OCs (and we're not talking Orange County)

[panyasan]

Actually, in picking first names, I like to add a little "ethnicity" and a little creativity. Did you ever notice that names of the Star Trek actors are more unconventional/interesting than the names of the characters they play? Take DS9: Odo (Rene Auberjoinois); Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor); Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton); Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks); Miles O'Brien (Colm Meany) . . .

DS9 rules when it comes to orginal names that the actors have. When I choose names, I mostly translate a meaning from a language I know. For example, I named some one Giovanni Azurri. I wrote this during the World cup soccer. Giovanni is the first name of a Dutch soccer player and Azurri is the Italian nick name for their soccer team. I also named a person Mizohito (waterman) and a water world Mizuhate, from the Japanese word mizu - water, named an alien race "Taihendesne" which means in Japanese "it's tiredsome", because I was struggling with the text and because a chapter had as theme colour gray I named a secretary Janine Gray.
Rianna Olovsdotter Thott, born in Hammersta, Sweden in The Captives is named after the most famous Swedisch spy in history (born in Hammersta) who betrayed her husband.
When it comes to Vulcan names, I like to go the VLI and search a meaningful word, let say "strenght". Translation: Karik and I have a Vulcan name.

[WarpGirl]

I loved the clothing in Crystalwolf's story. It felt truly Trekish when we have seen Vulcan women of high status like priestesses. I didn't like that the ENT Vulcans were so blah, especially V'Lar. But even T'Pol's robes were disappointing. I think that overlapping is sometimes unavoidable. I know Transwarp and I have the same ideas for a few things, Kotik too come to think of it. But we never actually talked about it. And really no two people see things the same way so the story will always have some fundemental difference.

One thing I don't really like is when an author puts an OC in and they're just there to serve, but they don't have a true identity. In order for a character to be a true character, it needs to have a distinct identity. Otherwise, its a name with a job. No identity just a name.

[Distracted]

But like Vulcan names, I will not stop writing about common topics. It's just one more thing to fear overlap when I'm done though.

We're dealing with a finite number of TV episodes. We're bound to eventually run out of original topics to write about, crystalswolf. Fortunately there are an infinite number of approaches to take to each topic. I've been reading and writing Enterprise fanfic for over five years now. I've seen virtually every version of Harbinger, the Bond, the fate of both Elizabeths, Lorian's fate, finale fixes... everything you could think of. I've never read a story that dealt with a subject precisely the same way. Every author brings something of themselves into the story and that makes it different.

I say write what you're inspired to write. Write your version of what happened. If you got the idea from someone else's story then give them credit. If not, and the similarity was a coincidence, then forget about it and chalk it up to great minds thinking alike. It's not like any of us have a copyright on any of this stuff. We're all playing in someone else's sandbox.

[crystalswolf]

Distracted, I understand what you mean completely. I just still feel uncomfortable about it. Just one of those things, have my fun writing and then suck it up when I share.

[honeybee]

I really enjoy seeing how different writers, say take on the E2 timeline or deal with Harbinger. It's part of the fun. And as Distracted said, there's only a finite number of episodes and there's bound to be both thematic and plot overlap.

[Lady Rainbow]

I really like making up OCs for my stories. On ff.net, I tend to use the same OCs in my stories for continuity. For example, Crewman Philippe Trieste (Boomer Bust), Ensign Johannes Birkenwald (Five Weddings and a Funeral for my Sanity), and Quartermaster (Master Chief) Antoine DesGauld (Five Words No Engineer Wants to Hear and A Klingon and an Englishman Walk into a Bar...) One OC that I "borrow" on occasion from Volley is Ensign Bernhard Mueller, Malcolm's SIC in the Armory.

These OCs give a "lived-in" feel to the Enterprise crew. It's a closed community, so you'll see a lot of the same characters over and over. Sometimes, they're only mentioned, but most times they're essential to the story.

Names? I make 'em up if they're from a race I made up myself. Sometimes I imagine the E Crew like the expedition in Stargate: Atlantis...multinatiional and -cultural. (Philippe is French, Johannes is German, I have another OC, Dr. Penda Nadhari, from East Africa).

As far as Gary Stus and Mary Sues go, don't like 'em and I try to avoid using 'em in stories.

[honeybee]

When I wrote "A Kiss at Midnight" - I needed an OC that was a running the ship's garden. I added a little personality to her. She was the one who had to explain to T'Pol why it was a bad idea to wear mistletoe in her hair. It's always fun to see what the crew might have thought of TnT - and what the ship's gossip might have been like. When flowers came up in Family Secrets, I had her resurface. I try and keep continuity in my stories. So, my short one-off stories (with a couple of exceptions) follow the Family Secrets timeline.

