Writing Out-of-Character Fanfiction is Fine, Actually

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Cora Maria - Write Your Dream Fanfiction

Күн бұрын

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@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

Just to clarify something about Chapter 4: I don't want to erase fan creators who have been harassed or excluded for adding diversity to their fanworks. In particular, aspec, transgender, and POC interpretations of canon characters have a long history of being targeted. Harassment and exclusion from fandom spaces and events is a very real silencing tactic used by toxic fandoms and it is never okay to do that to your fellow fans, or even be complicit in it when you have the power or influence to do something. That being said, I still think my point about the barriers to adding diversity being less of an issue for fanworks still applies.

@Notfallkaramell 3 ай бұрын

Before watching the vid: As someone who writes heavy AU's, I believe a changed backstory (and other changed stuff) will influence a character's personality. I want to explore these changes, not retreat canon.

@dbdragoner 3 ай бұрын

I do love when authors take a character and give them an arc that changes that person, but the change is logical. Nobody is gonna be able to write the character like the author would, but that what makes it fun. How is this fanfic writer gonna take this character in a new direction.

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

Indeed! Those can make for some of The Best fanfiction!

@GaryMcSnail 3 ай бұрын

I feel so seen rn. My fanon/fanfics for some characters have been completely betrayed by how the most recent season has thrown all layers of them out the window. Now I'm sticking to my fanon purely out of spite 😂😂

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

Sometimes fanon works better!

@ByrdieFae 3 ай бұрын

Ooh. This makes me feel SO much better about my writing. I was afraid that I was just trying to justify it to myself with nonsensical arguments.

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

I’m so glad!

@hiwaga7399 3 ай бұрын

honestly i think a lot of the fun in fanfic (both reading and writing) is in exploring what-ifs and could-have-beens. a lot of it shows my preference for epic length fics, but it's neat seeing characters change in a kinder or harsher world. sometimes, it's also willful spite (harry potter fandom my beloved) and i think that's funny.

@manufacturedrainbows1229 3 ай бұрын

I love this!! I also write Link (specifically Botw Link) to be a bit more timid, because I wanted to see him grow into his courage rather than innately have it! I also played with his reasons for not talking much in canon. It's fun to write ooc sometimes!!

@artemis949 2 ай бұрын

my characters end up OOC quite a bit and I was little worried but most of the time i just end up straying towards fanon because I don't like the most recent season which kinda threw out a lot of the growth i was hoping for the character to get plus i change their backstory to make the changes make sense, people still get mad about it but im writing primarily to make myself happy so I've stopped caring all that much

@themidnightarchives Ай бұрын

I just want to say that I am so glad I found this channel and there is more people out there giving love to Fan Fiction and not only that, but there is more fic authors coming out and speaking about it! These videos are fabulous and very helpful.

@RLocke142 3 ай бұрын

I love OOC personally. When a writer does OOC in a way that adds more naunce and development to an existing character, it's the Chef's kiss. On the other end, it annoys me to bits and makes me go "Why?! Why?!" when OOC is done in a way that derails from what was previously established to emphasizing more negative traits, some of which may not have been shown in canon. Or in that one rare case from reading that 'one cursed fanfic that shall not be named' months ago, I wanted to cry from witnessing a character I loved being destroyed in front of my eyes then reduced down to so unrecognizable beyond saving. Speaking of wanting to cry from seeing a beloved character being destroyed and reduced to something so unrecognizable, it does make me wonder however. Has anyone ever wanted to cry from seeing their favorite characters getting massacred in virtue of derailment by a writer in fanfic?

@tamatebako_yt 3 ай бұрын

Nope. Because I just click the "go-back-button" when that happens. No heartbreak required.

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

I think you're being a bit invalidating here. Sometimes these OOC issues only become clear when you're already deep into the story, so you're feeling these emotions before you realise it's time to hit the back button. Let people feel things, okay? (and no, I'm not saying they should leave negative comments on said fanfic)

@tamatebako_yt 3 ай бұрын

@@CoraMaria Fair enough. I just think it's a none issue. I don't have these sorts of expectations when reading a fanfic. There is no quality control, so there is no way to tell what you're gonna get. And it's not like the author tried to offend me by writing a bad fic. Even if I feel disappointed in a way (and I have), that's on me. And besides, the canon character is always there, waiting for me. I won't like the character any less because a fan butchered the interpretation I'm most comfortable with. As long as the character stays intact in canon, their image has not been "tarnished", and I can start fresh. Hope that makes sense.

