Richard D. Lawson once wrote:

I think that is the problem I - and some other people - have against
fanfics that star the authors.  The pure hubris involved in writing such
a story is repulsive.

Your taking this too seriously.  There are alot of
"New-Character-Comes-Into-Nerima" stories out there -- so many that people
who have been in fandom for a while probably don't want to read them
anymore... but... so what?  They're popular, especially amoung younger
fans.

Nor am I discouraging you from writing.  The best writing flows from
your fantasy.  If you're not sure how a character would react in a
certain situation, ask yourself, "How would I react?" and go from there.

I think they should ask themselves "How would this character react?".  Your
suggestion would make the characters act Out Of Character unless it's the
otaku in an otaku fic.

Call me narrow-minded, if you will - I won't argue.  :)

You could have worded your suggestions better.  The impression I originally
got was to give your main character a different name than your own.

You could have said:

First: Too little background for the new characters. If your character is
going to become very powerful soon after entering Nerima, then you might
want to create some logical reason why he was able to become so powerful so
quickly, and go into that indepth. That's a very important part of your
story. Oh, and try to be concise... large fanfics by new authors scare off
readers.

Second: Passage of time. And this is a problem *alot* of fanfics have. Time
Marches On! Ask yourself: "If this event happened in real life, how long
would it take?"


Martin Bennett once wrote:

What if someone adds a character that is NOT them and is pure fiction? Is
that okay? Or is it really just the same as an author fics? Opinions?

That's very narrow-minded.  Authors introduce new characters into stories
all the time.  Ever watch Star Trek or Babylon 5?  The most important thing
is the plot of the story.

The vast majority of stories in the archives have new characters
introduced.  There are also alot of stories that introduce new characters
that are more enlightened or powerful than most castmembers of the anime
series:  (Ranma:) "March of the Pigs", "Four Birds of Fire", and (BGC:)
"Tokyo Babylon+Knight's End" to name a few.


G.L. Sandborn once wrote:

Anyway, new characters MUST be intergral to moving the central
characters along a given plot path and MUST be included only because none of
the origional characters qualify for that manipulation.

I've never read cartoon fanfics, but from the shows themselves I think
those usually involved new characters who would create or be part of a
subplot for the original characters to work towards the main plot (which is
dependent on the new characters).

In anime stories, you usually find new characters who join the central
characters rather than work in the background.  Or the new characters are
the central characters, with the original ones as background characters to
advance the plot.

I know this is hard
for 'purists' (who insist that any inclusion damages the integrity of the
origional author's work) to understand.

I don't think alot of fans feel this way.  What I do think is that some
members of the fanfic community take this way too seriously.


--
Salomon Farin                                 new address: sfarin@shadow.net
                                              old address: sfarin@netcom.com