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Right, so first things first: characterization is tricky. It’s tricky when you're writing something completely original, and it’s arguably even trickier when writing something based off of someone else’s work, i.e. fanfiction, because then there are standards. Y’all know what I’m talking about: when you’re trying so hard to write in a certain scenario or ship, that things just spiral out of control until the characters you know and love are unrecognizable like the glorious tirefire that’s My Immortal. Take Draco/Hermione, for example. In canon, these two despise each other: Draco calls Hermione Mudblood, she hexes him, he becomes a Death Eater, she fights the Dark Lord, and so on and so forth. Hermione eventually marries Ron Weasley, and has Hugo and Rose. Draco gets together with Astoria Greengrass, and has little Scorpius. Scorpius marries Rose. Dang it. Let's try it again— Albus marries Scorpius. ? Must... focus... away.... from.... ships. Everyone lives happily ever after—more or less. There! Canon's finished, heroes and villains get their ending, the next generation begins, blah, blah, blah. Everything's cut and dry for the most part (Seriously, some of the fan theories I've seen are both awesome and terrifying. Leave my childhood alone!) But then this is where the fangirls and fanboys come in. Maybe you don't agree with a decision Ms. Rowling made in one of the books. Maybe you want to know what happened if Harry hadn't gone ahead and cursed Malfoy in Half-Blood Prince. Maybe you just think Neville and Harry would look adorable together (Which...yeah. You're not wrong there. Artists, I salute you so much). Maybe you think Lavender Brown got a bad rap. But no matter your ships, or your what-if scenarios, choosing characterization over getting right to the good stuff is what makes them believable. Unfortunately the reverse is something that can plague me some other authors who totally aren't named Ausra. Nope, not at all. Anyway. That one's a blog post for another day, seeing as it involves flashbacks, Mary Sues, and deciding that accepting dares from eleven-year-old versions of your friends is a good idea (Spoiler alert: It's a terrible idea). Back to the main point: Let's take Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger, for a rather famous example. While I normally neither read nor write Dramione, I have seen a few of the many well-received and excellently written fics featuring the couple. And they are good. But, what makes those particular stories so well-written, and consequently widely enjoyed, isn’t the trope-y fluff and angst put in for readers to enjoy, even for the ones like me who don't normally ship it, is that tricky thing we call characterization. The thing is, most of the time, you don’t want to see—running with the Dramione example—is the erstwhile Miss Granger and Mister Malfoy immediately making lovey-dovey eyes at each other, and proclaiming eternal love at first sight when they meet, because that would make absolutely no sense (Most of the time). In their canon circumstances, when they first meet, Hermione is a know-it-all Muggle-born too stubborn for her own good, while Draco is busy falling in line with his parents' espoused values as a pure-blood racist loudmouth. Don't look at me like that. You know it's true. For a good story that doesn’t leave us wondering if we even just read about Draco Lucius “Foul Evil Little Cockroach” Malfoy and Hermione Jean “Filthy Mudblood” Granger, and not just some OCs with their names, these two have to work past the issues they have both with each other and themselves. For example, Malfoy would probably have to accept his father's ideals were utter poisonous drivel if he ever wanted to stand a chance asking Hermione out on a date, and probably throw in some serious groveling and a pardon signed by the Minister of Magic as well, depending where he is in the canon timeline. Additionally, if you run with canon, he would probably have to fight his family at some point (Which would make excellent angst) and is something that would be cause for significant conflict. Does he care for Hermione enough to stand against from his parents, his family, to fight against what he's been taught to revere for most of his life? Does he even want to try, or just convert her to his side? As for Hermione, it would be a case of overcoming old biases and bad blood. She would have to accept the possibility that one of her oldest enemies and school rivals has fundamentally changed. Most likely, she would also struggle to accept that the world isn't all black and white in this instance—he may still not be aligned with her morals. Does she care enough to possibly stand against Harry and Ron—her oldest friends, and who have proven on multiple occasions