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rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbn8i0 | hra7i4c | 1,641,364,549 | 1,641,340,646 | 4 | 1 | The only solution, and I sincerely believe this, is to change your surroundings with regard to digital media. Social media apps have to be deleted. Games have to be deleted. Subscription streaming services have to be disabled. Your phone has to be repurposed and your computer rededicated. When I was writing, I was most productive when I decided to lock away my games and social media. I started drawing, writing, reading, and walking out of joy instead of compulsion. It’s remarkable how productive and fulfilling you are when you curate your environment. | Same. | 1 | 23,903 | 4 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbn8i0 | hrb8cvu | 1,641,364,549 | 1,641,356,422 | 4 | 1 | The only solution, and I sincerely believe this, is to change your surroundings with regard to digital media. Social media apps have to be deleted. Games have to be deleted. Subscription streaming services have to be disabled. Your phone has to be repurposed and your computer rededicated. When I was writing, I was most productive when I decided to lock away my games and social media. I started drawing, writing, reading, and walking out of joy instead of compulsion. It’s remarkable how productive and fulfilling you are when you curate your environment. | Similar, wrote for a little then get distracted for 40 minutes on my phone. Only times I've wrote for 1 hour straight was either time restraint, or I was writing a scene I really wanted to write. | 1 | 8,127 | 4 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbnlp8 | hrbbim6 | 1,641,364,785 | 1,641,357,973 | 4 | 3 | Because your router is plugged in. Unplug it. And practice writing more. It's something you get better at. You don't have some innate problem with focus, you just haven't practiced enough. Focus can be taught like anything else. Set a really low bar achievable goal. Try writing for 15 minutes a day. Do this for a month. And then asses to see if you've improved. I've met so many people who want to be writers, but they don't write. It's odd. Imagine wanting to learn to play the guitar but never playing guitar and then telling people "I'm a guitarist" | I have ADHD. I can go for hours but usually have to push past the start and do this in sprints. So I work for twenty ish minutes, take a break to drink something, move, then resume. I however am also not looking at a script. Maybe you should just write? | 1 | 6,812 | 1.333333 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbnlp8 | hrauubj | 1,641,364,785 | 1,641,350,353 | 4 | 2 | Because your router is plugged in. Unplug it. And practice writing more. It's something you get better at. You don't have some innate problem with focus, you just haven't practiced enough. Focus can be taught like anything else. Set a really low bar achievable goal. Try writing for 15 minutes a day. Do this for a month. And then asses to see if you've improved. I've met so many people who want to be writers, but they don't write. It's odd. Imagine wanting to learn to play the guitar but never playing guitar and then telling people "I'm a guitarist" | I was doing this too, then I discovered something interesting… “Writing” and “typing” are different enough activities that I need to step away from typing to think and imagine. There are other times when I can’t type quickly enough to keep up with my imagination, but it’s understandable that the flow and pace will vary. See if it helps to set aside a few minutes to wind up your creative flow with no pressure to write, then write as long as you are able, and repeat. If you don’t beat yourself up, frequent breaks can be very productive. If you feel like you need them, you probably do, so make them a part of continued forward motion overall. | 1 | 14,432 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbj5oy | hrbnlp8 | 1,641,362,070 | 1,641,364,785 | 2 | 4 | When this happens to me, I write with a pen and paper instead. For me, there’s a different kind of focus. | Because your router is plugged in. Unplug it. And practice writing more. It's something you get better at. You don't have some innate problem with focus, you just haven't practiced enough. Focus can be taught like anything else. Set a really low bar achievable goal. Try writing for 15 minutes a day. Do this for a month. And then asses to see if you've improved. I've met so many people who want to be writers, but they don't write. It's odd. Imagine wanting to learn to play the guitar but never playing guitar and then telling people "I'm a guitarist" | 0 | 2,715 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hra7i4c | hrbnlp8 | 1,641,340,646 | 1,641,364,785 | 1 | 4 | Same. | Because your router is plugged in. Unplug it. And practice writing more. It's something you get better at. You don't have some innate problem with focus, you just haven't practiced enough. Focus can be taught like anything else. Set a really low bar achievable