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| Much ado about Mary Sue 2; A guide for the rest of us | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 15 2008, 12:11 PM (98 Views) | |
| Jeff | Oct 15 2008, 12:11 PM Post #1 |
Destroyer of Worlds
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I am creating this guide in hopes that it should help future writers and RP-goers of FAN with character creation and development. Point-by-point I aim to illustrate the standard Do's and Don't's of characters and what to look for and what to avoid. So, let's jump right in, shall we? 1) Remain objective about the characters Simply put, if you intend to publish it - be it on the forum, fanfic.net or even in book or magazine form - you must remember other people will invariably read it. As a result, you need to remember that to err is human and to not err at all is Mary Sue. If you want the main character to be likable, that's fine and dandy, but you must bare in mind that if you refrain being your toughest critic, someone else will be. By that I mean, making a character flawless and beautiful and whatnot makes for very weak characterization and tends to turn objective readers off from the work in question. That in a nutshell is why I detest romance novels as much as I do - it's pure Mary Sue fodder. All characters have flaws just as clearly as they have shadows. Let me give you an example: A guitarist of considerable talent is having trouble progressing in life due to severe stage fright. There, see? Not so hard. In your minds right now you're probably envisioning said character in said circumstance. It's believable, it could actually happen, and the character's key flaw makes him or her all the more endearing to the reader. True, he or she might overcome their stage fright eventually - maybe at a grand finale if the story is about overcoming fear, per se - but the gradual progression makes the character generally more real. Now, conversely, a non-objective writer would simply make the character flawless like: A guitarist who can play circles around Yngwie Malmsteen is having difficulty progressing in life because everyone is jealous of his awesome licks and amazingly good looks, flowing purple lily Indian braid hair, tight ass, gorgeous sandlewood sunset brown eyes, etc, etc, etc. Yes, that little example caused me physical agony to write. It's not believable. You probably have a hard time picturing it, right? That's because it's not real. If the character is not real, then nothing involving them will be. If you have a real, endearing character then no matter how far-fetched the story and elements therein may be, suspension of disbelief will hold strong. Objectivism is the name of the game no matter the genre. 2) Who or what is Mary Sue/Marty Stu/Gary Stu/etc? You've seen me use the phrase Mary Sue a bit thus far, so let me back up for a moment and elaborate on my point. Mary Sue is an all-encompassing term for any character who, at the most basic level of character development, is perfect. Boys can be Mary Sues just as easily as a girl, even though there are gender-specific terms, it is understood that "Mary Sue" can relate to any character regardless of gender. The Sue will always be physically attractive - at least by the author's views - talented in many, many ways be it music, sports, fighting, sex (where applicable), or, hell, all of the above and then some. Sues will always exceed every other character in the work. They will never be wrong and if someone attempts to prove that they are, that person will be humbled and sometimes even killed for their offense. Sues also tend to have really elaborate names that either have some kind of theme or meaning to it, as well as overly-detailed descriptions concerning hair and eye color, particularly those among the Sues with eyes that behave like a mood ring or hair color that requires a thesaurus to decipher what color it is - though purple is a popular choice. Small children and animals love them, sometimes she can even talk to them as well. The list goes on and on. Now, mind you, these traits in particular don't necessitate the term "Mary Sue" but they can be indicative of one. There are also different types of Mary Sue, but going into detail here isn't necessary. Please feel free to reference TVtropes.org and their section detailing Mary Sues for the sub-genres. However, for the use of this write-up, a "Canon Sue" is a canonical character of a work who, within the canon, is a Mary Sue, in case I need to reference it. 3) The worst word to pair after "fan"... ... is "fiction", like you couldn't have guessed. The worst part of fanfiction as a whole is Due to the rigorous screening processes involved in getting any official work published/on the air/made into a movie, etc, SHOULD be a filter for Sues, but unfortunately that's rarely the case. Compound this with Rule 1 and you get a very sound set of guidelines: 1) Don't write fanfiction 2) If you MUST for some God-forsaken reason write fanfiction, make it slightly better than the pig slop on fanfic.net by actually exerting some effort into character development. 3) Oh, and before I forget. Fuck your original character, no one wants to see it. Seriously. But this leads nicely to my next point... 4) Spell check is your friend/Proofread! I can't stress this enough. Microsoft Word comes on every single PC sold with a Windows OS on it and has a fairly reliable spell check and a somewhat reliable grammar check. USE. IT. PLEASE. I'm not even joking. If you, for some reason, have no word processor with a spell check, then by all means download the latest version of firefox. There's a built-in spell check function which, while not as refined as Microsoft Word's, is a big step above nothing. However, bare in mind that spell check won't catch every mistake. Example being: She got a tan. Typed out as: She got at an. Will not be caught by the spell check because the words are all spelled properly. In this instance, proofreading is the only thing you can rally on in order to correct mistakes you made before you slap it out on the internet for people like Sean and me to tear asunder. It's annoying and it looks like you just didn't care. 5) Creating a character... I was being facetious before when I said all fanfiction is crap. That's not entirely true. There are those few fanfics that take the time to seriously view characters in new lights, or try to bridge perceived plot inconsistencies or just show the characters in ways the show never got the chance to. Unfortunately, finding them is about as