@chailattenebula Ай бұрын

Thank you for this! I feel doubly validated right now as I've lately been writing fanfiction for a character that was depicted in an interesting way in a show that actually refreshed him for me, and was inspired to write a whole fic (still a WIP) to show how he changes over time. Ditto with said character regretting in very old age not having appreciated happy moments enough, too deep in his own anxieties and stresses all his life.

@chrismckenzie3414 3 ай бұрын

The canon vs fanon or what is OOC gets complicated in works where it's pretty clear what the *intended* characterization is (maybe even confirmed by interviews) but the character doesn't come across as intended to a (sometimes large) chunk of the fandom. There's a potential romance interest character in my fandom that runs into this issue. (Actually several of the potential romance interest characters suffer from this to varying degrees.) The character is meant to be a goodhearted good old boy who's maybe a little old fashioned and/or naive at times, but a not insignificant portion of the fandom thought he came off as a creepy Nice Guy(tm). I'm not sure I've ever seen him portrayed in fanfic as he is in canon. Whether they like him or not, they all (myself included) edit his character in some way: to make him more appealing, to give him a chance to grow out of his flaws, to be an outright creep and ditched by the other characters, etc. He's always OOC because in canon there's this weird discordance between how the audience is meant to see him and how he comes across and every fanwriter tries to resolve that differently.

@bonnietelocole6777 2 ай бұрын

My favorite fanfiction for a specific anime actually made one of the main characters OOC by turning him FtM Trans, and I love it so much! It managed to tell a very interesting story outside of canon, and is the main reason that fic is one of my favorites to this day. The only reason I don't write fics like that is because there are plenty out there, and I'd like to put my fanfiction focus towards building fandoms for my favorite crossover crackships, since I'm apparently the first to think of a surprising amount of them, so they don't have content for me to consume. Basically, no one is baking my favorite flavors of cake, so I'm rolling up my sleeves and getting to work on correcting that!

@bonnietelocole6777 2 ай бұрын

Sorry for basically derailing the topic of my own comment Got a super case of the 'Tism lol

@trashcan-train 3 ай бұрын

LOVED this fantastic trilogy!! ❤️❤️ This is the kind of writing advice that I haven’t found anywhere else, because it’s so specific to fanfic-and I appreciate you filling this niche so much for that reason🙏❤️ Your love for the craft and deep understanding of fan culture and what makes fanfic tick shines through as always❤️ You made a great case for OOC. What makes for delicious OOC is definitely being in conversation with canon or fanon, and making your choices with intent like you said❤️ My current WIP’s premise totally came from 1. Wanting diversity in the source material and 2. Wanting to extrapolate on what I feel was bland, underwritten and honestly misogynistic characterisation from canon. So a careful dose of OOC has been my friend in this writing process😂

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

Definitely feel ya on those reasons to write OOC! It's often what compels me to write about my blorbos, too. Let Zelda join the quests, dammit!

@thaliasorke4057 3 ай бұрын

I’ve watched so many of your videos and they’ve helped me so much. I also really really like your style. It’s so colorful and you seem so nice it makes me happy 🥹🥹💕

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

Thanks so much~!

@Ilsezwarts 3 ай бұрын

Great video! This trilogy gave me much to think about. It is especially helpful for me right now, because I'm now writing for a character that is overly capable in canon to have a disability after injury. Especially the framing of "what would it take for this character to do this?" instead of "would this character do this?" has been especially helpful.

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

I'm so glad! And I wish you all the luck with writing this story 💚

@Glimmerheart 17 күн бұрын

Stumbled across this channel while taking a break from writing one of my fanfics😂 immediately had to subscribe

@CoraMaria 16 күн бұрын

Yay welcome aboard, fellow fic-writer!

@tsifirakiehl4250 2 ай бұрын

I’m willing to accept a lot of OOC-ness in fanfic as long as there’s a good reason for it-and as long as there’s still something that matches up with canon. Say you’re writing an AU where a character who was canonically an extremely powerful, eons-old demon of decay is now an ordinary human high school student. Obviously they won’t have demonic powers anymore, and their views on humanity will be those of a young human, not an unknowably ancient being of evil and rot that predates mortal life as we know it, but they still need to in some way be the character we know. Maybe their canonical command over the legions of hell could translate to them leading a gang of delinquents in this AU. Maybe their canon self’s association with decay could mean that their AU self grosses out their classmates by being willing to eat food well past its expiration date. Some of their canonical personality quirks will work in any setting and can just be carried over unchanged. There’s exploring alternate versions of characters, and then there’s writing an OC wearing a canon character’s name and face.