goal. Try writing for 15 minutes a day. Do this for a month. And then asses to see if you've improved. I've met so many people who want to be writers, but they don't write. It's odd. Imagine wanting to learn to play the guitar but never playing guitar and then telling people "I'm a guitarist" | 0 | 24,139 | 4 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbnlp8 | hrb8cvu | 1,641,364,785 | 1,641,356,422 | 4 | 1 | Because your router is plugged in. Unplug it. And practice writing more. It's something you get better at. You don't have some innate problem with focus, you just haven't practiced enough. Focus can be taught like anything else. Set a really low bar achievable goal. Try writing for 15 minutes a day. Do this for a month. And then asses to see if you've improved. I've met so many people who want to be writers, but they don't write. It's odd. Imagine wanting to learn to play the guitar but never playing guitar and then telling people "I'm a guitarist" | Similar, wrote for a little then get distracted for 40 minutes on my phone. Only times I've wrote for 1 hour straight was either time restraint, or I was writing a scene I really wanted to write. | 1 | 8,363 | 4 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbqg1n | hrbbim6 | 1,641,366,663 | 1,641,357,973 | 4 | 3 | Turn off TV phone laptop and all the tech for a week (better two weeks). You will feel AWFUL, but later it will let you go and you will be able to go back to normal state. It not a dependency per say, but has some similar sides. Worst is what without constant control and rearranging of whole your life you will be back just as fast. Speaking from experience -\_- | I have ADHD. I can go for hours but usually have to push past the start and do this in sprints. So I work for twenty ish minutes, take a break to drink something, move, then resume. I however am also not looking at a script. Maybe you should just write? | 1 | 8,690 | 1.333333 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrauubj | hrbqg1n | 1,641,350,353 | 1,641,366,663 | 2 | 4 | I was doing this too, then I discovered something interesting… “Writing” and “typing” are different enough activities that I need to step away from typing to think and imagine. There are other times when I can’t type quickly enough to keep up with my imagination, but it’s understandable that the flow and pace will vary. See if it helps to set aside a few minutes to wind up your creative flow with no pressure to write, then write as long as you are able, and repeat. If you don’t beat yourself up, frequent breaks can be very productive. If you feel like you need them, you probably do, so make them a part of continued forward motion overall. | Turn off TV phone laptop and all the tech for a week (better two weeks). You will feel AWFUL, but later it will let you go and you will be able to go back to normal state. It not a dependency per say, but has some similar sides. Worst is what without constant control and rearranging of whole your life you will be back just as fast. Speaking from experience -\_- | 0 | 16,310 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbj5oy | hrbqg1n | 1,641,362,070 | 1,641,366,663 | 2 | 4 | When this happens to me, I write with a pen and paper instead. For me, there’s a different kind of focus. | Turn off TV phone laptop and all the tech for a week (better two weeks). You will feel AWFUL, but later it will let you go and you will be able to go back to normal state. It not a dependency per say, but has some similar sides. Worst is what without constant control and rearranging of whole your life you will be back just as fast. Speaking from experience -\_- | 0 | 4,593 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbqg1n | hrbo64u | 1,641,366,663 | 1,641,365,155 | 4 | 2 | Turn off TV phone laptop and all the tech for a week (better two weeks). You will feel AWFUL, but later it will let you go and you will be able to go back to normal state. It not a dependency per say, but has some similar sides. Worst is what without constant control and rearranging of whole your life you will be back just as fast. Speaking from experience -\_- | A few years ago, I was going through the same thing and it pissed me off. I wanted to write at least 500-1000 words a day but it just wasn't possible so I stopped writing for a year. It just demotivated me. But me being someone who loves writing started to miss it and I picked it back up recently. Previously, my goal was to write the best possible version of my writing and then go above that but now I've kept my goal to just get words on a page. I know a lot of people say that don't judge your first draft but it's not so easy. All I can say is just try to not judge your writing so much at this stage. Remember that you can refine is later. It'll take some time to get used to it but it'll definitely help. My other advice is to write whatever you want to. Before I used to write novels but now I just started up an impromptu fanfic based on the anime I was currently watching. I just think of it as practice for when I