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Old 2007-05-11, 02:08   Link #79
dkellis
illusion control
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Age: 41
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One problem I have with Ivey is that I've made her too, well, odd in terms of personality. She'd be the "main character" of the story in much the same way Haruhi is the "main character" of MoHS: she's the one with plenty of screentime, but the one whom the audience is actually supposed to identify with is likely to be yet another character who's the tsukkomi to Ivey's bokke. (In fact, I can feel another Original Character idea coming on...) I realize that this may not actually be necessary, but my writing style is too ingrained towards the Serious Put-Upon Narrator (even if it's third-person).

This would work better if there were a larger cast to play off each other's quirks, and while we already have a pre-made cast in the canon crew, this brings up the problem of not actually having an excuse (that isn't completely contrived, anyway) for Ivey to interact with Nanoha and co. for any length of time.

On another note, I've mentioned a few problems I came across when creating a character, and I'd like to elaborate on them here:

- Age. Big one. The Nanoha-verse is filled with super-geniuses at prepubescent ages, such that if I make a character a reasonable mid-twenties, she will likely be shunted to the side as being "too old" to interact with the main cast, who are actually too young. A nineteen-year old may or may not have the same frame of references as a twenty-six-year old, even if that nineteen-year old is the head of a division.

So I have to make a young character, as the Nanoha-verse creators did (Subaru and Teana are just sixteen; I feel old, and I'm only twenty-four; I own coins that are older than sixteen years old). This is not a Bad Thing, as my CCS fanfics would attest: I have a tendency to create young kids with snarky worldviews and overpowered destinies. But still, my mind rebels.

- Locations, both of origin and of occupation. We know that Genya and Ginga are in the 108th something, which implies one hundred and seven more, but with divisions being made and removed and merged, there may be something like just seven left or something. And we don't know what any of those other departments do. I want to have Ivey in a competent but slightly undesirable department whose official capacity is in investigating and apprehending middle-ranking criminals: what is the unit name?

Also, we have Earth. And we have Midchilda. And... we know nothing about any other worlds. Earth is the "97th Non-Administered World", which implies, once again, 96 more. And then there are other worlds which are Administered, which I would assume means under TSAB jurisdiction. Which still tells us nothing, even about what being under TSAB jurisdiction means.

- Timeline affecting screentime. Now, I admit that this may be moot by the time StrikerS ends, but for now, it is tentatively valid.

StrikerS takes place ten years after A's (or most of the events in it, anyway). Any children in StrikerS were not in A's. Any children in A's are now teenagers at least. The dynamics have changed.

Anyone on Earth will not have much "screentime", so to speak, in StrikerS. For example, let's say I want to create a character who has a crush on Fate. He's not magical, and he's just an acquaintance at most to her.

In A's, this character is most likely Fate's (and Nanoha's) classmate, and from Earth. In StrikerS, this character is most likely a Midchildan working in the TSAB. I cannot easily write a character from Earth who has a crush on Fate in StrikerS, since that would require him to travel all the way to Midchilda for some reason or other, which would probably mean that he has magical talent of some sort.

So if I want to make a StrikerS character, I have to make him or her Midchildan, or something like that. The "mundane from Earth" route is, if not closed, then made very difficult. (Heck, I don't even know if I can write in Arisa and Suzuka, much less a Random Friend.)

- References. We know that they're there. Subaru is more or less a walking mecha reference. But how blatant should they be? Should it just be in feel and vague obscurities, or should it be named outright?

After all this whining, I'll have to thank anyone who read all that, and ask: how would you solve the above problems? Or do you have any comments on them?
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