FANFICTION ORIGINAL CHARACTERS - Terrible Writing Advice

Let Terrible Writing Advice show you the best tricks for sneaking in Mary Sues right under the noses of unsuspecting fanfiction readers with this guide on how to make fanfiction original characters!


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[thunderblood]

"Expressing emotions other than Lust."

He just called out half of all OCs.

[bobuncle]

Everyone knows that the best fanfiction OC is the guys who says ZAPPERS all the time.

[HStorm]

if your stand-in OC isn't sleeping with every character you liked in the original story, is it even an OC?

[timesnewlogan]

I once wrote a fanfiction about the unluckiest man in the Star Wars universe: every time something got thrown off-screen in the films, it managed to hit him or whatever he was driving at the time.

[kaylahouvenagle]

Idea: two Gary Sues slam into each other, and have to deal with no longer being the center of attention, and one gradually discovers other people exists, while the other has a villainous meltdown and tries to make everyone focus on him.

Meanwhile the love interest is dealing with the werefish (spooky mermaids)

[DonVigaDeFierro]

My OC has blonde hair and brown eyes. She loves everyone unconditionally, but is sometimes too clumsy and naive. Everyone loves her and those who would harm her are absolute evil. Even those who don't like her at first can end up protecting her. She tried always to be helpful and has an intuition for good and bad people, and she ends living together with the main characters.


She's a golden retriever named Honey.

[FirstLast-cgnk]

"Don't focus on avoiding Mary Sues. Focus on writing good characters." That's some great writing advice right there. Consider Superman: On paper, he's A-Tier Mary Sue material, as he's got superpowers, invulnerability, and high (but not too high) intelligence, while also being incredibly handsome, kind, and nice. Everyone loves him and he's the focus of a lot of attention in-universe. However, in execution, he's a much deeper and more nuanced character because he's well-written.

[hunterkiller]

Let's rip off all popular characters and mix them into one. Now, that's an OC since it's been completely bastardized.

[shelbyg.]

If you’ve never described your character’s eyes as violet orbs, then you’re clearly doing something wrong.

[mitchellenderson]

“my character can’t be a Mary Sue because she suffers from HORRIBLE ANGUISH! The SUFFERING she must ENDURE as melodramatically as possible!”

She works retail?

[khalidgagnon]

Actually, a fanfic where JP writes Mr. Cabbage coming back to take revenge on Actually that sounds like that could be fun if done right

[lesstalking]

"Write what you know" means "do your research and _then_ write, " but no one ever—ever!—does that.

[Row_of_E]

You can hear him laughing maniacally while writing the script for it

[pigletimnota]

"It's not an OC, unless it's OP". What a legendary quote

[randomdude-]

When I insert myself into a fanfiction, it's considered 'cringy' and 'lame', but when Dante does it, it's considered a 'masterpiece' and 'revolutionary to the Catholic canon'

[Diembee]

“Don’t focus on avoiding Mary Sues. Focus on writing good characters.”
That’s some S-tier writing advice right there

[xfakelucid]

How to write a good OC: don't treat them as an OC. Treat them as another character in the story.

[kimifw]

JP, seriously. We're not as tired of love triangle jokes as you think we are. You can bring it back now.

[lukevankleef]

''My OC is an idealised version of myself.''
Me: takes all the things I don't like about myself and exaggerates them to hell and back to make an absolute gremlin of a character.

[AzraelThanatos]

You know, the cabbages guy in Avatar getting a gundam seems like it might be a fun way to break the universe in a crack fic...