We’ve all seen the show. We all know the source material. It’s not original and your OC is not the Avatar.

          Next week is a big one! We’re talking about diversity. Not only diversity in race but diversity in LGBT, in experience, and how to capture and make your stories diverse, and where it makes sense to have a story that’s diverse.

Xoxo, Gossip Girl

References:

The Ables. https://www.goodreads.com/work/best_book/41929531-the-ables. Accessed 26 July 2020.

        On the flipside of unused names, some names are way overused. You see them all over this website and others: Montgomery is way too popular for its occurrence and we need to stop lying to ourselves and put it to bed. We all read Pretty Little Liars or watched the show, we all know where the surge in popularity came from, and not every character is Aria. I see you guys. Names and surnames surge in popularity as different TV shows and movies come out. When Pretty Little Liars came out in 2010, suddenly every OC was a Montgomery. They’re like fashion trends; they’re cyclical, and instead of feeding into that trend (or making sick fanfic where every Montgomery witch, superpowered individual, and OC know each other) take the time to scroll through popular names and surnames to find one that fits the era of when you’re writing. Don’t half-ass it. I’m guilty of that myself, and if I can get better so can you. My Psycho-Pass fanfic? Sheeta Makishima was for Sheeta from Castle in the Sky. I couldn’t be bothered as a kid to look up a name for her and picked the first one with an S I could think of. A character’s name should be significant, but it doesn’t define them as a person, and I keep going back to personality but names can tell you something about the personalities of the parents who named the OC. For example, one of my new characters the Editor and I named Chad Michael Smith and said that his parents were diehard Chad Michael Murray fans since the comparison would be inescapable.. We have a series of characters that are all named after the different ways the Editor gets her name mispronounced at Starbucks. I don’t want you to be joyless and dull when naming your characters, but a touch of realism will make for a more immersive story. 

        When we say, “fit the vibe,” we mean that if there is a pattern in naming the character should fit that. The biggest example is little Weasley sister fanfiction for Harry Potter. All of the Weasley children, except Ron, are named after nobility. Arthur is King Arthur, Bill is King William, George, Frederick, Percival, etc. What this means when you are writing Weasley sister/sibling fanfiction, is that your OC should be named after nobility, because that fits the vibe of the Weasley family and makes her character more believable than if the character was named Lola or Ruby. In googling English nobility, the names Margaret, Matilda, Philippa, Anne, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Sophia, and Victoria appeared. Tilly or Pippa Weasley would be strong OC names because both fit the style and vibe of the characters. Fanfiction is not your own story. It is your influence or spin, and with that, you have to do some research to keep the narrative consistent. 

        Speaking of consistency, not every name was meant to have a nickname. Again, you can google names that have easy nicknames that glide down our throats. I shouldn’t choke on a nickname like it’s a bad shot of tequila. It should feel effortless. This is where my aversion to the name “Sapphire” comes back. “Saph” is not a nickname for Sapphire. Remember Harry Potter where Lavender Brown called Ron “Won-won” and Harry was dying inside every time he heard it? That’s me. I am Harry. Not everything can have a nickname, and a good way to examine this, as well as all of your dialogue, is to say it out loud. You, as an author, know what tones and inflections each line of dialogue is supposed to be. But you don’t know how awkward a name or how weird a phrase is until you say it out loud and hear it. That’s a way to eliminate awkward nicknames and use the plethora of other monikers and pronouns that exist: dude, bruh, girlie, my guy, etc. You have options, and if you choose a name that doesn’t have a realistic nickname, don’t force it. 

    Just because a piece is a fanfiction doesn’t mean you can come up with ridiculous plot lines and reduce the cast to one-note personalities. It is very easy to rely on the most blatant part of a character’s personality to carry over their impression, but it isn’t enough to make realistic fanfic. In Harry Potter fanfiction, for example, Hermione Granger is often reduced to a clenched butthole who never stops screaming about homework. Hermione the canon character is a muggle-born witch who sees magic as an opportunity and wants to be the best she can possibly be, as well as a character who staunchly opposes injustice. She will not ignore injustice for the sake of academics, which is how organizations such as SPEW and Dumbledore’s Army were created. As a writer, it helps to flip back through Harry Potter and make notes for yourself on the themes of each character’s personality and flaws. For Hermione, instead of focusing on the academic, the writer needs to remember the bravery and the pursuit of injustice. They also need to remember how stubborn she is and how much she hates to lose or be proven wrong (See Harry beating Hermione in potions in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince). If you’re including characters like Hermione in your fanfiction, it requires some research, and having a cheat sheet will be helpful in developing a more realistic voice.

