Isn't a 'gender swap', essentially making a new character?

[WarrenTheConey]

As an obsessive perfectionist, I find that I'm constantly over thinking things and constantly marring my work, by focusing on things that don't need the extra attention.

In a few days, I'm sure I'll have the free time to finish and post a new story in the archive.

I looked at the story codes and started thinking, (obsessing needlessly), about two tags in particular. GB - the gender bender tag, and OC - the original character tag.

This really made me wonder, wouldn't a gender bender character, also count as an original character?

I'm interested in hearing anyone's thoughts on what makes an 'original character', in the face of such a change. How much can that character change, before that character is considered, a different character?

[Desiderius Price]

To me, gender bending would be a step toward the characterization skills needed for original characters.  I’d suspect that an older abbreviation “OOC” (out-of-character or out-of-canon) would definitely fit this scenario, as gender bending is a specific modification of that canon character, but it’s still based on a canon character.  Some canon characters are...like a name only, so lots of fanfic writers take one of those and fill in the details.  Obviously, if I hit the random name generator, create all new details, and insert that, it’s an original character (and I’ve done that repeatedly with my fanfic where I need characters).

[BronxWench]

I have a tendency, when writing fan fiction, to take a fairly obscure character form canon and flesh them out, in essence creating a character where there was merely a placeholder. But as much as I create a back story, and use that obscure character in ways the original creator would never have anticipated, I always have it in the back of my head that this isn’t my character. It’s my perception of (or perhaps aspiration for) the original author’s work.

I think @Desiderius Price has a point in saying this is a step towards being able to write original characters for someone who hasn’t taken that leap before, much in the way writing fan fiction in general teaches the necessity of plot, and character arcs, and so on.

Now, from the moderation standpoint, many readers absolutely hate genderbent characters, or characters that are seriously out of character, which is why those tags do matter. Other fandoms make a cottage industry from swapping genders of main characters. Either way, as long as there’s a proper tag, readers are forewarned (if they stop to read the tags).

[Deadman]

On 1/13/2024 at 9:40 PM, WarrenTheConey said:

As an obsessive perfectionist, I find that I'm constantly over thinking things and constantly marring my work, by focusing on things that don't need the extra attention.

In a few days, I'm sure I'll have the free time to finish and post a new story in the archive.

I looked at the story codes and started thinking, (obsessing needlessly), about two tags in particular. GB - the gender bender tag, and OC - the original character tag.

This really made me wonder, wouldn't a gender bender character, also count as an original character?

I'm interested in hearing anyone's thoughts on what makes an 'original character', in the face of such a change. How much can that character change, before that character is considered, a different character?

I would say so personally. I mean, most characters are the gender they are for a reason. Particularly if the character has appeared on screen, like most of mine have.

So I prefer to create an OC rather than gender bend a character. Or I just shift the sexuality of the character. More than a few of the female characters I write about have intense relationships with other women. Though most of them aren’t explicitly lesbians. So occasionally I just give them a broader sexuality, usually bisexual.

[Desiderius Price]

5 hours ago, Deadman said:

I would say so personally. I mean, most characters are the gender they are for a reason. Particularly if the character has appeared on screen, like most of mine have.

So I prefer to create an OC rather than gender bend a character. Or I just shift the sexuality of the character. More than a few of the female characters I write about have intense relationships with other women. Though most of them aren’t explicitly lesbians. So occasionally I just give them a broader sexuality, usually bisexual.

Some people want to do the thought experiment, the “what if” the original author penned the character differently.  We all do this to some degree, there’s an innate amount that’s subconscious as we write a fanfiction.  It’s most definitely out-of-canon, however, I certainly won’t berate anybody for doing it.  Heck, even in canon, might be a genderless name that can go either direction (Zabini Blaise comes to mind from the potter universe).  And a “gender bender” could add in some serious considerations…like what if the Dursleys abused Harry bad enough (some accident) that they forcibly “transitioned” Harry to hide it?  Or, maybe after Cedric Diggory’s death (or Sirius’), Harry shows up to Hogwarts demanding to use the girls bathroom while wearing dresses (to cope)?

[Deadman]

15 hours ago, Desiderius Price said:

Some people want to do the thought experiment, the “what if” the original author penned the character differently.  We all do this to some degree, there’s an innate amount that’s subconscious as we write a fanfiction.  It’s most definitely out-of-canon, however, I certainly won’t berate anybody for doing it.  Heck, even in canon, might be a genderless name that can go either direction (Zabini Blaise comes to mind from the potter universe).  And a “gender bender” could add in some serious considerations…like what if the Dursleys abused Harry bad enough (some accident) that they forcibly “transitioned” Harry to hide it?  Or, maybe after Cedric Diggory’s death (or Sirius’), Harry shows up to Hogwarts demanding to use the girls bathroom while wearing dresses (to cope)?

Yeah, I wasn’t necessarily saying you shouldn’t. Just putting forward my view of the issue. For me, I write a lot in the Buffy fandom. It wouldn’t make sense to have the main character be a male character.

I wasn’t necessarily thinking of the gender bending as a plot point where a character was one gender and become another as part of the story. Mainly introducing a character from canon as a different gender.

