the vampire diaries fanfic writing tips

✧ adding ocs

so i thought i'd do a chapter on this because it's something that i struggle with and i think others have to.

it's hard to determine how many ocs to have in your fanfic.

on a personal note i never recommend more than 2 MAIN ocs.

what i mean by this is your main OC who your fic will follow and then maybe another main.

if you're trying to stick to the show, you don't want to over crowd your fanfic. tvd already has so many characters it will get crowded if you add a lot more.

but this also depends on who your OC is and what their relationships are like with other characters.

for example, in my story my oc is in love with kol, best friends with klaus, friends with stefan, caroline, elijah, and rebekah, and is the sister of elena and jeremy.

she already has so many relationships it's hard to add and keep other ocs throughout the book.

she has one best friend from her childhood whose an oc because she's younger than elena and her friends so it makes sense for her to have a different friend group.

now my oc only has one because of some things that you'd have to read the fic to understand.

if your oc doesn't know about vampires, like mine didn't, it's normal for them to have a friend group out of the main characters. however, once they know and get dragged in doing that will be incredibly difficult because now you have them in two conflicting groups. the only way to fix that is for them to know and once they know they also become involved. it'll become very messy and if you plan to have your oc be friends with main characters as well it just takes up a lot of time and space and it's best to avoid that.

that's not to say you can't have a few random ocs every now and then. for example, my oc made a friend while at college who was in a few chapters, but didn't become a main character. she also has a therapist that's an oc but again, not a main character.

i just say to be aware of how many characters you can fit in a story. you don't see shows with 15+ main characters for a reason. keep that in mind.

this is more of a personal opinion but very rarely have i read a fanfic with a ton of ocs and stuck to it. i usually stop reading especially when the ocs begin to take over the characters from the show. if they also get their own storylines completely separate from the main characters and even your main oc i'll also stop reading.

like for example for my main oc's best friend, all her storylines separate from my oc take place with elijah or rebekah so that there's some connection to the show.

hope this helps!