to loathe Draco Malfoy—as well as be essentially responsible for separating him from the people he's loved all his life? Or, is she being seduced by the idea of the Dark Arts as well as the idea of the blond Slytherin in question? All of these are great character questions you see authors asking when writing them together. And this isn't even without diverging from canon even further. What if Hermione was born to magical parents, and was simply raised by dentists, or if Malfoy was born a Squib? How would this affect their dynamic? Characters are so much fun to mess with. ? Anyway, the point is, characterization is hard in fanfiction, because there are certain standards you have to adhere to. For example, Hermione Granger is a studious bookworm, James T. Kirk is a charming flirt, Anakin Skywalker is a reckless tactician, et cetera. There are certain things you simply cannot deviate from without having your story labeled immediately as out of character, not without excellent in-story reasons. Hermione can’t suddenly become obsessed with her looks and hate studying for no reason, Jim can’t suddenly find human interaction repulsive and become an introvert just because he woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and Anakin can’t suddenly become this great cautious thinker out of the blue. That’s what Obi-Wan is for. Unless, of course, you change something vital about their backstory. They could be raised by someone else, never be introduced to a vital event in their past, change an aspect of their integral abilities, change their species, even, or you could gender-flip. The last can be both easy and difficult for many reasons in the Harry Potter 'verse. For the latter it can be because of many—let’s call them precedents—precedents to found on the Internet are either essentially Harry with the necessary girl parts and some horrific variant on Harriet for a name (Boring), or it’s poorly written smut with no care for personality (Don’t get me started). Rarely, there is Transgender Harry, but that’s a whole other can of worms, much rarer, and very interesting, with different things to keep in mind. All of them very easy lazy trends to fall behind. But, there is another option, that fewer writers take: They re-work the character from the ground up—or at least, partially from the ground up. It’s a large task to do it completely, and to be honest, whoever is capable of doing it has my complete and utter respect. I am not one of them, believe me. More of it was retroactive where I'm concerned. But back to the point: gender-flipping our beloved main protagonist, or any Harry Potter character, can also be one of the easiest things in the world, when you take into account two things: one, you have seven books, eight movies, an entire website, and assorted material to work off of for personality, and two—and this is unique to Harry—he is something of a blank slate, in some respects. Think about it. What do you know about Harry the person? Not his parents, or life events, or why Tom Marvolo Riddle wanted him dead. Think about his favorite color, hobbies, worst memories of Dudley, what he did with Ron and Hermione on a day-to-day basis when they just hung out, not attempting to solve the latest mystery plaguing the school. Was he a dog person or a cat person? Did he have a favorite professional Quidditch team? Any personal pet peeves? Was he a caffeine addict? Any embarrassing incidents or inside jokes with his classmates not directly related to the DADA teacher trying to kill him? What made Harry James Potter unique from every other student in the school as a person? I would bet a lot of Galleons that no one outside Miss Rowling herself could definitively answer all of the questions posited above. Sure, we know plenty of personality traits, his extracurriculars, values, plenty about who his loved ones are, but the everyday stuff—things you would know about your best friend, more or less—is in somewhat limited supply in canon, for a lot of good reasons. This, however, does leave many, many, doors open for fanfic writers. Because the lack of those idiosyncrasies, the stuff sometimes not given to Harry in favor of something else needed to advance the overall plot? That’s our bread and butter, where those drabbles and one-shots and plot bunnies that go bump in the night come from. (And the memes. We can never forget the memes.) So, what do we do, with this empty space of detail about our favorite characters? What writers have done since time immemorial. Make stuff up. Sort of. Reverse-engineering would probably be a better term for it. You take what you know what you know about the character, and the people around them, create a working theory (My science teachers would be so proud of me), and then you start making stuff up. This can cut both ways, of