My Fiction Philosophy

First off Cocles over at Loregy has posted a short Fan-Fic, it's a great read and everyone should check it out. Now on to the post.

Fan Fiction is fun to do, though I don't always write I spend a lot of thinking up characters that would be cool in a certain setting. In fact a lot of my character concepts start out that way, but there are a few rules I hold myself to. For this I'll use WoW as my example setting but these apply to most fan-fic I think up.

1. "Exceptional, sort of" First and foremost your character should be exceptional. That's what makes a story enjoyable, but there is a limit. However you must place your thoughts in the setting. If your character single handedly defeated Illidan, that's a little hard to believe even if you actually did it in game. However if you were a member of a team that helped defeat Illindan that's much more believable. The first one is an example of being Exceptional to our world. It is based off of the view we have as players of the game. The second is and example of being exceptional within the setting. In the case of WoW it is a game with limited ability, thus we can't see the hundreds or thousands of normal people that live in Darlaran or Orgrimmar, we only see the hundreds of players in the city at anyone time. Within the world of Azeroth every player character is exceptional and capable of things the normal people only dream of. You can think of them like this. For the millions of player who play WoW there are millions more, they are equivalent to the normal people within Azeroth. They will never be able to kill dragons single handedly or fly on the back of Gryphons, though they may dream of it. So yes your character is exceptional but not anymore so than that of any other player, barring the differences in player skill.
2. "If someone else has it there can't be only one" This is particularly true for fiction set in game worlds like WoW. You writing a story about you and your buddy, both of you are hunters and you both have Loque. According to the lore that can't be possible there's only one Loque'nahak wondering around sholazar, and he's the mate of the Loa goddess Har'koa. But he's often killed yet some how appears again. OK he wasn't really dead (See Operation: Echo Isles/Gnomeregon) but what about taming how can he suddenly reappear after joining some hunter, and more importantly how can there be more than one of him in any given place. Easy answer there isn't. If you tame some rare creature don't assume you have that one (renaming it would be kinda weird seeing as they have names already) but that one could be part of a rare community of it's kind located in that area. King Krush can't be the only devilsaur in sholazar, but he is the most prominent one. In the case of Squalstri'dah and Stry'kar I used the spawn of Har'Koa all over Zul'Drak. Rather than being caught and corrupted he traveled to sholazar along with his father and later joined Stri'dah to help his mother. Sure they use a normal cat model but used to say they won't grow up to be more like their father and mother with time. This is not always necessary but in a persistent game world like WoW, Lore doesn't have to conflict game mechanics, sometimes you can work around them.
3. "Not everybody and everything is important to your story" so you took down Illidan, gratz so did that guy, you killed the Lich King, so did Bob in Tallahassee, you killed Onyxia, sorry Varian Wrynn actually did that, she just faked it to make you feel better. When your character battles some huge evil as part of a persist ant story in most cased you're not the only one. There's npc's both seen and unseen and of course your teammates that help you. You and your raid team represent an elite strike force that is part of a larger army, this is especially true in ICC. But you aren't the only one who did it, so unless your writing the story about your raid team, be vague. You don't have to name that shaman you tossed a chain heal on you at the last minute, or that hunter whose pet dived on a Val'kyr that was about the grab you. Mention, sure, it's awesome, but that guy doesn't need a name, he could be any hunter from any guild that took down the Lich King. The stories about your character it doesn't particularly partain to him/her don't worry about it. In the heat of battle your character wont be able to keep track everything that happens,(try following a combat log during a raid that list the entire raid and pets, or you could actually fight the boss). Leaving things blank lets readers fill in the blanks however they want. Maybe it was them that threw that chain heal, or maybe it reminds them of their own raids.
4. "Use your character, just make sense" Your character's achievements make great stories just let them make sense. The story of how you killed Thrall in BC might be cool but it kinda throws off the rest of the world, and complicates stories about Wrath. But don't let it stop you from making yourself awesome when you are. Squalstri'dah awes the young rangers in silvermoon with his skill with weapon because in game I began questing in Eversong Woods after I had reached level 80 and maxed out all of my weapon skills. He trained under various great lore hunters because while leveling I did quests and trained up in various places. (Even tamed a chimera outside of Thunderlord Stronghold, perfect place if i learned from Rexxar right?) Stri'dah and his brothers were raised by an orc, because my father's main is an orc warlock. Let your game build your character just don't go too far.

These ideas are not mandatory for every story. Some characters may have actually tamed the famed Aotona some may not have, it all depends on the story. A story about the assassination of Garrosh Hellscream would be adored by all the Horde in Azeroth. The key about these rules is that they place your story inside the game world without stomping on the stories of others. A story with these rules can exist next to any other story and not conflict. You get saved by some hunter's pet. My story mention how stry'kar tackled a Val'kyr off of a mage, and battled beside his father who was aided a wizened Troll Hunter in the battle. Your stories just like the setting should be filled with heroes, you should be one among many, but that doesn't mean you can't be the greatest of them, your just the greatest of the great.