Converting a Fanfic to an Original Work?

[Luxuria]

I am wondering HOW I can do this, well. Because I have a REALLY old Fanfic that is dead, but I adore the setting and the 'technically' Original characters I made. The fic was about the lives of the fandom characters before they became demons? So, the story was about their former human lives? The characters had human names and some of the manga character's personality? So, what I am struggling with is finding WHERE the human version begins and the anime character ends? Because I want to make this into an original story set in the Victorian Era. (At the moment. Time era setting might change.) But I wanted your thoughts and advice on how to do this? Because in my head, the main character is always going to have SOME things in common with the manga character. But also these are semi-general things like:

MC is gay and has a brother. Is kinda a jerk. Might be crazy?

But, like in my Sci-fi works, I had to google if Bounty Hunter was just a Star Wars term. So, I would love some advice on how to salvage these characters? I am very cautious about doing this right.

So, I would like some thoughts and ideas of how to split the character from its fanfiction version. Also, I am tempted to keep the human names I found, but I am going to have to rename them.

 

[Homer Potvin]

If they're original characters and all the names and settings have been changed, what's the problem?

 

[buttercream]

Came here to use the fancy "shave off the serial numbers" phrase I've seen thrown around, but you already did that?

It sounds to me like this is all in your head, honestly. You've changed everything you need to about the characters except the way you view them. The story's going to feel like a former fanfiction as long as you see it as a former fanfiction. The characters won't feel unique until you see them as unique.

The semi-general things don't sound nearly specific enough to be attributed to only one character from only one fandom. There are countless kinda-a-jerk MCs out there. From here, it doesn't seem necessary to go through and change every small detail just to get them as far from the source material as possible. You might as well just write a whole new story at that rate. Switch up a couple things if you're really that worried, make him full-out crazy, but I really don't think you have to.