@tsifirakiehl4250 2 ай бұрын

(I dropped my phone while rewatching the video and accidentally deleted my comment, so I’m putting it back.)

@MissShinyLemon 3 ай бұрын

I'm so grateful for this video. I'm writing a childhood friends fic but it's canon compliant (character A lost all his memories before he was 7, perfect for angst since only character B would have those memories). Since they're children, that meant I had to figure out what their characterization would be like before all the trauma took place. I was so self-conscious of it when I posted the first chapter, but this made me feel a bit better about it. :D

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

"Why are these 7 year olds not acting like traumatised adults? That's so OOC!" Trust me, you're doing fine 😉

@lindapenttinen3382 17 күн бұрын

Heavy Au writer here. No matter what I try I often found myself in situations where characters are ooc's more often than not with little easter eggs of the canon in their backstories or appreances. I then place such stories in universe I have created and continue making them more original. It is fun to explore what the situations and character motivations, their relationships etc could possibly be if this or that detail is changed

@batatafrita7782 3 ай бұрын

Help I read thr thumbnail as OCD is not bad, and got ready to scream at the comments lol

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

😂 dw I know how to stay in my lane lol

@goldegreen 3 ай бұрын

I'm scared that my OOC writing doesn't fit into one of these categories... Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a writer, too insecure :(

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

Well maybe that just means there was a category I missed. Did you think of that? Did you know that I am not the god of fanfic advice? Did you know that I am a human being limited by my own perspective? Did you know that the main take-away from this video is that writing OOC is fine as long as it's done on purpose and with intention, so as long as you're doing that then it doesn't matter if you don't fit any of the above categories? And like, writing in-character or OOC well is also something that takes time. You're allowed to be imperfect. You're allowed to write even bad OOC writing if that's what it takes to learn how to write these characters well. Please never, ever use my content as an excuse to beat yourself up or feed your insecurities. The purpose of my channel is to HELP you, not HURT you.

@justice2183 11 сағат бұрын

Just wanted to say, I love your style :)

@Treepan0 3 ай бұрын

I think some would assume that the way I write Janemba from dragon ball in my fighterz au is a bit ooc, but in reality I've been focusing on some of his other traits that are unique to him; he's an ancient demon of pure evil that possesses people, he's intelligent, conniving, methodical at times and never lets others directly see his fear... despite all of those traits however most just boil him down to a Kid Buu knock off, which is a problem a lot of dragon ball movie villains face, being unfairly compared to their main series counterpart and having their unique traits ignored.

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

Focusing on overlooked traits can be so fun as a fic writer! It's what I like to do, too. Link's fallibility, Midna's ruthlessless, and how even the best heroes have their moments

@Treepan0 3 ай бұрын

@@CoraMaria agreed, it's way too much fun to explore their less explored traits especially for characters who don't get such treatment very often. honestly when I get to the sequel fic, I know the other characters I'll be exploring will get the same treatment, even if it's more focused on the villains of the franchise, rather than the heros.

@foxglove-woods 3 ай бұрын

Lovely video, thank you!

@lindapenttinen3382 17 күн бұрын

I tend to avoid adding diversity for the sake of diversity alone. To me characters' should at least have something tiny bit to add to the story, to the narrative, to the world they are in. And being a diverse character should not be all they are but rather a part of who they are when building them from a scatch. Every character should have their own personality, motivations, interests etc when possible

@CoraMaria 16 күн бұрын

It's definitely important to avoid tokenism, but at the same time, we should reject the notion of being white/cis/straight/abled/etc as the default. Characters are often white when that adds nothing to the story, male when it adds nothing to the story, straight when that adds nothing to the story, neurotypical when that adds nothing to the story. Why is it that a character only gets to have some marginalised trait when it adds something to the story? Why does there need to be a special reason for it? Adding diversity is really about depicting reality as it is and refusing to settle for canon's lack of diversity rather than "adding to the story". I agree that characters should have their own personality, motivations, and interests, but I fail to see what that has to do with the original point made in this video. Unless you mean that a character's marginalised traits may affect those things, which is true, and honestly taking the time to think "Well, what if this character was a different race/orientation/etc than in canon? How would that change things?" It could change them in big ways, or in little ways that "don't add much to the story" but are still there to make the representation feel authentic.

