Fanfiction Characters

I'm not entirely sure how I go about this, if I'm honest.
I think after ages of reading hundreds of interviews and collecting loads of facts, I didn't really need to do much more. Well, it's like that for Ville Valo, at least. But if I tried to write about anyone else in a band, I'd definitely need to get more facts first.

I kind of...go back into stalker mode if I don't know who they are. I'll search pictures if I have to. But after I know basics, I just make them the way I think they'd be. Or however their personality would match the story line.

I don't do any research. I just make them who I want them, because If I DID do that, then that character, let's say Gerard Way, would be just like the other Gerard Way's in every other fan-fiction.

well i have a vampire love story, A LITTLE LESS SIXTEEN CANDLES, and Pete Wentz and William Beckett are in it based on the video by Fall Out Boy. All i did to write this story was watch the video a couple times, and read stories related. :)

What is OC anyways?
Well, my first fan-fiction well completely helped by you Dru.
Then, I guess I used some odd quirks and plan on changing Brendon and Ryan in my next one-shot completely.
I don’t stalk them—but I think I’m becoming obsessed with them and the band.
Like, I crave their music and to know more about them now… :shifty

Audrey Kitching;:

What is OC anyways?

An OC is an original character.

The kind of fan fictions I do are usually book fan fictions, so I'll look up some stuff about the character, maybe brush up on the world of the book. I usually do Harry Potter fan fictions, so I'll go to mugglenet and go over all the things I want to put in the story so I don't mess anything up.

I just basically take their name and appearance, then give them a personality. I kinda think of my fan fiction characters as OCs anyway. I love them all to bits :cute:

Well I mostly write Panic fan fictions. Mostly centering around Ryden.
Since I'm a huge fan, I've seen many interviews, read stuff about them, etc.
Of course I have to change their "personalities" to fit the story better. For example, Ryden only exists in my dreams. xDD

Intermission:

For example, Ryden only exists in my dreams.

Ryden is canon.
On the real.
:file:

^ Oh so very true.
-
Very rarely do I ever write a character or make the character say things that I think the actual person would say/do in real life.
I try to make the Billie in one story different from the Billie in another. If I wrote the same character over and over again, many of my story ideas just wouldn't work.

I write Simple Plan FanFic mainly [I've thrown in some Good Charlotte, Eskimo Joe and am now moving onto Avenged Sevenfold].

I usually start with what I know about the band, then read interviews, watch how they perform on Youtube [or from concerts - SP 2005], read up as much as I can. However, as I write, and I almost exclusively write Pierre Bouvier fanfics, I tend to overlay his basic personality with more complicated layers.

One fic I've made him a bounty hunter, one a serial killer, another a vampire...however, he is still recognisable as the lead singer of Simple Plan. If I know something semi-personal I try to insert that, I always use his real parents names as his parents...and I always mention that he has 2 elder brothers and things like that.

nimrod.:

Very rarely do I ever write a character or make the character say things that I think the actual person would say/do in real life.

I try to do that... to an extent.
I try to make the character do/say things I think the person would say ... were they in that situation/place/time period/etc.
They say that's the key to writing a really god AU/AR.
Yes, your character has to change.
But... no more than necessary.
Like... serial rapist Brendon Urie would be vastly different than gay boy Brendon Urie that's madly smitten with Ryan Ross. But... if the real Brendon were in those situations, he should resemble the character (to me).
Am I making sense?

I rarely write fanfiction, but I think I'm coming round to it again.

The one time I wrote a Dita von Teese story, I found it really easy. She wasn't hard to research for at all. Just basically YouTube and Wikipedia, that was enough--I haven't even read "The Art Of The Teese". She has a lot of quirks and philosophies and bizarre obsessions. It comes through in her art and in every interview she does.
Like, she seems very confident onstage and isn't afraid to dance in front of millions of people stark naked, literally, but in interviews she speaks softly and smiles a lot. It's like when it comes to her body, she has no inhibitions, but when it comes to her self, she's very shy. It makes more sense when you think about it, actually.
And the fact that the only thing she cares about is so shallow--purely materialistic, artificial beauty--and she's proud of it.
She's a very interesting woman.

