how are ocs created?

...are you kidding me? Slap a different name onto that OC and steal 'em. Done.

 

@Rose @Aviari thanks!

well, i was considering that but i didn't wanna do anything unethical and the oc was - beyond his name - pretty distinctive in backstory and stuff, so yeah...

anyway, i'm glad that seems to be a-okay, morally.

 

Yeah, but that backstory and personality's gonna get remixed and thrown about as soon as you start playing with him in different contexts (cf. this entire thread), so no worries there.

 

good point. i still hope that i'm not too attached to that stuff, though - which honestly, knowing me, seems entirely possible, haha. yeah...

 

You can also do what I like to call Advanced People Watching. Stuck in a waiting room/bus/whatever? Pick a person.
Why are they there?
What's their name?
They just snickered at their phone, was it a funny text, Tumblr or did they get an unsatisfactory unsolicited dick pic and now they're typing out constructive critcism?
Is that their favorite scarf or did they just grab it out the door?

And so on.

 

@Aviari thanks! :D

 

how void make hte oc

-i want a character that does x thing
-plot out personality traits
-sit around and ponder whyt he fuck someone would even develop this personality, were they raised in a garbage dump?
-cry
-literally just start rping them with other ocs in my head or bounce them off friends and watch them sound like assholes
-plot out backgroundt hat madet hem jerkwads because they really were probably raised in a garbage dump
-start rping?????
-??????
-profit

 

Ugh yes, so much internal rollplay. Nothing develops a character like taking them and one or more other characters and banging them together like Barbie dolls

 

incorrect. R didn't even have a character in it until a month or two in. But I know what you mean.

Remember when we came up with DI's team?

 

@Void thanks! :D

 

I am so addicted to giving them horrible backstories that I have a conscious step to go dial it back before I've totally committed to it. No, they don't ALL have to have had childhood abuse, dead parents, and feel responsible for the deaths of all twenty of their friends.

 

Anhelia didn't have an abusive childhood, just a lonely one (only child being raised by a single dad with a busy job that left him not home all the time). Mindala did have a pretty damn abusive childhood but a very non standard one. I've even had a character or two with a HAPPY childhood, OMG.

 

@Morven I DO THE SAME THING

i have to very consciously try hard to not traumatize them all with their childhoods.


this does not always work.

 

For me the character-making usually happens in some combination of these ways (fanfiction/original story author here):

1) I have a story idea, like, say, a specific type of dystopia or magic system and I build the character as someone who would be interesting in that sort of setting or plot, or even as someone who would show off aspects of it. (Like, if you come up with a world where summoning dragons is the ultimate form of magic and then think about, "How would people turn out if they spent all their lives trying to summon dragons? What traits would be valued? How would they dress?" etc.)

2) I just sort of play with ideas, like "wouldn't it be funny/sad/interesting if a character with trait x was in situation y" where situation y is usually a situation that would cause either funny or serious conflict for a person with trait x. (Legitimately probably how The Odd Couple was come up with: "Wouldn't it be funny if a person who really liked things to be neat had to live with a really messy guy?")

3) I have a story going already, (or it's a fanfic) and I need someone to do a thing, so I think of what traits I need them to have (say, I need a middle-aged lady from Kazakhstan who's related to an existing character) and then fill in the gaps with traits I like or I could use (she likes to help people, she's kind of nosy, etc.).

4) I have a character already (again, another OC, or a canon character for a fanfic) and I need a foil. Either in the traditional "absolute counterpoint" sense, or "their counterpoint in this one way" sense. This goes pretty similarly to number (3)--I figure out what traits I need them to have in order to work in that role, and then build from there. This is probably the easiest way for me to start loving a character immediately, because if I can create a fun character dynamic that involves them from the very start then I will automatically love the character. Like my "minor villain" Jamie from that one dystopian story I wrote in undergrad...he started as a foil to one of my main characters' odd combination of singleminded determination and constant not-quite-lying...and ended up narrating in some of my later drafts before I abandoned the story entirely, because I liked him that much.

I'm also in the "draws OCs to get a better sense of them" club, and would second the people suggesting dollmakers as a way of getting the same effect for people who don't draw. Having a mental image is helpful.

 

@Aya-non thanks! :D

 

Dollmakers are super great. Even when you can't make the design perfect, you can hash the design out farther. "This coat but longer." "More freckles" "That style shirt but less stupid."

 

I don't per se NEED to draw or dollmaker them, because my imagination is good enough to hold a detailed mental image, but it's still nice.

 

This depends really. If it is a short story or something that I am writing then characters usually come as like...voices to themes that I want to explore in writing. These voices are often based quite a bit on people that I happen to know. Fear that I shall use your speech patterns as the model of a character. All of you. Anyway from there on out usually the method becomes "violently write and then stop and then repeat this process". Then things get edited. Perhaps in the most extreme fashion which is burning the old version of the story entirely and writing an entirely new one. Or just using the person in a different story all together. "Mark/Marcia" does a lot of traveling that way.

Side characters are built around the primary voice character. They exist usually in some significant fashion to the main character. Not for plot reasons. Is this an important personal relationship? Is it related to our theme or tone? That's how side characters of mine get birthed into existence. Anything less than that gets glossed over entirely because fuck you I do not have the time.

No one is ever built with a plot in mind because plot is the garden of weaklings and fools. My plots are usually just vague ideas when starting out. This is my entirely arbitrary end point. Now to somehow fucking get there. Instead themes and tones are more important to me. This is the base. Story is just around for convention's sake.

If it is for RP then...that depends on the setting and stuff. Basically though I cling to some sort of idea super fierce and then build them up over a couple of sessions. Things just sort of fall into place after getting out the gate. I don't need exacts. I just need enough to improvise off the first time. Also I find that group brainstorming can help a lot. Might find that nice combo of things you need to make a thing.

 

@Aondeug thanks! :D

 

Huh. I really like that. Taking an idea, holding to it tightly, and letting it develop into a person over time. Something in the wording of this just gave me a handle on an OC I've been working on, so ty!