    Some issues in realism also come from the writer having way more voices than what they know what to do with. This means that maybe you had one OC, but that OC interacts with a large group like One Direction or The Avengers. There’s an easy solution: Your OC does not need to interact and be best friends with every single character. That itself is unrealistic. Take your own friend group for example. There are some members of that group you text every day, there are some you only see at events, some you only see on weekends, and some who are around all the time. It is perfectly ok if you as a writer are uncomfortable, to have some characters back up and take on a lesser role at the start of a fic. As you grow more confident with larger groups, you’ll still have the option to reintroduce them, or you can even have a specific arc in the story with your OC and those background characters. What the Editor and I see all too often is groups being forced to stick together as a group. What happens then is that the watered-down personalities infect all the characters as a whole and decrease the value of the fic overall. Take One Direction for example. In these fics, because it’s so important for the group to stick together as a group, Louis’s personality is reduced to screaming about carrots. Liam screams about spoons. Zayn does it with mirrors, and Harry, his hair. Not only are these boys reduced to the bare bones of personality, but all the writer has also done is taken the most ridiculous parts of their personalities and made it represent their entire beings. It’s not realistic. What you can do as a writer is send them off to other places or keep them in the background. You have no clue how to write for Zayn? He’s gonna be on his iPad for this scene watching a movie. You don’t know what Louis would do during this part? He’s gone to the store or gone for a walk. The characters don’t have to be together all the time. The same is true for Avengers fanfiction, and I’d argue that it’s easier to do this for Avengers because you can be more creative with the excuses. Clint’s at the farm. Natasha and Steve are on a mission. Tony got dragged to some event with Pepper. Bruce is in his room- he asked to not be disturbed. There is no rule that says a group has to stay together at all times, and if you’re uncomfortable you can find ways for those characters to leave, or put them somewhere in the background where they won’t interrupt the scene.

    Let’s talk briefly about love interests. The notes for the romance chapter are already horribly long, as the Editor and I have been discussing all the common mistakes and errors we see in romance fictions, but we’re saving that for after Exam 2 since I already have to apply a curve to Exam 1 for everyone who didn’t study. I digress. Love-interests can get just as bogged down as regular members of the cast. We’ve previously discussed how characters wouldn’t drop their entire personality the minute their love interest appears. That still stands because it isn’t realistic. Another thing that isn’t realistic, is amplifying a rival’s personality to make your pairing better by comparison. I see you people, and making a character or member of the cast more obnoxious or annoying so your pairing looks better is unrealistic and needs to come to an end. For example, say you’re writing a The Vampire Diaries fanfiction and your OC is madly in love with Damon. Fine, whatever, I don’t care. What I do care about is you the writer making Elena more obnoxious or more of a bitch to force your Damon/OC pairing. That’s not kosher. In the real world, relationships can fall apart and come together for reasons other than this person is suddenly super annoying and controlling and I don’t know why but oh look this new girl I’ve never seen is totally nice and super chill. Relationships are a partnership, and as a shortlist, they can fall apart because of: differing levels of commitment, they’re no longer on the same page, they’re afraid of being alone (yes relationships can fall apart because of this), someone compares their relationship to everyone else’s, someone tries to rely on their body language as a form of communication and as such, they don’t communicate, someone sees their partner as inferior, and so on and so forth. Another helpful way to naturally push a breakup is that in many couples who have been together for a long time, what originally were quirks and cute becoming obnoxious flaws that are too much effort to deal with. An example of this can be found in Neil Hilborn’s spoken-word poem OCD, where he describes how his ex fell out of love with him because his tics that were at first fun and cute became annoying and too much to handle. It’s sad, but it is more realistic for two people or two characters to break up over these reasons than one character waking up and turning into a complete nuisance. We will cover more of this in the Romance Unit.

