The Mary-Sue Guru is Here!

For most people that have come across my username, it was probably because of my Mary-Sue guides, but I will not be posting them here.

The biggest reason is while the core value of my opinion on Mary-Sues is still in those guides--that it's not just a list of traits to compare characters to, it's the lack of overall progression and development with inconsistent universe/world rules and the application of them--the articles are woefully unorganized and outdated. The first article I ever wrote "What They Are and What To Do if You See One" in the "Who is She?" series was a blatant argument against the people who kept barraging me and my first fan fiction that my story was "Mary-Sue", and then continued to harass me after I had given up trying to understand what it was they were actually saying, just wanting to continue to write my story in peace. The overall point was "Mary-Sue" doesn't say anything. It's a lazy put-down instead of putting in the work to write a thoughtful, well-explained, critique. After that, it was basically random writing articles with "Mary-Sue" thrown in for relevance.

The second series, "The Mary-Sue Complaints Checklist" took aim at people who have a checklist of "Mary-Sue Traits" that doesn't take the story's context into account, or ask themselves if these "traits" can actually work, no matter how many of these "traits" a story or character has. I wrote about the major, vapid traits, such as age, hair length, and OCs paired with or related to canon characters, but I had gotten bored "debunking" the list because all that should be said is context matters, to which these lists provide none.

The final article I wrote, "Say Good-Bye to Mary-Sues" detailed my journey as a fan fiction writer and what I had learned after a decade of writing these articles, boiling down to don't believe in Mary-Sues. There's no such thing as Mary-Sues. When people say "you've got a Mary-Sue", they mean that they think your story and/or characters are poorly developed, but because they aren't going to be more specific as to how, then there's no point in paying any attention to them or worrying about it. For all you know, they could just be calling your character a Sue because the character is sixteen, even if the rest of your story is well-researched, developed, adequately paced, and uses the language masterfully.

What I'm saying is that I would like to have a clean slate to revisit the topic of Mary-Sues, and write articles about them that I would be proud to have here, that are well-organized and stays relevant to the topic of Mary-Sues. Internet archivists may disagree, old readers may still find value in them, but I feel these articles have become too muddy, too confusing, and no longer encompasses the depths I have considered on this topic. I would also like to post my own Mary-Sue test here, that people can either download or fill in, but, until I figure out Java or whatever computer language I need to learn, it may just have to be a Google Docs or something, because QuoteV is just not going to cut it (I don't think).

Additionally, I would like a place to answer your Mary-Sue related questions. That being said, there is one question I will not answer:

Can you tell me if a character is a Mary-Sue or a wish-fulfillment self-insert?

I'm never going to tell you if a character is a Mary-Sue, self-insert, or wish fulfillment.

I'm a firm believer that I would need to read the entire completed story and see the character arc and development and how the world interacts with this character before deciding what about this character, if anything, is a "Mary-Sue", which is a rather confusing, contradictory, and highly dependent on context kind of term for me. So if you try to email me a character outline, no matter how detailed it is, it would be impossible for me to deem whether or not they are a Sue, not that I would do that even with the story. (And, please, don't think that this is permission for you to send me your stories or character outlines. I don't want people to sending me stories or character outlines. I have my own stuff to do.)

From my experience while reading stories, the characters are fine (for the most part), it's how the world and other characters that interact with them that raises the most flags for me.

Your characters can be as powerful as you want them to be with as many powers as you deem the character can handle, but if your plot doesn't contain challenges or conflicts that troubles them, then that doesn't make for an interesting read for me.

Your characters can be drop-dead gorgeous without make-up or surgery, but that doesn't give them a reason to get away with murder in a society ruled by fair justice.

Your characters can be the next Stephen Hawking with the next discovery of the millennia, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can solve world hunger or provide peace on earth in a world run by corporations and greed.

Your character can be all three, but that doesn't mean that every little thing will go their way without a hitch in their plans. Something always goes wrong, and your character shouldn't always know how to handle it.

If there are any complaints I have about the characters themselves, rather than issues with the plot or the universe, it's that these characters don't have goals or motivations (outside of romance), or their past isn't explored and brought relevant to what's currently going on in the story. What I mostly find are that these characters are barely more than basic stereotypes and tropes.

You can answer those 1000-question surveys about your character, but if none of it is relevant to the story, it's not going to be useful, and if you try to cram it all into your story and say, "Look! Development!" a lot of that isn't development; it's filler. And boring. And feels shoehorned.

But that's what my experiences have been, and how I define Mary-Sues may be vastly different than how other people view them. And let's say I did get the "Mary-Sue" alarm in my head. I'd still never say, "You have a Mary-Sue." There's just no need for that term in a critique when I can address the specific reasons as to why I feel like the story can be improved.

I feel the same way about "self-inserts" and "wish fulfillment" with the added bonus that the major reason I would never declare a character as either is that I don't assume to know the writer. And even if a character was, in fact, a self-insert or a wish fulfillment, that doesn't negate if a story is good or not for me. Self-insertion or wish fulfillment characters have nothing to do with writing skill or development, and doesn't impact how I engage with a story or feel about it. Odds are, if I didn't like the development or portrayal of a character, it's because I find issues with that, not if the character is a self-insert or a wish fulfillment, even if the writer told me the character was either or both.

Do you have any thoughts or questions on what you just read?

Send me an email to let me know!