write an actual novel. That kind of helps so maybe try something like that? Write short stories maybe? Write whatever you want to, that's all. | 1 | 1,508 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hra7i4c | hrbqg1n | 1,641,340,646 | 1,641,366,663 | 1 | 4 | Same. | Turn off TV phone laptop and all the tech for a week (better two weeks). You will feel AWFUL, but later it will let you go and you will be able to go back to normal state. It not a dependency per say, but has some similar sides. Worst is what without constant control and rearranging of whole your life you will be back just as fast. Speaking from experience -\_- | 0 | 26,017 | 4 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrb8cvu | hrbqg1n | 1,641,356,422 | 1,641,366,663 | 1 | 4 | Similar, wrote for a little then get distracted for 40 minutes on my phone. Only times I've wrote for 1 hour straight was either time restraint, or I was writing a scene I really wanted to write. | Turn off TV phone laptop and all the tech for a week (better two weeks). You will feel AWFUL, but later it will let you go and you will be able to go back to normal state. It not a dependency per say, but has some similar sides. Worst is what without constant control and rearranging of whole your life you will be back just as fast. Speaking from experience -\_- | 0 | 10,241 | 4 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrauubj | hrbbim6 | 1,641,350,353 | 1,641,357,973 | 2 | 3 | I was doing this too, then I discovered something interesting… “Writing” and “typing” are different enough activities that I need to step away from typing to think and imagine. There are other times when I can’t type quickly enough to keep up with my imagination, but it’s understandable that the flow and pace will vary. See if it helps to set aside a few minutes to wind up your creative flow with no pressure to write, then write as long as you are able, and repeat. If you don’t beat yourself up, frequent breaks can be very productive. If you feel like you need them, you probably do, so make them a part of continued forward motion overall. | I have ADHD. I can go for hours but usually have to push past the start and do this in sprints. So I work for twenty ish minutes, take a break to drink something, move, then resume. I however am also not looking at a script. Maybe you should just write? | 0 | 7,620 | 1.5 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hra7i4c | hrbbim6 | 1,641,340,646 | 1,641,357,973 | 1 | 3 | Same. | I have ADHD. I can go for hours but usually have to push past the start and do this in sprints. So I work for twenty ish minutes, take a break to drink something, move, then resume. I however am also not looking at a script. Maybe you should just write? | 0 | 17,327 | 3 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrb8cvu | hrbbim6 | 1,641,356,422 | 1,641,357,973 | 1 | 3 | Similar, wrote for a little then get distracted for 40 minutes on my phone. Only times I've wrote for 1 hour straight was either time restraint, or I was writing a scene I really wanted to write. | I have ADHD. I can go for hours but usually have to push past the start and do this in sprints. So I work for twenty ish minutes, take a break to drink something, move, then resume. I however am also not looking at a script. Maybe you should just write? | 0 | 1,551 | 3 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hra7i4c | hrauubj | 1,641,340,646 | 1,641,350,353 | 1 | 2 | Same. | I was doing this too, then I discovered something interesting… “Writing” and “typing” are different enough activities that I need to step away from typing to think and imagine. There are other times when I can’t type quickly enough to keep up with my imagination, but it’s understandable that the flow and pace will vary. See if it helps to set aside a few minutes to wind up your creative flow with no pressure to write, then write as long as you are able, and repeat. If you don’t beat yourself up, frequent breaks can be very productive. If you feel like you need them, you probably do, so make them a part of continued forward motion overall. | 0 | 9,707 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbj5oy | hra7i4c | 1,641,362,070 | 1,641,340,646 | 2 | 1 | When this happens to me, I write with a pen and paper instead. For me, there’s a different kind of focus. | Same. | 1 | 21,424 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbj5oy | hrb8cvu | 1,641,362,070 | 1,641,356,422 | 2 | 1 | When this happens to me, I write with a pen and paper instead. For me, there’s a different kind of focus. | Similar, wrote for a little then get distracted for 40 minutes on my phone. Only times I've wrote for 1 hour straight was either time restraint, or I was writing a scene I really wanted to write. | 1 | 5,648 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbo64u | hra7i4c | 1,641,365,155 | 1,641,340,646 | 2 | 1 | A few years ago, I was going through the same thing and it pissed me off. I wanted to write at least 500-1000 words a day but it just wasn't possible so I stopped writing