It's also fun to to create the "partial" OCs. I've got an Elizabeth Tucker (the sister) in the MU story - though I decided she would be very close to what her RU personality would be - just more isolated and a bit sad. I had chef in one scene, making him the bitchy diva he was always implied to be on the show. In FS, I got to create Trip's big brother and his family as well as his parents.

But with things like Trip's family, the show did create a pretty clear picture that the Tuckers were a close, loving Southern family. So, everyone who has them in stories has to work with that. In the MU, of course, they're a little more dysfunctional. Okay, a lot more.

[Aquarius]

The ethnicity of names--it's a great way to add texture and flavor to a story, but it can be really bothersome for a reader if it's "off."

Case in point: one of the first things we were supposed to do earlier this semester in my creative writing class was to break up into groups, pick a genre for a story to tell, and then create characters to populate it. So we decided on a romance, and this guy in the group decided that one of the secondary characters should be French....but he wanted to name her something like Persephone Brown or something like that. The story wasn't taking place in France, nobody in the story had just been to France, and this character's being French was not important to the story. So I said to him, if he really wants her to be French that badly, then at least her first or (preferably) last name should reflect that so it's easily communicated to the reader; otherwise, we're sticking in the detail that she's French for pretty much no reason, and giving her a name that's completely incongruous to that is going to get the reader hung up on that detail instead of focusing on the story.

In fanfic I usually only see this kind of thing from beginners who are trying a little too hard to be edgy, but it does happen. And apparently it happens enough outside of fanfic that Orson Scott Card even makes mention of it in his book Characters and Viewpoint.

[crystalswolf]

Aquarius, you could turn that clunker of a lemon into lemonade. Allow the guy to keep his preferred "Brown" surname and choose a more recognizably French first name. Her quirky little back-story could be that her mother was French and her father wasn't and the baggage she accumulated with that. Just a thought.

I think you're right about trying to be edgy. There's nothing wrong with it but think it through. The desire to be unique comes with responsibility.

[Aquarius]

Aquarius, you could turn that clunker of a lemon into lemonade. Allow the guy to keep his preferred "Brown" surname and choose a more recognizably French first name. Her quirky little back-story could be that her mother was French and her father wasn't and the baggage she accumulated with that. Just a thought.

I think you're right about trying to be edgy. There's nothing wrong with it but think it through. The desire to be unique comes with responsibility.

Oh, we already dumped the element of her being French. This was several weeks ago.

And yes, one of the things I suggested was the first -OR- the last name being French. But as I mentioned, she was a supporting character, so her story wasn't important really to what was going on, her quirky little back story didn't add anything to the plot and had the potential to distract from it. If she were the main character, or if these details were somehow going to become important later on (maybe the main character has to go to France and doesn't have a lot of money so, hey, Persephone, can I stay with your parents?) I'd see spending that much time and effort on it.

[crystalswolf]

I did not know the level of importance such as if it was a best friend or perfume spritzer. I assumed something like best friend since a name was considered at all. Meant no offense. Just wanted to suggest a peaceful solution (something I seem to instinctually need to do).

[honeybee]

I had a fiction professor who had a line on the syllabus that read:

"Any female character named Tiffany, explicitly to indicate her dumbness and shallowness, will result in failure of the assignment."

[Aquarius]

I did not know the level of importance such as if it was a best friend or perfume spritzer. I assumed something like best friend since a name was considered at all. Meant no offense. Just wanted to suggest a peaceful solution (something I seem to instinctually need to do).

I'm not offended, just explaining what was going on. Any way, the point of my bringing it up wasn't to find a solution, it was to explain how the naming thing can get cracked out when an author tries to make a character appear more interesting than she really is.

[WarpGirl]

To a reader an OC may seem pointless but here in fanfic land people usually write and submit one chapter at a time unless it's a one shot. So making a judement that an OC's story takes away from the plot seems to be jumping the gun. Also since we're not really in an author's head we can't always tell what the process means to that particular author. Just to be clear I am talking about writing and posting here not in any school or professional situations.

Honeybee Was the Professor's name Tiffany? Because that was totally awesome!

[auroraborealis]

I haven't really made that many OCs and the ones I have only had bit parts. I've never really liked using them because I guess I'm still trying to flesh out how I think all the main characters are in my mind. Notice that I rarely mention Travis. This is because I have no idea what he's like. It's like when you first meet someone and all they give you is that polite facade and you don't really know anything about them until you talk for a while. One of my favorite OCs of all time was made up by Rigil Kent. He was a security officer on endeavor named Elisem or something that started with an E and had those letters in it. He's awesome.