As many of us know, it is fun to see the HP world from a different perspective then the canon characters sometimes. But creating a character and integrating him/her into the Wizarding World is sometimes challenging. Here is a thread where we can discuss different techniques for writing an Original Character.

In this thread, you may discuss the merits and attributes of Original Characters in Fan Fiction. While we will accept "Please don't do this" posts, please remain diplomatic and don't gripe about Mary Sues. Some people write Mary Sues on purpose, and some people enjoy Mary Sues. Use this thread to discuss what you consider to be acceptable characterization of OCs.

This thread is not a rant thread. Do not tell us what you hate about someone's writing or otherwise complain. Remember to be diplomatic and refrain from being overly critical of one another. Rudeness will not be tolerated. Any comments which may be construed as an insult or attack will be removed and the poster warned or suspended, depending on severity.

Have fun!

wow, no one has anything to say about this? well, i do. what exactly is a Mary Sue? and OC's aren't that hard, i think the easiest way would be to make up a witch/wizard with his/her own characteristics. that would be easiest for me.

A Mary Sue is an original Character modelled after the author's ideal vision of her/himself. If you have an original character and wonder if it's a Mary Sue, you might consider the Harry Potter Mary Sue Litmus Test. Visit the link anyway, as it gives a really good explanation of Mary Sue.

i agree just make the witch or wizard up instead of bassing it on someone u no

I disagree, coming up with believable characters is hard (for me anyway)!

When I was developing my only original charater, I was trying to integrate her into plot as much as it was possible, though her part in my story is VERY little, since she's more like a side-kick than an actual character, though some of her itmes are rather helpful to the canon characters.
I suggest people who like writing original characters and want them to be well developed to think of them as if they were your own child, like you've raised them and fed them and gave them all of your attention, but somehow they turned out to be they way they are
And, if you really want to write a JKR-styled story, don't forget that we have NO idea what's going on with the other characters unless Harry makes contact with them. There are chapters like "The Boy Who Lived" and "Spinner's End", but they are important and just couldn't be told from Harry's POV, but the rest of the books is written from his POV which is essensial for good long-term-story writers. Integrate your original characters into that POV very carefully.

Whem writing my fic, I was doing it for Dissendium and their rules are quite strict in regards to integrating outside characters. Basically they believed that canon is sacrosanct. As in, it can't be touched. The relationships already established are to remain the same, characters can't come in and distrupt the ebb and flow of the pre-established world, etc. In that respect, it forced people to create characters that weren't all that MarySue (although many did) and kept people from doing the 'I love Harry so I'll insert myself and make Harry fall in love with me' stories. People wrote stories about what will happen in book seven but, considering we don't know a great deal about the majority of the characters, a lot of people chose to write stories about Sirius or Lupin, etc. and create new characters to interact with those.

I personally don't like canon being meddled with (call me a canon nazi if you will) but I don't mind speculation. For instance, in my fic (which is not up here yet), I've created a new character and had her be the girlfriend of Lucius Malfoy while they were at Hogwarts. I did this because I firmly believe that Lucius and Narcissa's marriage was arranged and there has to be a reason why Lucius treats his family the way he does. So I made up my own reason why. The man's bitter.

I guess what I'm trying to say is an easy way to insert a character would be to get that character to work it's away around already set canon. Ask someone whom you know will point you in the right direction in that they'll tell you which stories to look at that they think offer good insert characters. Or, if you feel you can't insert a character and do it well, keep with a little known character and give them a history, give them a story. That way, while it's already a given character, you're the one really bringing them to life because we don't know all that much about them.

For my original character, I made a girl who ended up being Dean Thomas' girlfriend. There are two girls in Gryffindor year with the trio that we know nothing about, so it is easiest to base characters off of those. Mugglenet fanfiction has a pretty good guide to making OC's. Basically, make them realistic, meaning don't make them Seer's, Animagus, and able to do wandless magic at the same time. Because no one in the wizarding world is all three at once. Not even Voldemort (that we know of, at least).