for a year. It just demotivated me. But me being someone who loves writing started to miss it and I picked it back up recently. Previously, my goal was to write the best possible version of my writing and then go above that but now I've kept my goal to just get words on a page. I know a lot of people say that don't judge your first draft but it's not so easy. All I can say is just try to not judge your writing so much at this stage. Remember that you can refine is later. It'll take some time to get used to it but it'll definitely help. My other advice is to write whatever you want to. Before I used to write novels but now I just started up an impromptu fanfic based on the anime I was currently watching. I just think of it as practice for when I write an actual novel. That kind of helps so maybe try something like that? Write short stories maybe? Write whatever you want to, that's all. | Same. | 1 | 24,509 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbo64u | hrb8cvu | 1,641,365,155 | 1,641,356,422 | 2 | 1 | A few years ago, I was going through the same thing and it pissed me off. I wanted to write at least 500-1000 words a day but it just wasn't possible so I stopped writing for a year. It just demotivated me. But me being someone who loves writing started to miss it and I picked it back up recently. Previously, my goal was to write the best possible version of my writing and then go above that but now I've kept my goal to just get words on a page. I know a lot of people say that don't judge your first draft but it's not so easy. All I can say is just try to not judge your writing so much at this stage. Remember that you can refine is later. It'll take some time to get used to it but it'll definitely help. My other advice is to write whatever you want to. Before I used to write novels but now I just started up an impromptu fanfic based on the anime I was currently watching. I just think of it as practice for when I write an actual novel. That kind of helps so maybe try something like that? Write short stories maybe? Write whatever you want to, that's all. | Similar, wrote for a little then get distracted for 40 minutes on my phone. Only times I've wrote for 1 hour straight was either time restraint, or I was writing a scene I really wanted to write. | 1 | 8,733 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbqniu | hra7i4c | 1,641,366,809 | 1,641,340,646 | 2 | 1 | It’s a time management thing for me. It’s hard to carve out time to do everything when I only have a limited number of hours with a 40 hour work week. Especially when for me writing is the “new” hobby and I’ve got to make sure I give it enough attention. Just one of many reasons why we should reduce our working hours, but I won’t go into an r/antiwork rant here. | Same. | 1 | 26,163 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbqniu | hrb8cvu | 1,641,366,809 | 1,641,356,422 | 2 | 1 | It’s a time management thing for me. It’s hard to carve out time to do everything when I only have a limited number of hours with a 40 hour work week. Especially when for me writing is the “new” hobby and I’ve got to make sure I give it enough attention. Just one of many reasons why we should reduce our working hours, but I won’t go into an r/antiwork rant here. | Similar, wrote for a little then get distracted for 40 minutes on my phone. Only times I've wrote for 1 hour straight was either time restraint, or I was writing a scene I really wanted to write. | 1 | 10,387 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrc1u8z | hra7i4c | 1,641,375,083 | 1,641,340,646 | 2 | 1 | Have you tried the procrastinating constructively? This also helps me get started writing for the day if I just can't get the ball rolling. Whenever my brain tells me I cant work on what I was working on (or going to), I start journaling about my day, or listing goals, things I need / want to do this week, over the month, grocery lists etc. For me just the act of writing about something mundane, not creative at allsort of helps get the kinks out of my chain, and shows my brain that yes, I can in fact still write. 😅 | Same. | 1 | 34,437 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrb8cvu | hrc1u8z | 1,641,356,422 | 1,641,375,083 | 1 | 2 | Similar, wrote for a little then get distracted for 40 minutes on my phone. Only times I've wrote for 1 hour straight was either time restraint, or I was writing a scene I really wanted to write. | Have you tried the procrastinating constructively? This also helps me get started writing for the day if I just can't get the ball rolling. Whenever my brain tells me I cant work on what I was working on (or going to), I start journaling about my day, or listing goals, things I need / want to do this week, over the month, grocery lists etc. For me just the act of writing about something mundane, not creative at allsort of helps get the kinks out of my chain, and shows my brain that yes, I can in fact still write. 