    We sometimes find an error in the Meet Cutes or the way in which the OCs first meet and interact with the cast. These can range from they came to the coffee shop I worked at to they saved me from xyz villains. However, if this story is taking place in the real world we’d appreciate a spoonful of realism. If a character is planning a trip abroad, they would not get to the airport 10 minutes before the flight leaves. That is a fun way to suddenly not have a trip abroad. It doesn’t build tension for the audience when things like this occur, it just sets up unrealistic circumstances and makes the entire scene less believable. The same is true for say, One Direction fanfics where the fan somehow miraculously sneaks backstage and meets the band. That wouldn’t happen in real life. I understand it’s hard to figure out how two characters can get into the same room, but you have other options. Going back to One Direction, a teenage girl becoming the personal assistant for five teenage boys is very unrealistic. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t write those kinds of fanfiction. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t write One Direction fanfiction though! You just need something more realistic. You could have:

The daughter of an executive producer or choreographer or stylist for the boys who have to bring their parents something they’ve forgotten.

The store manager at a shopping mall who lets the boys sneak out the back of the store when they’re running from paparazzi.

They could be a musician who is trying to get signed to the same label as the band.

    So long as your fanfiction is realistic fiction, I want you to lean heavily on realism. This does not apply just to One Direction fanfic. Every universe has a set of stakes and standards. We covered this in Chapter One. What we need to do now in realism is to apply those standards and make sure that when two characters meet, it feels natural. It feels like something that could happen and not something that was forced to happen.

    Speaking of forced to happen, let’s delve into character flaws. We talked about in Unit 5 how some writers appear uncomfortable with seeing their characters struggle. What some authors fail to realize is a tougher uphill climb makes the view so much more worth it. Seeing your characters struggle is a fact of life: not everything comes naturally to you, so why would it to your characters? When I was first trying to force myself to give my character flaws I would scour lists online for “common character flaws.” There is an easier solution. Your character’s flaws can mirror the positive attributes of a character. For example, If your character is very loyal, they may be headstrong and unwilling to hear or believe criticism of the person or thing they are loyal towards. You can think of that in terms of a devoutly religious person who won’t hear criticism of their beliefs, or of a loyal friend who won’t believe the person they know did something wrong. A character who is very giving may not take time for themselves or would let themselves go without before seeing their friends suffer. A character who is romantic and loves to try and woo their significant other may be jealous when they can’t spend time with that person or may be needy, and struggle with being alone. As an easy trick, try and view your character’s positive attributes through a negative lens and see what flaws you can pull out, so like me, you can stop scrolling the lists online just to say your character bites their nails or smokes.

    The best example of flaws and consequences of those flaws is Percy Jackson. Riordan makes a point for the heroes to have “fatal flaws” with Annabeth’s being pride and Percy’s being loyalty. You see consequences for these flaws throughout the book, and you see bad things happen to the characters because of their pride or loyalty. Annabeth wouldn’t have gone after the spider alone if it weren’t for her pride. She wouldn’t have tried to hear and survive the siren’s song. She makes mistakes and falls down and even lands in Tartarus because of her pride, which makes her a more realistic character. The same is true for Percy, whose loyalty to his friends and those he loves forces him to act recklessly and to even defy the gods in the name of those he cares about. You can see it in Nic DiAngelo as well because his grudge against the demigods is what kept him out of the books for so long. Until such a time where Bianca could tell him to get over it and forgive. Flaws are important to have and vital to character development, but we should also see consequences for these flaws otherwise we won’t know they’re there. Remember, we as readers can only infer from what you give us, and we’re not doing character bios anymore. So if you want your character to have flaws, the only way we can see that is by consequence of their actions. It’s okay for your characters to fail from time to time. It makes the victories better by comparison.