course, and send a character on a one-way ride into OOC territory, but it's by and large what many authors due successfully, and often with fantastic results. To take a slightly boring, linguistically nerdy example: determining the name of a Female!Harry Potter, going all the way back to the genderbending idea. For starters, you can take the normal mainstays—Harriet, Hariah, Hari, Hariel—out, as it’s unlikely that people named Lily and James, and who named their son Harry, not Hadrian or Henry or Harrison, would name their daughter something like that. Also, most of them are really overused. Instead, there are several routes you can take. The most popular outside the H-names tend to be a flower name similar to Lily and Petunia (Rose, Dahlia, Marigold, Poppy, etc), a royal name in the same vein of James or Harry, a nickname for Henry (Wilhelmina, Josephine, Victoria, etc), or a name appropriate for a babe born during a war (Hope, Nadia, Faith, Constance, etc). You’re more likely to have a free reign on middle names, be it Lily, James, Euphemia (Harry’s canon grandmother), Dorea (She was considered Harry’s grandmother until revealed otherwise), or anything else. Besides the name, there are many more examples of characterization in creating a Female!Harry, but the main thing is to make a unique character that will keep the reader interested in a new character arc while still recognizable when compared to the original, the reactions of the people around the protagonist is an excellent place to start. As far as personality traits go, we know, or can infer, a lot about the supporting cast and how they might react. To begin with, it is most likely that if Petunia had found a niece who more resembled her sister than her hated brother-in-law that she would have either treated her more nicely, or far more strictly than Harry ever was. Vernon could potentially go either way, while Dudley will follow the lead of one of his parents, most likely. Professor McGonagall could show up instead of Hagrid to meet the child of her departed friends, with Sirius Black in Azkaban and Remus Lupin MIA. But I’ll stop from jumping down that particularly rabbit hole, since this is where different interpretations of canon and different choices of the author, all with their own validity, come into play. Perhaps our Female Harry has flipped looks, with her mother’s hair but her father’s eyes, or she still retains the looks of Canon Harry. Maybe she's the spitting image of one of her parents. Or, you choose to interpret the Dursleys’ treatment of Harry as far worse than any specific incident mentioned in canon, and she is consequently treated horribly, either of which would have lasting repercussions on her personality when she boards the Hogwarts Express for the first time. What repercussions, you ask? That's up to whoever's writing the story. Thirdly (But most assuredly not lastly), there is the matter of the prophecy. Once again, there are several options here: you could have Neville become the Chosen One and the Boy-Who-Lived; or, not necessarily the Boy-Who-Lived, depending on how you want the story to go. Lily and James were both actively fighting against Voldemort, defying him three times. They would be considerable targets for the Death Eaters, even worthy of attention from the Dark Lord himself. Lily’s protection of Harry could possibly prove unique. Or she could be trading how-to-protect-your-child-and-defeat-Dark-Lords tips with Alice Longbottom. Maybe it's someone else entirely! (C'mon, I need a Padma and Parvati are the Twins-Who-Lived story. It'd be epic.) Or you could just change the pronouns of the prophecy, and keep things the same. I might over-complicate things sometimes. Possibly. Probably. I beg the Fifth? Writing is hard sometimes, Internet friends. Though, I’m reliably informed it gets easier, and it does have so many awesome moments (Seriously, has anyone else ever had that moment where you're writing something, and you come up with this great twist or plot point, and you start cackling at your own brilliance? It's one of the best feelings ever). Apparently, it’s also a good thing when the voices in your head talk to you and sound like your characters, and much saner than just having your muse shriek at you all day. I have my doubts. ? However, I will admit it is far more organized—everyone tends to take turns. I imagine it's the only time in Voldemort's life he's ever willingly waited in line. "I like the notion of making stuff up or letting your imagination go away with you." -Stevie Jackson Note: This blog post was spawned via reading some posts on the Character Name Help and OC Name Inspiration threads on HPFT, as well as several posts in the Ship Talk part of HPFT, as well as Professor Tolkien, may his royal linguistic geniusness rest in peace.