Cross over characters?

[Wolfeyes]

I was wondering if the concept of sharing characters with other authors if it is a particularly good idea or other people's thoughts on it.

For me, I've got a character in my story (secondary character) that is kind of like an alter universe version of one of my fellow writer's/friend's that was granted with permission. Or for him he said he was planning of having alternate universe versions of my two main characters for my primary story appear as short cameos on the battlefield in one of his books and for his first book he's writing he borrowed a character of mine I actually liked a fair bit called Madam Butterfly (still granted with permission). Likewise, my sister for her story has a short appearance of two of my "villains" in the past world of her characters as well as the concept of the two Empires from my story running under the explanation that ties the two stories as "In the realm of the Universe there are different worlds with different stories and people. For a split moment of existence these two world's stories crossed."

The problem I find is sometimes having to find ways of dealing with said crossover character like when I write a situation as well as the responses for the character Ody based on what I have read of my friend's work and what he tells me and he gets really haughty at me saying something along the lines of "NO! That's not him at all!". When I'm left responding (quite skeptically) with asking him what he thinks the character would do instead only to give me something that fits the realm of his story (like Ody is somehow a master of weapon dances, several fighting styles, half breeds and his swords are ALIVE) and me having to remind him in the universe of my story magic and demons and all that have a different way of running while trying to find compromises to make it "satisfy" him but keep it within to realm of reality. Likewise, when my sister borrows my universe even for a sort portion of the story it's very hard to work out since she has different views on how my Empires should be and how her characters fit into it all as well as mine. It's not as bad as with my friend but there are certain clashing views when she wants a character of hers to go over to the more "evil" of the two Empires to try and convert people when in the scenario worked out with my characters (that are supposed to be on the opposite side based on what she wants) but then she realizes there's a problem since my characters are on the "lesser evil" side. Which of course leads to arguments on how it works to fit into the scenarios planned but fit the history of that one point in the two worlds.

So, do people think it's too much of a hassle of using other author's characters? Good idea, bad idea, why it is, just what do people think of it?

[blgarver]

Oh man, this sounds like quite a sticky wicket.

I've never tried anything like this before, outside of crossing my own characters into other stories of my own.  But I have total control over them, so it's not really the same thing. 

I think if I were to try borrowing/lending characters with my writing buddies, it would have to be very orhestrated from the get-go.  Along the same lines as sharing universes with another author, only sharing characters would be much more difficult I think.  It's gotta be a tricky task to take a character out of his/her native universe and transplant him into a new/different one.  Depending on the variation between the worlds, you'd have to handle whether or not the character understands how the new/different world works, what the timeframe is in relation to the events that happened in the original story, etc...  I don't even know how many different aspects would have to be dealt with for this to work.  j

Personally I don't think I'd have the gonads to try it, nor would I be able to let one of my beloved, albeit undeveloped characters run off with someone else.  That's the greedy, "this is my creation and I want to take all the credit" part of me.  However, I'd be flattered if someone wanted to use one of my characters.  I just don't think I'd let it happen, at least not without a long, detailed talk about what the other author had in store for my character.  If I"m planning sequels, I don't want this other author's story to interfere with the timeline/plot of what I had planned. 

As far as it being a good or bad idea, well I don't think this issue has that definate of an answer.  In the hands of a very organized, prepared group of writers it could work marvelously.  But I think it would be very troublesome if someone wanted to take an already established character and put him in a different world.  For me it would be too complicated, anyway.  My mind just doesn't work like that.

But hey, that's me.  I can barely chew gum and breath at the same time without choking myself.

BLG

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Nobody else gets to misrepresent my babies; if I were going to do a cameo by a character of someone else's it would be very brief indeed, and unless I had them go through it with me line by line it would be non-speaking.

The place where I think this must get interestingly difficult is new writers coming onto long-established character continuity in comics.

[Dom]

Honestly, I'd be worried about copyright issues.  What if your friend says today that you can use their character, but a few years later decides no?

I do have a character that I created in tandom with a friend about 12 years ago (when we were 12); I took him one way, she took him another way, and the only thing they share now is a name.  And not even that sometimes.  They're like twins...similar but not the same person.  But in this case, it was convergent evolution, so they no longer resemble each other.  We have talked about a crossover some day but in our case the two characters are so different I don't think there would be much of a copyright issue if we did it.  And we'd most likely work on the crossover together, writing our own versions of the character.

[terioncalling]

*boggles*

That's a twisty situation you have there.  Suggestion would probably be to go over borrowed character's very well with folk borrowing them so they can figure out just how to fit them in.  Or if they are capable of fitting them in at all.

As to borrowing character myself...I don't do it unless I'm writing fanfiction.  In all my original stuff I work up the characters on my own.  That way I don't have to worry about missing something from the character that I borrow.  ^^