    In the same vein of character flaws, let’s finally talk about Mary Sues. A Mary Sue is a character who can accomplish any task no matter how difficult with little effort and is adored by all. Depending on the story, we can see this play out in different ways. Often, we see authors try to disguise the character’s Mary Sue-ness by giving her some random flaw to prove she’s not perfect; however, that flaw doesn’t seem to impact her life in any way at all.  For example, in Avengers fanfics, our Mary Sue has some vaguely defined powers that allow her to do absolutely everything imaginable but may have a flaw that was added as an afterthought like being bad at math. This flaw may later be ignored as in another chapter she could/would solve a physics problem that stumped Tony Stark. Her flaw had no impact on her ability to be better than everyone around her, and this makes her a Mary Sue. As a side note, when you give your characters superpowers, the character should have a consequence or rule for using those powers. The book Magic or Madness starred a family of witches, who had to use their powers because they would go insane without them. However, using those powers cost them years off their lifespans. In Mary Sues, we see characters who make themselves the plot, instead of joining or coming along for a storyline that they participate in. We see this happen a lot in Victorious with Tori Vega. Anytime something, all of the characters turn to her to magically swoop in and save the day. For example, in the Great Ping Pong Scam episode (season 1, episode 11), Robbie ordered way too much caviar and now they’re unable to pay their bill. Don’t worry though, Tori has this shit handled. We see her borrow Jade’s dress and sing her way out of that situation. There was absolutely no reason for that to happen; we know Jade is a talented singer, she could have easily done that herself. Make it mean something, and make there be consequences for these characters.

    Another common trait of Mary Sues is a tragic backstory. The character might have lost their family, may have been abused, may have been homeless, had depression, been suicidal, or even all of the above. It’s not a bad thing to have a character with a tragic backstory. What makes that character a Mary Sue is when that backstory does not impact who they are as a person. The backstory is there for the audience to sympathize with the character, not as an internal conflict of the character herself, and more often than not the tragic backstory manifests itself in being closed off and, “refusing to trust people,” while still having a large group of friends like the Avengers or the cast of Harry Potter or the Heroes of Olympus. There are consequences for actions. Things people do and say can have lasting effects and carry on with someone for the rest of their lives. It can manifest in rational fears, and irrational fears and a character may have both healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms. If you write in a terrible instance that has occurred for your character, you need there to be consequences for the actions of both that character and those who hurt them. A good example is in Bill Willingham’s Fables: Legends in Exile in the characters Snow White and her sister Rose Red. The short and long of it is that Snow White was rescued by the prince, and abandoned her sister. Rose Red was eventually sent for, but only after a great deal of time had passed. This made her feel unwanted, and as revenge on her sister, she slept with Prince Charming and destroyed their marriage. Beyond that, years later, Rose Red still struggles with inadequacy compared to Snow White and still resents her for abandoning her. She can’t keep a stable relationship and feels she isn’t good enough for any of her potential love interests. Rose Red is a great example of a character still feeling the aftershocks of a traumatic event. She was abandoned, and she grew bitter, and she got the revenge she wanted but it still wasn’t satisfying and did more harm than good to her in the long run. To avoid Mary Sues, you need to make your characters have flaws, make them have secrets (beyond their superpowers that inevitably get revealed later in the story), make them have selfish moments, make them afraid, and make sure that if they experienced tragedy and heartbreak that it is something they’ve never forgotten.

    The next few notes are not specific to one genre or fandom but are aspects of realism that need to be addressed. First and foremost, it is biologically impossible for boy-girl twins to be identical. This is because when two haploid cells make a diploid zygote, which is how babies are made. Identical twins are always the same sex because they come from the same egg, and all the DNA is copied twice, making them completely identical. Because they are completely identical, they are the same sex. Fraternal twins, which are also more common than identical twins by a longshot, are made when two individual eggs are fertilized at the exact same time. They then grow together in the uterus and make babies who don’t look exactly alike. All boy-girl twins are fraternal because it is biologically impossible for them to be identical since they can’t have a difference in chromosomes while still coming from the same egg. The biology major in me is really coming through in this paragraph, and I apologize for that, but what we’re trying to say is that you can’t have a set of twins that are boy-girl twins and describe them as looking exactly alike. That is unrealistic. Fraternal twins are way more common, and more realistic than identical twins. Give them a shot.

    Song lyrics written out in their entirety are a very quick way to ruin the immersion and take your reader out of the story. Having a character sing to another character, very often it is in an unrealistic set of circumstances, and it comes across as cringy and extra instead of emotional. This is more abstract in terms of what is okay and what isn’t and it does go on a case-by-case basis. The good rule of thumb is if you the author have seen this happen in real life or it is something that can actually happen in real life, go ahead. But don’t put the lyrics of the song. Instead, while the character is singing describe how the character they are singing to is reacting. Romanticize the shit out of their surroundings, and make something that’s charming and sweet, instead of cringy. If you need help, our examples of good scenes that involve singing are:

Two people in love singing badly while they dance drunk around the kitchen.

