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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Characters The OC Revolution | NEW! 2Q 2024 Challenge Is Up: Friendship

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction and Writing Resource' started by OCDatabaseSock, Sep 28, 2012.

  1. Kahara

    Kahara FFoF Hostess Extraordinaire star 4 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2001
    AzureAngel2 and Ewok Poet like this.
  2. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2002
    AzureAngel2, Kahara and Ewok Poet like this.
  3. Findswoman

    Findswoman Fanfic and Pancakes and Waffles Mod (in Pink) star 5 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2014
    AzureAngel2, Kahara and Ewok Poet like this.
  4. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Thank you, everybody. :) Will send the next challenge idea to the sock.
     
  5. AzureAngel2

    AzureAngel2 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 14, 2005
    Congrats! [face_good_luck]
     
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  6. Mistress_Renata

    Mistress_Renata Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 9, 2000
    Apart from the massive confusion caused by the end of Legends and the beginning of New Canon? Not much. :D Dive in!

    WELL DONE, Ewok Poet! Woot woot woot![face_party]
     
  7. Mando-Man

    Mando-Man Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Dec 1, 2008
    I was still around for the fallout of the end of the Legends continuity....dark times.

    I plan to, during the next challenge! :D
     
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  8. OCDatabaseSock

    OCDatabaseSock Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 17, 2004
    We have a new challenge for the summer

    Stories must be posted before August 31 23.55 Pacific time

    This is the SUMMER CHALLENGE provided by Ewok Poet

    Your character has lost something or somebody and needs to get it back. The story can be comical or serious.
     
  9. Mando-Man

    Mando-Man Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Dec 1, 2008
    This is a great prompt for me to get back into writing, this is gonna be fun :D
     
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  10. Theodore Hawkwood

    Theodore Hawkwood Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jun 17, 2014
    Does the fic have to be complete or can it be the first few chapters of a fic to be entered into this contest?
     
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  11. earlybird-obi-wan

    earlybird-obi-wan Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 21, 2006
    The first few chapters are alright for entry
     
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  12. Theodore Hawkwood

    Theodore Hawkwood Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jun 17, 2014
    Then I request to enter my Prophesy: The Rogues story for this challenge. I've only gotten the first chapter posted thus far.
     
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  13. Commander-DWH

    Commander-DWH Manager Emeritus star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 3, 2003
    HEY ALL I'M BACK.

    And inspired to write fanfic once more. :p This challenge is right up my OCs' alley. :D
     
  14. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2002
    Welcome back, Commander. I do remember seeing your name around.
     
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  15. Mistress_Renata

    Mistress_Renata Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 9, 2000

    Can it be a chapter of a current story? Because I had planned something like this for something I'm working on; I just hadn't gotten to it yet...
     
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  16. whiskers

    whiskers Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 19, 2005

    Interesting challenge prompt. I think I can come up with something interesting.
     
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  17. OCDatabaseSock

    OCDatabaseSock Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 17, 2004
    Sure.

    Welcome back
     
  18. OCDatabaseSock

    OCDatabaseSock Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 17, 2004
    You can send a PM with the URL link to me
     
  19. Mistress_Renata

    Mistress_Renata Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 9, 2000
    We were talking about killing off our OCs in the YKYAFFWW thread, and I thought I'd bring the discussion over here. This is Star WARS, after all, so someone has to die! It's hard to do, I think, we do love our characters. I haven't written an onstage death of a main OC (actually, I did, in the RR we did this last winter), otherwise, it's always been 2ndry characters. That said, I do know that many of my OCs die eventually, and not always peacefully, of old age, in their sleep.

    So? Thoughts? Discussion?
     
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  20. DARTH_MU

    DARTH_MU Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2005
    I meanly worry about the big three curse.

    OC fatigue. Not on part of the writer, but for the reader. There is absolutely everything we want to know about Luke in the old EU. that is, from 0 ABY to 43 ABY, where he is in his 60s. Now readers will ask, do I want to read about a 60 years old Jedi, or do I want to read about Jedi in their 20-30s?

    there is ageism. unfortunately.
     