easy as finding gold in the Potomac River - which, FYI, is a river so toxic that swimming in it is forbidden, making the metaphor all the sweeter to me - and if you see "OC" (Original character) or "AC" (Alternate continuity) anywhere in the story, just stop reading because it IS crap. However, to tell a good story you will be needing characters and if you don't use a pre-established franchise as your basis, you have a lot of freedom to move around with. First off you need a character, usually human because doing anything otherwise makes you a nerd or a furry. (I'm kidding). The character also needs a story. Doesn't have to be super in-depth, but just a little something to make them a bit more human (or furry). One of my biggest complaints is that so many authors are going for "DARK" and "ANGST" like it's the "thing to do" these days. Example - Watchmen. Relax, I don't have anything against it. I haven't even read it yet, but just the general plot synopsis gave me chills not because I think it would be bad - in fact it sounds kick ass - my cold flash stemmed from the fact that we'll soon be neck-deep in imitators concerning dark and brooding anti-heroes who hate everything and everyone including all of New York because that's the "cool" place for super heroes, blah, blah, blah. Point 5.5 - don't jump on the bandwagon. Just because everyone ELSE says it's cool, doesn't mean it is or that it'll stay that way for long. Do what's best for your style. Anyways, once your dude or dudette has a story, whatever it may entail, he or she needs a personality. This is a much bigger deal than some people realize. Some characters have virtually no personality, stock 2-D personalities or come off as being highly schizophrenic. The ideal is not to fluctuate to extremes, but to find a medium and run in that groove. Some genres, this is more important than others. Comedy, however, is something of an exception. "Rule of Funny" trumps all other aspects of character or plot development - if it's funny and amuses the onlooker, than a minor break in consistency is fine. Okay, so your character now has a personality and a backstory. So far so good. Now your character needs to be plunked down into a setting, with other equally thought-out characters and stuff ensues. Now you have a story to tell. Oh, but if you plunk down your character into someone else's canon - KILL YOURSELF. 6) Author Insert vs. Mary Sue I'd just like to go ahead and make one thing perfectly clear - just because a character is an author insert does NOT make them a Mary Sue. An author insert, when made into a reasonable and endearing character, might not even SEEM like an author insert to the audience. Author inserts are only OBVIOUSLY author inserts when they are Mary Sues. General guidelines to tell if an Author Insert is indeed a Sue are: Same age Same general appearance (often polished up to become prettier) Same likes/dislikes - including other characters in the work (If the author likes one boy/girl more than another, it will be made quite clear and will 99.9% of the time, will be mutual. With great power...) Generally Sue-ish qualities as listed above. But, again, these are guidelines. Author insert and Mary Sue are "in the eye of the beholder" titles, so decide at your discretion. 7) ... and half elf and half dragon and half gargoyle and half human and half fairy and... KILL YO-- oh, wait. I haven't explained this one yet... Okay, class, biology lesson. When a horse and a donkey mate, the offspring is a "Mule", a hybrid. It has a horse's speed and a donkey's endurance and thus is a useful adaptation for farmers to use on their farms and ranches. Another example is if a lion and a tiger mate, it creates a "liger". Hybrids are always, ALWAYS sterile, meaning they can't procreate. There are no exceptions to this law. It is a never-changing law of the universe. As a result, if a character is, indeed, a While we're at it, this also overlaps to some extent when it comes to occupation. While it's possible that an older character might have had experience in a number of jobs or hobbies, a younger one (particularly between the ages of 11 and 17 seem to be the popular ones for whatever reason) probably would NOT know how to build a house and raise horses and play drums and and and and... Yeah. Sues are notorious for this last one in particular in that they have obscene repertoires of talents that make no logical sense. And while we're at it, transforming characters are somewhat iffy. If the transformation makes logical sense in context (a man bitten by a strange dog becomes a werewolf being the logical example) that's fine, but if the transformation is just for aesthetics, or for no particular reason As I was --URSELF!!! 8) Welcome to America. Speak English. I'm going to make this short and to the point. If you speak English - and the story you're writing is for an English-speaking audience. WRITE THE THING IN ENGLISH. Maybe you Japanese fangurlz think it's fun to squee to Japanophilia but to the rest of us, it's obnoxious. Write in the language of the audience you're aiming for. Stop being stupid. It's not cute. It's not funny. It's annoying. 'Nuff said. Anyways, I think that wraps it up for now. If I think of anything else, I'll add onto this little rant. Enjoy and feel free to comment or ask questions. If you add a Sue onto FAN it will be verbally crucified, urinated upon and cremated before being DELETED! ... Have a nice day. |
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Come visit me and my thought processes at my website: http://www.publishedauthors.net/tdotdw/news.html "In the cold light, justice and morality always look corny and you can't wave the flag and look cool. But like it or not, society needs its heroes." - John Hart; actor who played The Lone Ranger. | |
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| Rem | Oct 15 2008, 01:29 PM Post #2 |
Why yes, I do like snickerdoodles.
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lol, hi. my naem is Edited by Rem, Oct 15 2008, 01:33 PM.
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 Have you ever wondered what color air is? | |
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| M'lady Momo | Nov 21 2008, 04:52 PM Post #3 |
Secretary of Supreme Awesomeness
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Mary Sue. Mary Sue. Pretty pretty pretty pretty Mary Sue...Oh oh. Mary. My Mary Sue-ooh ooh, oooh ooh ooh ooh. Oh I love ya gal and I want you Mary Sue.
Edited by M'lady Momo, Nov 21 2008, 04:52 PM.
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