A little boy or girl sharing their favorite song with a stranger to show the innocence of children.

Sports fans singing during a match or a game

The dying rebellion singing their battle cry only after loads have died as a means to try and reignite their hope.

The happy and alive rebellion singing at the top of their lungs because they’re young rebels with a cause and no one has died yet.

The old homeless man getting a guitar for the first time in 2 years and singing a cover of Creep that breaks your heart a la the Youtube video that will be linked below.

Nightmare musical numbers

Songs sung by two voices in two different time periods a la Bojack Horseman’s I Will Always Think of You

Sad reprises

    If it can happen in real life, go for it. But don’t tell me what the lyrics are. If you’re worried the readers won’t get it, put a link to the song at the very end of the chapter. Or, if music is a big part of your character, make a soundtrack and put it at the end of the story. A memoir I read recently, Rustbelt Femme, the author Raechel put her mixtape at the end of her book because the music was such a big part of how she came into her own identity and discovered her sexuality. This was something she wanted to share with her audience so in the book itself she would mention the bands or songs in passing, and at the end of the book, she put them in a list for people to listen to on their own. I can understand wanting readers to grasp the importance of the scene, but let them explore that in their own time. Don’t force it down their throats by putting song lyrics in the middle of a story.

    Next week we’re talking about crossovers. I am very excited, as I love a good crossover fanfiction. We’ll discuss how to make crossovers work, how some don’t work and why, and tie it back to both characterization and the Rules for the Universe. Xoxo, gossip girl.

Additional Reading (Listening): 

Neil Hilborn’s OCD 

    In BBC’s Sherlock the biggest cliche the Editor and I have seen is Sherlock having a twin sister who is also a detective. Now in Unit 3: Face Claims, we discussed that Sherlock’s sibling shouldn’t be the voice of reason or conscience while also doing the exact same thing as him. This still stands. If Sherlock has a twin, that twin shouldn’t be seen as “the good one” or “the nice one” when they shoot the same things, break into the same places, and act just as manic as he does. It isn’t consistent. The twin should not be a carbon clone that is smarter and prettier and gets along with everyone else. That’s not a character, that’s a Mary Sue that solves crimes. There are 10,000 jobs in the world, and the best way to break the monotony of Sherlock’s twin is to make her something that isn’t a detective. Make her her own person. For example, Sherlock could have:

    A twin sister who works as a crime statistician for the government. She’s been given a cushy office she doesn’t deserve because of Mycroft and she tries to call her brothers once a week. They don’t necessarily answer. She needs to use criminal trends to track where Moriarty will be so Mycroft can have him arrested and interrogated.

    A sister who went to school for law, and became a powerful and wealthy corporate attorney. Sherlock paid off everyone in a mile radius? She paid off everyone in a 5-mile radius. She makes sure his bills are paid, his fridge is stocked, and that he and John are happy without either of them knowing. She uses her knowledge of the law to find holes in Baskerville’s policies that would allow Sherlock and John to sneak in.

    A twin sister who’s a mom of two and likes to paint. She teaches at the local college and babysits her neighbor’s kids when she’s out. Mycroft is the godfather of both of her kids, and she likes to crochet when she has the time (she never does). She needs to figure out why the painting is a fake and what book fits the cipher.

    My point is that Sherlock can have a twin. I don’t care, and that doesn’t trigger me like it triggers the Editor (I think she just has something against twins). Sherlock’s twin should have a personality of their own. The cliche in this genre is Sherlock having a twin that’s essentially, “genius but better.” If you make her exactly like him you limit the potential to make a story that’s compelling. You also break the rules of the universe, as you’ll have to go back and rewrite all the episodes to include her. Don’t do that to yourself.

