Mary Sue

Mary Sues are characters that are wonderful and without flaw, very much like the author except perfect and universally loved by everyone. Basically the author is ego tripping, which is only fun for them--for the reader, not so much.

For me she has,

1. a bunch of special and unique traits
2. no discernable flaws and loved by everybody
3. possibly a really tragic backstory, but not always necessary

To not be a Mary Sue,

1. have some damn flaws
2. have people react to her in a realistic way (some like her, some dislike her, some don't care)

"Mary Sue" is a term coined by fan fic writers in the 1970's and early 1980's. The original Mary Sue (yes, the character's name was Mary Sue) was in a Star Trek story where she could out logic Spock, out engineer Scotty, out command/think Kirk, out doctor McCoy AND every male character wanted to bed her and everyone thought she was wonderful.

I read the story. It was hilariously fun.

The original Mary Sue was hated because she stole all the thunder from the cannon characters that we adored reading and writing about. We were allowed to do original characters as well as cannon characters, way back when.

In the time since then, "Mary Sue" (or Marty Stu for guys) has become the deorgatory name for any character that reads as an author-fantasy fulfillment character.

I don't bother trying to keep my characters from being "Mary Sue"s. I don't think an original character can be guilty of being a "Mary Sue" because she is a cannon character and the story already revolves around her. I look at the NYT bestsellers' lists and see plenty of characters who may well be author-fantasy fulfillment well represented. I don't see a problem with them.

My main characters seem to have the opposite problem -- too flawed. My idea is the character has flaws that creates problems that he has to work through, but is a better person at the end after going through his trials and tribulations. I've had more than one beta reader say this doesn't work because the reader will never get past the beginning where the MC seems like a loser or a jerk.

I will say, the protagonist of my favoritest novel ever is a total Mary Sue (or Gary Stu, if you like). Everyone except for really evil people love him. He's super good at everything he tries, he has a tragic backstory, and he is really brave and does good things that everyone else is afraid to do. Because of all his goodness. He's also BASED ON THE AUTHOR. In that case, it totally totally works for him to be a Mary Sue. For some readers, he might come off as too perfect and special, but the book has sold like a bazillion copies.

Mary Sue is already perfect, therefore she can't grow.
Mary Sue can do anything, therefore she has no challenges.
Mary Sue is universally loved, therefore she has no opposition.
Mary Sue gets what she wants, therefore she risks nothing.

The problem I have with Mary Sue is that many heroic characters in many well-known books, movies, and television shows, meet the definition of Mary Sue. The original concept was a female character who worked her way into the Star Trek universe and behaved heroically, despite the standards set for women in the 1960s. People were quick to point out that a lot of these super-girls were author fantasies and not really true to Star Trek, but if you're talking about your own character especially in a SF or fantasy universe where even the villains can perform astonishing feats, you're likely to meet someone's definition of Mary Sue.

I really don't worry about it. I just try to make my characters human, and let it go at that.

IMHO if it works it is not a Mary Sue even if it is Sue-like, that is a term of characters that fail in this certain way.

ChristineR said:

The problem I have with Mary Sue is that many heroic characters in many well-known books, movies, and television shows, meet the definition of Mary Sue.

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For some characters it's very hard to avoid making them Mary Sues. Any character who is a noble (in fantasy) or a celebrity (in sci-fi) is going to have legions of people who will do anything to make her happy. If you have a main character like that you have an extra factor of difficulty in making her likeable and realistic.

My most Mary Sueish character was a TV starlet who was a genius with a troubled past. But I made her a guilt-racked serial killer, which I think evened it out.

There are a lot of ways to spot Mary Sue characters that come down to subjective reading of power level and "specialness", which...just doesn't work for original fiction, most of the time. Of course a lot of protagonists are going to be special, or having unusual/significant powers. That's why the narrative is focusing on them, right?

One way to spot the Unrealistic Author Self-Insert, though--that is, the kind of character far more beloved by author than readers--is to try this test:

1. Who loves/admires/respects/supports the character? (Especially right off the bat, but also by the end of the story.)
2. Who hates/disdains/disparages/attacks the character? (Ditto.)

If for every important character in the book anyone who could be considered a "good guy" falls into category 1, and anyone who could be considered a "bad guy" falls into category 2, you probably have a Mary Sue on your hand. Whenever the fastest way to tell if someone is a Good Person is whether or not they like one specific character... That's heading into Mary Sue territory.

(In fanfic, this tends to exhibit as "All the characters that the author really likes also like the author's new character, and all the characters that the author dislikes, dislike the author's new character.")

Dorian Gray scores 73 on the Mary Sue Test. 50+ is supposed to be kill it dead. So, you know. Maybe fanfiction writers aren't always the people with the best writing advice.

Check out the test, though. It's a great way to procrastinate.

http://www.springhole.net/quizzes/marysue.htm

Stunted said:

http://www.springhole.net/quizzes/marysue.htm

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Ooh, thanks. It's been a while since I've seen one of these.

Huh. Damndest thing: Questions 3 and 4, the character did originally look much like me... though when I tried to bring up a mental image of him just now, he looked completely different. And what I'm seeing now just feels right.

I didn't see anyone else say this, but a lot of times if the character does have a flaw, it's either one that isn't a real flaw (i.e., the character thinks they're ugly but everyone else thinks they're beautiful), or it's a "cutesy" sorta flaw that's supposed to be charming or something (i.e., being clumsy). Uh...yeah y'all can probably figure out who I'm referring to there.

I think original characters can definitely fall into the trap. Anita Blake, while starting out as a great, well-rounded character, fits my definition of a Mary Sue by about book eight or nine.

