Writing Cordelia: A Brief Guide
by Jennifer-Oksana
The first rule of writing Cordelia is: there are no hard and fast rules for writing Cordelia. She is one of the most wide-ranging characters in the Jossverse. She can be written as the heroine or the villain of the piece. She can be the most human of characters, or the most alien. She is hugely popular both in het and slash fiction, with people as rabidly attached to Cordelia/Faith as they are Cordelia/Xander, with both pairings having a wide following of mostly middling fic to back them up.
So what does the new Cordelia writer do? Is there anything consistent about Cordelia Chase over these seven years?
You'd be surprised. Of course, the first thing to do is establish when you are writing Cordelia, as the voice of the character has changed considerably from the posh, stuck-up Valley girl of Buffy season one to the mysterious "higher being" with a jones for her supposed true love's son of Angel season four. Now, one of the constants would be that even the most mature of Cordelias is quick with the comeback. Verbal wit and good dialogue are crucial for writing a good Cordelia.
Secondly, even the flakiest Cordelia has more than meets the eye. As Buffy herself discovered in "Out of Sight, Out of Mind"/"Invisible Girl," Cordelia is surprisingly insightful as to what's really going on in the world around her, be it high school or the demon-haunted one. She may not care about it, or she may care insofar as it applies to her, but Cordelia is no dummy. She has layers, so to overemphasize one angle of the character to the detriment of others is to write a poor Cordelia.
What if you are shipping Cordelia? Well, the ship guides in the rest of the essay section give stronger tips than can be fit into a brief essay, but a caveat in writing any Cordelia ship is to realize that many to most Cordelia 'ships on the show have been deeply unsuccessful, and more than any other female regular in the Jossverse, Cordelia has been a single woman. So whether you pair her with Buffy, Angel, or Oz (and people have shipped her with all of the above and more with success), the nature of Cordelia-ships should be kept in mind.
Meanwhile, another thing to keep in mind is that Cordelia is the mutability of the character. Her character changes as often as her hair has on Angel. The gulf between S1 and S3 Buffy Cordelia is wide enough as it is, let alone the first Cordelia we met and the current one. There is a rich body of fic to be mined in the changes, as well as similarities to be maintained. All Cordelias are somewhat vain, terribly witty, glamorous, and beloved by the people around her. Everything else is up for debate.
In any and all cases, writing Cordelia is a rewarding process, if one is willing to work with the complexities, strangenesses, and changeability of the character. Happy writing!