    In Supernatural, The big cliche is the boys having a teenaged Winchester sibling and/or a guardian angel. Bonus points if Cas is the guardian angel. I’ve also seen a lot of ‘Sam Winchester’s Guardian Angel’ and if that’s you after all the things that character has gone through you need to be fired. These ones just don’t make sense. They break the rules of the universe and make the cast have to bend over backward just for the character to exist. The original work should not be broken to fit your narrative. You have to make your prompt work in their established universe. Unfortunately, teenaged Winchester siblings do not work. There is not enough of a time gap between what we know about the story and this prospect to fit a 16-year old child. The same stands for Dean Winchester’s child. It doesn’t fit, so don’t try and force it to fit. You can have a teenaged hunter be significant and interact with the Winchesters without them being blood. By forcing them to be blood you go against one of the main themes of the show: Family don’t end in blood. Stop making Bobby Singer’s child OCs, or Cas’s, or Sam’s, or another illegitimate John Winchester child because we already have one who spent god knows how many years in hell. Instead, John Winchester could have family he’s estranged from. An older sister or brother who left the Winchester house after they turned 18 and never looked back. You could create a new pair of hunters, an OC who runs the halfway house for Hunters. Garth stepped in as Bobby when he died. Who stepped in for Jo and Tess? There are more options and much more creative options than pigeonholing one specific cliche.

    Moving on, in the same vein of not needing an OC to be bound to the cast by blood, Hermione/Harry/Ron’s twin sister is a huge cliche. Sometimes the Hermione twin sister is also, “not like her sister at all,” a phrase that usually means, “also brilliant, but more attractive and funnier.” The origin of these OCs, however, is minuscule to the fact that they always either end up dating Draco Malfoy or are in a love triangle and/or square, where all the boys in Harry Potter (Cedric Diggory, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Dean Thomas, and Draco Malfoy) are in love with the OC. As a matter of fact can we just get rid of love triangles altogether? They’re exhausting and not realistic. They don’t add enough to the story to make it meaningful, and an OC should have a story that’s more compelling than “which boy am I going to end up with?” Also, usually, these stories tell you in the title. I’m talking about the [Fred x reader], [Draco Malfoy x Reader] titles, though the same is true for any writer who puts [Love Interest x OC] in their title. What is the point of a love triangle my guys? What are you doing? We already know before we even read the first chapter who the main character is going to end up with, so why bother wasting our time with a love triangle?

    The other Harry Potter cliche, is the youngest Weasley sibling who is a girl. This is a huge no-no and should be stricken from the record entirely because, once again, it breaks the rules of the universe. We know from the Harry Potter books that Molly Weasley wanted and craved a daughter and kept having kids until she got one. This is why Ron is the least loved, as he was the last boy in the family before Ginny, as said by the Horcrux in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows “Least loved always, by the mother who craved a daughter. Least loved now by the girl who prefers your friend” (Rowling 375). What this means, is that if you make an OC who is the youngest Weasley sibling, and a girl, you completely go against the desires and intentions of Molly Weasley as well as devalue and undercut the importance of Ginny Weasley- her tokenism as the only girl is tied to the significance of being the first and last daughter Molly Weasley ever had. Without that, with another girl there is no need for Ginny Weasley, and as we’ve discussed numerous times here: Your OC should never replace a member of the cast. What is acceptable, however, is Ginny Weasley having a twin sister, or even being a triplet. If you are sold on a youngest-girl Weasley fanfic, make them a twin or triplet of Ginny. If you go above or below her you break the rules of the universe. They have to stay on her level. In addition, please see Unit 4: Nameberry.com to properly name your Weasley sister OCs, as they have to fit the style and vibe of being named after nobility. Moving on.

    The next handful of cliches don’t apply to any particular genre. Every genre is equally guilty of having these cliches, and what we’re going to do is use some works for specific examples of these cliches, but know that they apply to everyone; not just the work we’re referencing.

    If a character is marketed as a strong and capable badass who is independent and a boss and kicks ass and takes names, they should not turn into a wimp because their love interest wants to “protect” them. “Protection” as a whole is such a cliche. It’s in practically every story. If a character has been described as strong and has up until this point kicked a lot of ass, that character will not break down and destroy all the character development they just made for the sake of a love interest. A character who is described as strong will also not let their love interest try and stifle them like that. “Protection” is overused, and unless the character is going to crumble like a daisy at first blood or is living in a war zone, they can handle it themselves.