@lindapenttinen3382 16 күн бұрын

@@CoraMaria I mainly write (or try to write at least) original fiction so I apologize if my answer was rude. In fanfic context I totally get it, it is fanfic so characters can be as diverse from the source material as they can.

@Kaza0kun 2 ай бұрын

You should know that I turned this on and my son who is almost one has been transfixed by the music and bright colors!

@CoraMaria 2 ай бұрын

Awww I'm so glad~! Tell your son I say hi 👋

@squeakerdoeseverything 2 ай бұрын

love your content!!!! i was wondering if maybe you’d ever consider making a video on writing tenses? i’m not sure if this is something you’re interested in touching up on, so it’s totally okay if not, but i would love to hear abt it!!💗💗

@CoraMaria 2 ай бұрын

Probably not because there are already plenty of resources out there about tenses and I only like to do a video on a topic if I can bring something new or present it in a new way.

@squeakerdoeseverything 2 ай бұрын

@@CoraMaria noted :)

@Suzanne_sf Ай бұрын

Hi Cora Maria. I've played at least one Zelda game before, and I didn't connect Bolero with Zelda until my brother pointed it out. Also, I learned from you that Ganandorf is the leader of the Gerudo. How can the leader of the Gerudo be evil? I don't play a lot of Zelda games, because my brother is so much better at playing them. A lot of the time, I just watch my brother or someone else play the games. I'm so happy you did this video! I'm writing a character that is evil in canon and in most fanon, but I'm changing him to morally gray. I think it's because every villain thinks they're in the right, at least most villains that are written well do. Someone might say he'd try to kill the main character as soon as he figured out whom she knows, but I say, no. I just hope I made it work. I'm waiting for my beta reader and my one reader to get back with me. I just finished the chapter a little while ago.

@CoraMaria 26 күн бұрын

Ganondorf is someone who I think might've been radicalised through his leadership as the Gerudo's king, since the Gerudo in older games (particularly 'Ocarina of Time') were portrayed as a tribe of thieves. There's some later commentary in Wind Waker to suggest that Ganondorf grew tired of the way his people were sidelined to the desert and deeply unwelcome in Hyrule. Personally I think his intentions started out as good and he has some very righteous anger driving him, but somewhere along the way, his lust for power ended up distancing him from the very people he sought to defend in the first place. There's a great fanfic that explores this called 'Descant of Greatness' by RawLiverAndCigarettes on AO3 that is perhaps the best written fanfic I've ever read, but you'll have to know the storyline of Ocarina of Time and a bit of Wind Waker to get it. I love works that morally-grey Ganondorf for this reason because there's so much nuance to be found with him that Nintendo briefly explored in 'Wind Waker' and then completely backtracked on since, especially in 'Tears of the Kingdom'. I actually think that showing why a villain thinks they're in the right doesn't mean they're morally grey. I think it's humanising evil can be done without morally greying them (aka my OC villain is someone who I humanise without portraying his actions as morally grey), but sometimes showing their side of things does happen to expose that the "good" side isn't so good after all and needs to be resisted in some way, which is where Ganondorf often takes me.

@Suzanne_sf 26 күн бұрын

@@CoraMaria thank you. I appreciate you going into detail. I will add it to my bookmarks. Interesting viewpoints.

@lavndvrrart 3 ай бұрын

6:26 my fav example of this is when people give Harry Indian roots and change his name to Hari which is an Indian name :) seeing my culture represented in fannon is such a wonderful experience

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

That's a great example! JK Terfling kept trying to retroactively "add" diversity and take credit while the fans actually do the work of representation

@Ilsezwarts 3 ай бұрын

Discord gangggg!!

@CoraMaria 3 ай бұрын

Welcome, Discord Gang!

@admirerofcreativity5295 2 ай бұрын

Not to be random or anything, but if you could create a video explaining how to use and create a fanfiction collection on Ao3 I would be forever grateful! They just don't make sense to me at the moment, but I've seen other authors use them in a way that helps them organize their stories. Thank you so much either way ❤ (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠✧⁠*⁠。

@CoraMaria 2 ай бұрын

I don't have any experience with making collections on AO3, but those aren't something authors use to organise their own stories. They're more so for reader recommendations or fandom events. Are you thinking of series? This tutorial I made goes into it. Check the time codes in the description for the parts you're after: kzbin.info/www/bejne/anfNm6Ompp2mgLM