[Desiderius Price]

19 minutes ago, Deadman said:

I wasn’t necessarily thinking of the gender bending as a plot point where a character was one gender and become another as part of the story. Mainly introducing a character from canon as a different gender.

That’s me adding an extra layer of complexity to a story

[Wilde_Guess]

Hi, all.

On 1/13/2024 at 8:40 PM, WarrenTheConey said:

As an obsessive perfectionist, I find that I'm constantly over thinking things and constantly marring my work, by focusing on things that don't need the extra attention.

In a few days, I'm sure I'll have the free time to finish and post a new story in the archive.

I looked at the story codes and started thinking, (obsessing needlessly), about two tags in particular. GB - the gender bender tag, and OC - the original character tag.

This really made me wonder, wouldn't a gender bender character, also count as an original character?

I'm interested in hearing anyone's thoughts on what makes an 'original character', in the face of such a change. How much can that character change, before that character is considered, a different character?

To answer the original post first, I believe that you aren’t quite creating an original character from a “canon” character with a gender change, a change in “satisfaction” with the character’s birth gender, a change in the character’s sexual orientation, or a change in the character’s “sex drive” for lack of a better way to phrase it.  But, you are coming very close.

Unless you’re writing your fanfiction work entirely within the canon confines of a “serial” original work, you are of necessity writing an alternate universe.  So, there will be “changes” rolling about.  But some changes are far more significant, or potentially jarring than others.  So, as an author you need to alert the reader somehow that you’re making very major changes to the status quo from the very beginning, and that they might not necessarily like the changes that you’ve made.

Whether real human beings or fictional characters, we are far more than the sum of our gender, gender satisfaction, conventionality of expressing those, or the degree to which we seek to “perform” sexually.  However, all of those do shape us noticably as people, absent serious conscious effort to go contrary to our “natural” tendencies.  Thus, while you can portray Group Captain Jack Harkness as a genuine and absolute vow-following Catholic Priest, or Father Brown as an open and notorious cross-dressing sexual libertine, both characterizations would be far out-of-character when compared to their “original” counterparts, even if they would be “close enough” to get you sued by their “owners” if you tried to write about them for profit.  Even giving Father Brown a first name would be “Alternate Universe,” since G. K. Chesterton avoided ever giving his most profitable character a first name.  So, a story with either character would desperately need “content flags,” or whatever other means your publishing site(s) allow to not upset potential readers.  Some readers won’t like you out-of-character protagonists.  Others will adore them, and will read everything you write about them, provided that it is written well. 

Everyone else here has also made wonderful points.  Whether you’re placing an actual character behind what was in canon “just a name,” or whether you are changing a “near-core” trait of a major character, or even an actual core trait, you are having to (re)create that character, and sometimes out of whole cloth.  So long as you inform the reader up-front that you’re doing so, no harm is done.  And, if you do it well, then your readers will be pleased and entertained.  Even turning up a character’s sex drive to eleven or down to three-quarters is a noticeable change.

Fleshing out “just a name” characters can be more satisfying to the reader than completely inventing a new character.  But this still depends on fleshing out the character well.  Taking “mid-background” characters and fleshing them out without changing their (limited) appearance from canon can be even better.  And sometimes, the original content creator just wrote a character whose existence in canon is bat-shit insane; and “retconning” that character is actually a benefit to the reader.  An example of this that comes to mind is the “Fat Friar” from the Rowlingverse.

As far as that goes, if you weren’t changing anything in your story, then it wouldn’t be fanfiction – it would be plagiarism.  So, “laissez le bon temps rouler” and write away, changes and all.  If you make Petunia and Vernon Dursley so totally accepting of Harry Potter that Petunia magically receives and gives birth to Harry’s full-blooded younger sibling and five or six additional children with Vernon, and the blood wards make the entire Little Whinging housing estate extraordinarily fecund, then go ahead.  There is exactly such a story on “St. Elsewhere,” and it’s actually very good.

As a reader, I don’t like to be “surprised” by unexplained or “unadvertised” changes.  If I know about the “changes” going in, I might read (and possibly enjoy) the story anyway, or I might avoid it without feeling resentful, “cheated” or misled.  Of course, even being “advertised” up front, the changes still have to make some kind of sense, both in canon and in life itself.  So, odds are that I’m not going to read your gender-changed gender dysphoric full-Subcontinental Indian Harry Potter who grew up in rural South Carolina as an accordion and banjo prodigy who started Hogwarts at the age of sixteen, no matter how well you’ve written it.  But, there are plenty of readers who will read it if you’re up-front and honest about your changes.

As a writer, I try to make every effort to “warn” the reader if there are major changes to “canon” characters beforehand.  Even so, some readers are only marginally capable of reading, period; and on some occasions will leave reviews telling you just that.  Those readers will never be satisfied, no matter how well you’ve written your story.  However, I can in good conscience ignore those readers, since if they were actually capable of reading, they were warned.

Cheers!

[Desiderius Price]

On 1/15/2024 at 12:40 PM, BronxWench said:

Either way, as long as there’s a proper tag, readers are forewarned (if they stop to read the tags).

Readers reading the tags?  How quaint.

[WarrenTheConey]

I posted my story with the proper tags, and a short description of what changes where made to the canon universe.

I think I'll keep doing that from this point forward.

Thanks for the advice everyone.