  21. Mistress_Renata

    Mistress_Renata Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 9, 2000
    One of my favorite OCs was a Jedi Master, named Alta Corona, who helped a Jedi Chapter House fend off an attack. She was in her mid 60s, I think. Essentially, she was Judi Dench. The readers seemed to like her. I may need to bring her back for something. The story was set during the Jedi Apprentice era, I'm pretty sure she was dead before the Purge.
     
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  22. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2002
    Reading or writing, I don't really see age.

    Character description, and what they do, is everything.
     
  23. Findswoman

    Findswoman Fanfic and Pancakes and Waffles Mod (in Pink) star 5 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2014

    Ah, the question of killing off one's own characters—an age-old one, and a difficult one, but always an interesting one to discuss.

    My short answer is that I'm a sap and it's hard for me to do. I've done it, but in most cases it has been (a) in short stories and (b) characters who don't appear in any other stories of mine (at least not yet). Also, when I do have characters die, I have a huge thing about trying to have them not die in vain or not have their death go unpunished or that kind of thing. But that, again, is mainly just because I'm a sap, and I don't impugn other approaches if they're written well.

    One recent challenge prompt I received pretty much required that a character be killed—nay, murdered. That was a tough one to write, but I tried to soften it as best I could by having the killer receive some kind of justice, even though that was arguably not part of the prompt (and of course it still doesn't bring back the dead character). In a longer story of mine, I ended up having a child character's parents killed, even though earlier drafts had them living; that was a very tough decision, but I made it because I felt it might have a chance of furthering the story better (and even now I feel a twinge of guilt saying that). I hesitate to compare myself to the J. K. Rowling example Mistress_Renata gave in the other thread, but I’m hoping the effect will be similar. (And those responsible within the universe of the story will eventually get some retribution, too!)

    Now, what are people’s feelings about providing content warnings for character deaths? Helpful? Necessary? Not necessary? I’ve gotten in the habit of doing so ever since I had a beta advise me to, and I think it can be done in such a way that it doesn’t spoil the story while still taking into account readers’ feelings. I'd be curious of people’s thoughts.
     
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  24. DARTH_MU

    DARTH_MU Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2005
    Personally I think content warning is unnecessary and spoilery. A bunch of people died in Joe Abercrombie's First Law books and JK Rowling didn't provide any content warning for character deaths for the last Harry Potter book.

    However, since this is a PG or at most PG 13 board, I think I can understand the need for authors to provide warnings.

    My advice though on character deaths on these boards should be either put them off screen (a body is found) or at most death should be instant and no suffering.

    As far as I can remember, for my memory isn't what it used to be, I killed maybe a dozen OCs. DARTH_MU may have killed one or two or maybe none, (maybe more though, can't remember). Now, as Martyavidianus, I killed at least 7 OC, two Established character in an AU situation,and probably more cause ships went boom.

    Dang it, I became a mass OC executioner.
     
  25. divapilot

    divapilot Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 30, 2005
    Interesting discussion (albeit not the official one the thread is promoting...). My latest OC stories all deal with the death of one of the main characters. I agree with Finds that the death should be meaningful and not just a shocker gimmick or done for sentimentality.

    Sometimes a character death serves as a foreshadowing of other bigger deaths to come, or it can be used to intensify the stakes of the conflict that the main characters are facing. That is the flaw of Star Trek's red shirts - we know they die to show that Kirk & co are in danger but when they die we never really know them, so we don't care about their deaths. When you have a well-developed, endearing character die, then the reader feels more empathy for the main character who must deal with their loss.

    In the OC heavy diary I wrote a couple years ago, my original intention was at the end to have it revealed that the reader of the diary was the OC's daughter, who had been given her mother's diary by her dad in an attempt to let the girl understand the kind of woman her mother was. The narrator of the diary (in the original draft) died when the girl was very little. I decided that was too morbid and a kind of a cheap trick on the reader so I didn't kill her off. However, you can see the little breadcrumbs I was leaving to prepare the reader for the OC's death if you read carefully.

    You can kill an OC, just make it a meaningful death for the character, for the reader, and for your story's plot.
     
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