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serpentinemaligni find it so inspiring going through peoples character rosters in art trade events and personal websites. seeing peoples expressions of their desires, glimmers of types they love... it's wonderful. it makes me want a roster that big for myself, for trades and roleplaying. characters who exist more as avatars for collaborative storytelling and 'OC fandom', where i am less precious about their precise plotlines.
but i wonder how to do it myself.
if you have original characters, i invite you to tell me what the process was like in terms of making them and their world. did they come from a story you were already working on, or did they sprout *before* a narrative? how did you create them? was it a long process? how did they evolve? how did you know *that* character was the one to continue developing? what do you use them for?
for me, i think there are several problems that i am encountering.
1. 'respectability' or recognisability when juggling multiple pseudonyms. i have my projects that are attached to my 'professional' creative profile, in fact some characters which started out intended for this account have wound up there. then i have projects that are specifically for 'serpentinemalign', which are horny/designed for PWP and/or are untenably edgy for traditional publishing. so, i mean i know what OCs *could* belong here... but i don't know if i could resist slipping them into the projects i want to get professionally published. or vice versa, wanting to use my professional OCs for horny purposes. i think i just like attention too much, and when i write a banger i want to somehow put that banger everywhere. but i honestly have no idea how to compartmentalise and decide 'oh, this is a character for serpentine' vs 'this is a character for something i actually want to get published professionally' or vice versa.
2. making a compelling character, or multiple characters with compelling dynamics is difficult! i fear that they will begin to blend into one another, because i would say a lot of my more 'serious' writing (i hate that, like i'm not also serious about my fanworks - but you get what i mean!) is built off an autobiographical perspective. that is, it is kind of self-obsessed and the characters are very obviously based off an aspect of me. i guess most people's characters are? but i would love to know how to build characters that are more distinct. maybe that isn't necessarily the point and i am just overthinking it.
3. there is a utilitarian aspect to writing PWP with at least one canon character. it is much easier to get an invested audience, and it is also an easier process than building a character from scratch, provided that you know the character well enough. (i guess by the point you know one of your own characters well enough, it's probably about even, if not easier. so it's an easy route vs a hard route that is by a certain point, possibly, effortless.) there is less friction to play with canons because a lot of groundwork was already done. but... i also like doing OC trades, i like making OCs that i can get fannishly obsessed with. i just don't know where to begin.
mat, despite being an author surrogate, was kind of perfect as an example. a character who is distinct and has interesting common traits but who is flexible enough to fit into many situations. maybe i just need to think about how mat came into being and just keep building like that lol. i think probably the core is just pure self-indulgence, and possibly also a degree of genre ambivalence - the ability to take many incarnations, almost like a legacy character or a character with many parallel universe versions, because the core traits are strong and distinctive enough. the obvious next step would be to make an original love interest for mat, i guess? or think about 'wishlist' situations that aren't fulfilled well by a canon character? ah. a lot of thinking, probably more than can be done in this journal. anyway, be sure to tell me about your own processes for making/developing/using OCs. i am super curious 🤔
but i wonder how to do it myself.
if you have original characters, i invite you to tell me what the process was like in terms of making them and their world. did they come from a story you were already working on, or did they sprout *before* a narrative? how did you create them? was it a long process? how did they evolve? how did you know *that* character was the one to continue developing? what do you use them for?
for me, i think there are several problems that i am encountering.
1. 'respectability' or recognisability when juggling multiple pseudonyms. i have my projects that are attached to my 'professional' creative profile, in fact some characters which started out intended for this account have wound up there. then i have projects that are specifically for 'serpentinemalign', which are horny/designed for PWP and/or are untenably edgy for traditional publishing. so, i mean i know what OCs *could* belong here... but i don't know if i could resist slipping them into the projects i want to get professionally published. or vice versa, wanting to use my professional OCs for horny purposes. i think i just like attention too much, and when i write a banger i want to somehow put that banger everywhere. but i honestly have no idea how to compartmentalise and decide 'oh, this is a character for serpentine' vs 'this is a character for something i actually want to get published professionally' or vice versa.
2. making a compelling character, or multiple characters with compelling dynamics is difficult! i fear that they will begin to blend into one another, because i would say a lot of my more 'serious' writing (i hate that, like i'm not also serious about my fanworks - but you get what i mean!) is built off an autobiographical perspective. that is, it is kind of self-obsessed and the characters are very obviously based off an aspect of me. i guess most people's characters are? but i would love to know how to build characters that are more distinct. maybe that isn't necessarily the point and i am just overthinking it.
3. there is a utilitarian aspect to writing PWP with at least one canon character. it is much easier to get an invested audience, and it is also an easier process than building a character from scratch, provided that you know the character well enough. (i guess by the point you know one of your own characters well enough, it's probably about even, if not easier. so it's an easy route vs a hard route that is by a certain point, possibly, effortless.) there is less friction to play with canons because a lot of groundwork was already done. but... i also like doing OC trades, i like making OCs that i can get fannishly obsessed with. i just don't know where to begin.
mat, despite being an author surrogate, was kind of perfect as an example. a character who is distinct and has interesting common traits but who is flexible enough to fit into many situations. maybe i just need to think about how mat came into being and just keep building like that lol. i think probably the core is just pure self-indulgence, and possibly also a degree of genre ambivalence - the ability to take many incarnations, almost like a legacy character or a character with many parallel universe versions, because the core traits are strong and distinctive enough. the obvious next step would be to make an original love interest for mat, i guess? or think about 'wishlist' situations that aren't fulfilled well by a canon character? ah. a lot of thinking, probably more than can be done in this journal. anyway, be sure to tell me about your own processes for making/developing/using OCs. i am super curious 🤔