The term Mary Sue has become broader and broader over the years. The simplest definition I find for it is "any character that other characters/the author seem to like far more than the readers".

Unfortunately, it is often used for "any character an individual reader doesn't like for whatever reason" - or even "any female character who gets in the way of the yaoi".

The qualities of "Mary Sue" and the qualities of "hero" are often not very far apart.

Stunted said:

Dorian Gray scores 73 on the Mary Sue Test. 50+ is supposed to be kill it dead. So, you know. Maybe fanfiction writers aren't always the people with the best writing advice.

Check out the test, though. It's a great way to procrastinate.

http://www.springhole.net/quizzes/marysue.htm

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That's not bad! Mine got a 25, and that says too much Sue, but mine does involve special powers and a bit of a Chosen One thing. It's a twisted, twisted story so a bit of fairytale is intentional to set the whole thing up. A perfect, powerful fantasy-come-true (for some folks) that goes ridiculously and humanly wrong wrong wrong

I don't know if it helps the OP, but I like to think of Tony Soprano as a great example of avoiding the black-white types of characters. I wonder how he'd do in that quiz? He is The Man, but he's no Gary Stu.

A Trekkie's Tale - the original Mary Sue story.

Mary Sue's are the characters you generally want to punch in the face. they will be super speshul awesome and everyone will love them, event he people who hate them will really be in love with them too. they can do everything. if you've been to the moon, then they have been twice. you climb everest and they did it walking on thier hands.

They generally aren't well written though, they often come across as whiny and/or patronising.


Sues are usually the author in a bad disguise. Think Bella Swann and you're on the right lines.

For me, I define "Mary Sue" as an obnoxious character with the following characteristics:

1. Too beautiful--way too beautiful.
2. Her eyes, hair, skin, etc. ad nauseaum are of a color not usual within her species race.
3. Speaking of race, what race is she? She's vampire-werewolf-zombie-werecat-etc. ad nauseaum.
4. Everyone falls in love with her. Even the bad guys.
5. She could kill villains without having to eat, breathe, or... whatever we do to gain energy.
6. She is the one tortured because she's beautiful, rich, etc. ad nauseaum.
7. And several obnoxious traits that would make you barf.

There's a lot of where the traits come from .

Dorian Gray scores 73 on the Mary Sue Test.

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I tried it with Dorian and scored only 54. Of course he scores high with regard to all the beauty/desireability-criteria, but he also scores pretty high in the de-sueifying section, doesn't he?

It's still in the "kill-it"-category, but personally I feel that the novel doesn't necessarily ask the reader to actually like and admire Dorian - so how can he be a Mary Sue?

It's highly subjective though, as many questions require you to take the point of view of the character's creator (eg. "do you see your characters as friends/children or as tools?"), and we can only speculate about Wilde's relationship to his character.

I have a faint memory of reading a quotation somewhere along the lines that Wilde wanted to be like Dorian, but I also got the distinct impression that you shouldn't take everything he said at face value. He loved to be somewhat paradoxical. (I suspect that there's a lot of him in poor Basil too).

Personally, I think you can give your characters all the beauty, wealth and special features you want - all you have to do to avoid a Mary Sue is introducing a certain sense of ambivalence. (The Picture of Dorian Gray is chock-full of ambivalence.)

I have to agree with the people who have pointed out that Mary Sue is a fan fiction issue, not an original story issue. There are expectations in a fan fiction that simply don't exist in original fiction. As was pointed out, one of these is that the cannon characters are expected be the leads. In original fiction, your characters are the leads.

Further, however, I think it is a bad idea to apply the tests for Mary Sue to original fiction. Why? Because it obscures real understanding of what makes a character good or bad.

A good character can't be constructed simply by avoiding 'they look like me' or 'everyone loves them'. You have to make characters who work with your unique story, and who have effective goals, and on and on. It's way harder than 'avoid Mary Sue', and there is already far too great a tendancy among unpublished writers to hunt for 'the easy trick' rather than do the hard work to learn what makes a good character and what fails.

In published fiction you can find classic characters who fit 'Mary Sue' (Dorian Gray was mentioned), and characters in wildly popular series fit as well. (Anita Blake was mentioned and I'd add Harry Potter). So, regardless of how you define success, you will likely find a 'Mary Sue' who succeeded there. This, to me, proves that a simple list of traits or the fact the characters appear to be wish-fulfillment are not enough to make a character bad.

In the same way, characters who have no Mary Sue traits can be complete failures. So, to me, the whole fuss about Mary Sue in original fiction is a waste of energy. Take the test for laughs if you want, but don't expect it to tell you if your character is good or not.

The Mary Sue litmus test is a good one. I put Bella (from twilight) through it and she scored 134.

The test reckons a Sue is anyone scoreing over 50


http://www.springhole.net/quizzes/marysue.htm

I've taken those tests on behalf of Harry Potter, Captain Kirk, and Aragon son of Arathorn (LotR). All were "kill it dead." I will say that different tests scored wildly differently, that there's plenty of ambiguity, and that any character that lives in a long book or a fantasy series has many more opportunities to be responsible for the death of a friend, lose his parents tragically, sleep around, etc.

It's especially bad when the character has a sort of trope that gets repeated. For example, Kirk is promiscuous and sleeps with hot alien chicks in a high percentage of episodes. That's part of Kirk's personality. McCoy is much less into that kind of thing, but since it's repeated over many episodes, it starts to look silly once you analyze it. If you think of every hot alien chick as being the same woman with variations, it's much less Sue-like.

Dorian Gray probably qualifies as an author insertion, which those tests penalize ruthlessly. But author insertions are a classic literary device. I wholly agree that they are much more intrusive in fan fiction, though, but even then, people can use them sucessfully.