😅 | 0 | 18,661 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrc1u8z | hrbqt4o | 1,641,375,083 | 1,641,366,915 | 2 | 1 | Have you tried the procrastinating constructively? This also helps me get started writing for the day if I just can't get the ball rolling. Whenever my brain tells me I cant work on what I was working on (or going to), I start journaling about my day, or listing goals, things I need / want to do this week, over the month, grocery lists etc. For me just the act of writing about something mundane, not creative at allsort of helps get the kinks out of my chain, and shows my brain that yes, I can in fact still write. 😅 | This is a super long shot, but do you have narcolepsy? I do, and I do this at times. I have to write in the morning, right after I wake up. If I try to write later, I’ll be feeling narcoleptic a bit and trying to force myself to write actually triggers attacks. I subconsciously feel an attack coming on - I start trying to get away from what I’m doing to wake myself up again. Getting anxious about how I’m doing or getting excited about what I’m going to write can do the same thing to me. If that’s the case with you, try writing at a different time of day. Find your best time for writing and it’ll be easier to write without feeling like you need a break. | 1 | 8,168 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbs1wl | hrc1u8z | 1,641,367,778 | 1,641,375,083 | 1 | 2 | Anecdotally, I have had this same problem for the last 10 years. I noticed this trend of not being able to focus on my writing (something I valued and enjoyed) and noticed similar trends of inattention in my personal behaviours, my quirks. Long story short, turns out I had undiagnosed inattentive type ADD. Now, this is not to say *you* have undiagnosed underlying mental health conditions, just that it might be something worth considering and crossing off in your quest for self-improvement. Please note, information on TikTok and Instagram is mostly anecdotal and similarities in behaviours and issues do not a diagnosis make. Please seek a qualified health professional. Hope this helps some :) | Have you tried the procrastinating constructively? This also helps me get started writing for the day if I just can't get the ball rolling. Whenever my brain tells me I cant work on what I was working on (or going to), I start journaling about my day, or listing goals, things I need / want to do this week, over the month, grocery lists etc. For me just the act of writing about something mundane, not creative at allsort of helps get the kinks out of my chain, and shows my brain that yes, I can in fact still write. 😅 | 0 | 7,305 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hra7i4c | hrc39px | 1,641,340,646 | 1,641,376,183 | 1 | 2 | Same. | just eliminate all distractions. Get rid of the internet, get a chair and table and stay away from your phone. If after this, you still get distracted, Keep trying. | 0 | 35,537 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrc39px | hrb8cvu | 1,641,376,183 | 1,641,356,422 | 2 | 1 | just eliminate all distractions. Get rid of the internet, get a chair and table and stay away from your phone. If after this, you still get distracted, Keep trying. | Similar, wrote for a little then get distracted for 40 minutes on my phone. Only times I've wrote for 1 hour straight was either time restraint, or I was writing a scene I really wanted to write. | 1 | 19,761 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbqt4o | hrc39px | 1,641,366,915 | 1,641,376,183 | 1 | 2 | This is a super long shot, but do you have narcolepsy? I do, and I do this at times. I have to write in the morning, right after I wake up. If I try to write later, I’ll be feeling narcoleptic a bit and trying to force myself to write actually triggers attacks. I subconsciously feel an attack coming on - I start trying to get away from what I’m doing to wake myself up again. Getting anxious about how I’m doing or getting excited about what I’m going to write can do the same thing to me. If that’s the case with you, try writing at a different time of day. Find your best time for writing and it’ll be easier to write without feeling like you need a break. | just eliminate all distractions. Get rid of the internet, get a chair and table and stay away from your phone. If after this, you still get distracted, Keep trying. | 0 | 9,268 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrc39px | hrbs1wl | 1,641,376,183 | 1,641,367,778 | 2 | 1 | just eliminate all distractions. Get rid of the internet, get a chair and table and stay away from your phone. If after this, you still get distracted, Keep trying. | Anecdotally, I have had this same problem for the last 10 years. I noticed this trend of not being able to focus on my writing (something I valued and enjoyed) and noticed similar trends of inattention in my personal behaviours, my quirks. Long story short, turns out I had undiagnosed inattentive type ADD. Now, this is not to say *you* have undiagnosed underlying mental health conditions, just that it might be something worth considering and crossing off in your quest for self-improvement. Please