    Again… We’ve all seen Pretty Little Liars. It’s almost funny how many cliches came from that show and book series. Let’s talk about evil twins. I don’t just mean evil in the Alison DiLaurentis way where she stole her sister’s identity and had her carted off to inpatient treatment, I also mean evil in that they are everything their cast member sibling is, but superior. This is evident in so many siblings and twin fics. The evil twin is usually better at everything than the cast twin, and systematically destroys the cast member’s life for fun. Now, I’m not saying this isn’t a valid plot point. What I am saying is you can’t make the evil twin better at everything than the cast member twin. That’s not realistic, and it negates the need for a struggle. A villain is not a more intimidating adversary because they’re better at everything than the hero. An evil twin is not scarier or more frightening as a villain because they can do 3 flips into a punch while the hero only can do 2. Also if the villain is so wonderful and so much better how is it realistic when the hero defeats them? It isn’t. “The same but better” shows me as a reader that the writer is uncomfortable with character creation, and making stakes that mean something or seeing their character struggle.  Not only will it make the OC more realistic, but it will make the story more fun to write.

    A writer uncomfortable with the struggle is another cliche we see often. It takes the form of characters who are perfect, who hit every step just right and have the best comebacks all the time. We as people fail and fall down, and characters are meant to be a reflection of us that we can relate to. An audience won’t relate or root for a character that always accomplishes their goal. It actually makes the character boring because, we know they’re going to do what they set out to do so why bother reading? Characters are allowed to have flaws. Those flaws, and seeing consequences for those flaws are what make a character compelling, and for every positive attribute that a character has we should see 1-2 flaws that reflect that attribute. For example, in my own original work Trapped, the main character is an alien on a planet that is thousands of years ahead of Earth in technology, intellect, and scientific advancements. One of these characters is an upstart student training in one of the top labs to be a doctor. He has people working underneath him, and he’s clearly achieved. His work ethic is incredible and he is dedicated to his field. However, his dedication has cut him off from his family- their relationship is strained to the point where one of his siblings entered the same field just to catch a glimpse of him. He is afraid to be emotionally vulnerable because he has to have the answers to all these questions. He doesn’t know how to relax, because he’s always at work and this has cost him a life outside of the lab. He gets annoyed easily because he thinks fast enough to see the answer and becomes frustrated when he has to work with other people. We’re going to revisit this in the next unit, but a character without flaws is a boring character because the flaws are what allow us as readers to do our own analysis and find a deeper meaning in someone as a whole.

    Our final cliche is the ire of the Editor’s existence. It is twins who are separated at birth or end up in foster care that magically find each other at the start of the story. I also kind of hate this cliche, because again, we’ve all seen The Fosters or is it Switched At Birth? I don’t know, and I don’t really care. If you have a character who is taken from their actual family, you need to double-down and commit to the issues that OC would have. That character wouldn’t show up on someone’s doorstep and magically be taken into the family as one of their own. Life doesn’t work that way. The foster care system is a horribly broken system (at least in the US it is) and that character many times won’t have access to that. In the US, for that information to be given there needs to be reciprocated interest in both the fostered child and the biological parent (usually the father). In divorce proceedings, the courts will almost always give the child to the mother unless the mother has a severe strike against her that would make her unfit to keep a safe environment for her child (prison time, drugs, etc.). The courts really dislike the idea of taking a baby away from its mom, which means that fathers rarely get custody of the child, and a non-blood relative even less than that. When the child is underage, the biological parent can’t show up on a doorstep and demand to see their child. They need to go through the courts and express a desire in having a relationship with their child. The child would then get an advocate, who would speak for them in court and make sure their wishes (to see or not to see their parents) are expressed. The foster system is messy and wrong and sometimes cruel, and if you are going to write switched at birth or foster-twin stories, you need to do your research on the judicial system. It isn’t just showing up on a doorstep with a birth certificate. It’s gritty and messy and if you want it, you have to take in it all.

    Next week we are going to talk about realism, and how to really capture both the voices of cast members, as well as realistically write living scenarios. Remember to take Fanfiction 101 Exam 1 if you haven’t yet, and everything from this unit until Crossovers will be on Exam 2.

References:

        A big aspect to consider when writing your fanfic and making rules for the universe is how deep into canon you should go. Your OC should not conflict with the canon of the story. This puts more work on you as a writer, to go back and meticulously re-watch and rewrite every episode or chapter of a book or show to include your OC's comments. Don't do that to yourself. There are easier ways to insert a character in a narrative that doesn't involve being there for every single event in the cast's lives, and it is acceptable to ignore canon. This is fanfiction, you are allowed to ignore canon. an example of that is rewriting seasons, because as aforementioned, you don't want to do that to yourself, and putting your ship together when they didn't end up together.