Anyway, I'm coming round to possibly doing a Ryden one of these days.
I've recently got quite into Panic At The Disco. Their personalities in interviews kind of interest me.

I only research so that I get a feel for how they act, how they talk, how they look and their likes and dislikes. I don't like incorporating their personal issues in stories. Like, when people write about band members breaking up with their girlfriends and stuff, making their girlfriends out to be really awful and bitchy and vile and all that.
And in Ryan Ross stories when they always talk about his dad being an alcoholic.
I know if I was famous, I'd be cool with people making stories up about me, but I'd be a little bit offended by stuff like that.

zero;:

I hope I'm understanding this thread right. :think:

I usually research, look for other resources other than Wikipedia. Ask around for things I don't know like parents and sibling names. :tehe:
:shifty Sometimes I like to pretend to be them when I write the dialogue. Like, change my voice and everything and I imagine them in all kinds of situations and how they would react. :XD

:think: I'm probably not very good at that, though.

Lately when I write about Brendon Urie, I've been giving him the habit of licking his lips when his nervous. And... for example, when I write about Pete Wentz, it always turns out he's a jerk in the story because in real life I kind of think he is [same with Joe Jonas. :shifty -cough-]. And it always just depends on my opinion on the people i write about.

Cool!

I would try to give a female character some of my own personality traits - loves to read, can spell, and loves stories...

I just watch the movie over and over again if I forget how he acts or how he talks. I usually don't but I'll watch the movie anyway, and I'll sometimes watch the other movies he's in and watch the cartoons too.

I will go into high-drive stalking mode. I will track down where said-person went to school, their address, watch endless upon endless videos. Yeah. I'm pretty much a creep. :shifty

I make my characters the way I see them.
I read their wiki pages and watch a video or two but it's mainly my imagination.
Then if I find something randomly that I didn't know before or I did know before and forgot, I either work that in or just leave it out.
:)

I mainly write All Time Low,Cobra Starship and The Academy Is... stuff.
I'll youtube them to find out what their voice sounds like normally, then I'll twist it to make it fit if they're mad, or upset, or whatever.
I watch how they act around other people aswell, and what their general fashion sense is.
I'll google them to find out eye color, hometown and birthday, etc. I'm pretty much a stalker when it comes to that.

But depending on the story, they're different people every time.

Generally, with Cobra stuff, Gabe's always the loud hyperactive one, and he laughs when he's nervous. Nate seems to always be the chronically shy one, with communication issues. He must have a headband, for some reason I like it that way. Vicky-T's the comfort-person. Whenever anyone's upset, they go to her. Alex is, like, this crazy outgoing kid whenever I write about him. And I tend to make Ryland the random wierd one, only because most other stereotypes don't seem to fit him quite right.

The only time anyone's any different to that is Vicky-T in We'll Say It Was Love, where she's a total bitch, but I needed her to act that way for the story to work.

Alex is also completely different in What Do You Expect To See?, where he's schizophrenic.

Other than that they generally have similar things about them.

This thread is the best, might I just say. Thank you for making it, Dru.

I only write My Chem related fic, so to get familiar with them I recall watching every interview of theirs I could find and then every performance I could. I learned about them. I watched them. I observed how they walk, how they talk, how they speak out of one side of their mouth or how they scratch their ear when they're bored or how they laugh nervously.

Then I guess I read a lot of fic to see how other people wrote them. I would be lying if I said I didn't. I figured out how other people interpreted these characters and decided whether I liked that or not and would like to have something like that in my own story.

And then I took everything I'd learned and applied it to plots I had. I've never tried to say "well this woul dmake a better story but it's out of character..." I've always tried to keep them as real as possible with a few minor changes for obvious reasons.

However, in Set Your Love Free I admit that I completely morphed Mikey and Gerard... because honestly, the story isn't about Waycest. It's actually very much so about myself... and I didn't know how to get it out in any other way than to make it about them.

In Like A Lady I tried to think about what Gerard might be like if he were a female (which was in fact a lot harder than I suspected it would be). I tried to capture Frank's side of being a party boy in it, as well.

In Cameras Like Ghosts I think I've done the best characterization I have to date. I can't even explain it. Frank is reserved but in this sarcastic, obnoxious way that doesn't make sense but does at the same time.