I made up my character based on an idea that I've had for quite a few months now - I kind of based her off of me, and personally, I think Mary Sues are fine - if someone has a "Mary Sue" idea then they should go through with it - in the end it might turn into something good.

I think Mary Sues are fine, as long as they fit into the place and time properly. I find it a little hard to relate to one of my original characters because I have almost no experience with the slang and words used in his country, this might be bad but I think it helps me grow in my writing and by having another charater whose background is something I'm familiar too helps because I can cover up any mistakes in the other charater by exposer to her.

When you create a character I suggest mold his/her backround to things that you know of and if you decide not to, create a sort of ancor to explain mistakes and things like that.

I also suggest that you put a lot of thought into a original charaters backround and becarefull how you intergrate it into your plot. For example if your charater knows what a bicycyle is and is pureblood and Slytherin and has never taken a muggle studies class in her life, that just wouldn't make sense. Hope that helped

I enjoy making up characters. I do it all the time. I made up this one right after the first harry potter book. She was "Designed" to be something like Malfoy, Snape's favorite, a total slytherin. She would be the perfect student, you know, win at just about everything, and the only one (at school) that loved Professor Snape, and that Snape could not be nasty to. I don't wanna give to much away..just because. That's why I don't want The Professor to die. My character would die too. ....That and a jillion other reasons (no, seriously, i counted. I have a jillion reasons for Snape not to die!)

Mary Sue characters annoy me, but I understand them. They are easy to write, and good practice for future, less Mary Sue characters. Believe me, I created a bucket load of Maraudergirlfriend!sues. X_X

Sometimes, the best way to start making an origional character is to take a minor character from the HP books and play around with her/him. For instance, let's say you chose Hannah Abbott. You know she's a Hufflepuff, you know she has a pinkish complexion and blond hair, you know she's a prefect, and she's made some predictions that have been (almost) right (recap: She insisted Harry was innocent during book 2 and then in book 3 guessed that Sirius could turn himself into a flowering shrub to disguise himself--of course that's wrong, but he *was* disguising himself as Snuffles ^__^). She's quite worried about grades--she broke down over OWLs--and finally, we know her mother was murdered by Voldemort (information from List of minor Hufflepuff characters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia because although I know a lot, I don't know that much).

So we have something to go on. However, we don't know her likes, dislikes, sense of humour, real background, etc. We have a lot to play with, but a base to start from, which is a lot easier than coming up with a character all by yourself (unless the character happens to walk straight into your head, which is AWESOME when that happens).

If you want to go ahead and think up your own character, first think of a background. Think of what house they are in/might have been in, then make a list of the traits for that house. I do want to say, however, that you have to be careful doing this, because NO ONE is a pure Gryffindor/Slytherin/Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw. It's all about the choice, as J.K explained. So, say you choose Gryffindor (because it's the most popular house to write about, drawing with Slytherin, I believe). Now, maybe being brave is a trait of Gryffindor. THAT DOESN'T MEAN THEY DON'T HAVE FEAR! Think of Neville--very brave, but also terrified. Doing something you are afraid of doing makes you brave, not being not afraid. The actual descriptors for Gryffindor are, of course, "Daring nerve and chivallry", so you might want to add those (hehe). But they can also be nervous, clumbsy, smart, evil (oh yes, Sirius and James were very evil to Snape), witty, inovative, etc. etc. They just kind of need an overriding factor of Gryffindor, or need to identify with Gryffindor.

Right, moving on. The best way to create flaws is have AT LEAST one flaw for every positive trait. And you can just look at said trait and look at it's bad outcomes. For example, chivallry. Might sound all well and good, but it makes Harry rash and also makes him treat people like they are incompitant (he does it because he cares--but it's still a flaw). Hermione's smart, but sometimes she forgets to use common sense, and more often than not she assumes people will know what she does because it seems so simple to her (remember her whole spiel about knowing about Remus? Yeah...).

You can, of course, base a character off of someone you know. But it's going to be hard *not* to make them perfect, esp. if it's your friend. Because we *want* perfection, but perfection for anyone other than the reader is kind of boring (I think this is why Diggory was killed--he was too perfect and a bit boring).

And now I'm done *phew*