note, information on TikTok and Instagram is mostly anecdotal and similarities in behaviours and issues do not a diagnosis make. Please seek a qualified health professional. Hope this helps some :) | 1 | 8,405 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrcocoj | hra7i4c | 1,641,389,828 | 1,641,340,646 | 2 | 1 | Do you feel like you need to look away from the script, or like you need to look at something else (social media, for instance)? I could be wrong, but I think it's possible young people who've grown up with the internet have learned short attention spans, along with a habitual need to check their social media. I have no idea if this fits you or not. But if it does, by chance, it's not terrible news. Something learned can be unlearned or modified. It just takes some work and, in this case, willpower, to train yourself into longer work spans. If this does fit you, my advice would be to shut down the social media or find a way to make it difficult to check it. Then go for 10-minute intervals of work for a few days, maybe with a two-minute timed break between every ten-minute stretch. Once you grow accustomed to that, up it to fifteen-minute work stretches, and so on. Before you know it, you'll be working for one- and two-hour stretches or longer. Good luck! | Same. | 1 | 49,182 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrcocoj | hrb8cvu | 1,641,389,828 | 1,641,356,422 | 2 | 1 | Do you feel like you need to look away from the script, or like you need to look at something else (social media, for instance)? I could be wrong, but I think it's possible young people who've grown up with the internet have learned short attention spans, along with a habitual need to check their social media. I have no idea if this fits you or not. But if it does, by chance, it's not terrible news. Something learned can be unlearned or modified. It just takes some work and, in this case, willpower, to train yourself into longer work spans. If this does fit you, my advice would be to shut down the social media or find a way to make it difficult to check it. Then go for 10-minute intervals of work for a few days, maybe with a two-minute timed break between every ten-minute stretch. Once you grow accustomed to that, up it to fifteen-minute work stretches, and so on. Before you know it, you'll be working for one- and two-hour stretches or longer. Good luck! | Similar, wrote for a little then get distracted for 40 minutes on my phone. Only times I've wrote for 1 hour straight was either time restraint, or I was writing a scene I really wanted to write. | 1 | 33,406 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbqt4o | hrcocoj | 1,641,366,915 | 1,641,389,828 | 1 | 2 | This is a super long shot, but do you have narcolepsy? I do, and I do this at times. I have to write in the morning, right after I wake up. If I try to write later, I’ll be feeling narcoleptic a bit and trying to force myself to write actually triggers attacks. I subconsciously feel an attack coming on - I start trying to get away from what I’m doing to wake myself up again. Getting anxious about how I’m doing or getting excited about what I’m going to write can do the same thing to me. If that’s the case with you, try writing at a different time of day. Find your best time for writing and it’ll be easier to write without feeling like you need a break. | Do you feel like you need to look away from the script, or like you need to look at something else (social media, for instance)? I could be wrong, but I think it's possible young people who've grown up with the internet have learned short attention spans, along with a habitual need to check their social media. I have no idea if this fits you or not. But if it does, by chance, it's not terrible news. Something learned can be unlearned or modified. It just takes some work and, in this case, willpower, to train yourself into longer work spans. If this does fit you, my advice would be to shut down the social media or find a way to make it difficult to check it. Then go for 10-minute intervals of work for a few days, maybe with a two-minute timed break between every ten-minute stretch. Once you grow accustomed to that, up it to fifteen-minute work stretches, and so on. Before you know it, you'll be working for one- and two-hour stretches or longer. Good luck! | 0 | 22,913 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrcocoj | hrbs1wl | 1,641,389,828 | 1,641,367,778 | 2 | 1 | Do you feel like you need to look away from the script, or like you need to look at something else (social media, for instance)? I could be wrong, but I think it's possible young people who've grown up with the internet have learned short attention spans, along with a habitual need to check their social media. I have no idea if this fits you or not. But if it does, by chance, it's not terrible news. Something learned can be unlearned or modified. It just takes some work and, in this case, willpower, to train yourself into longer work spans. If this does fit you, my advice would be to shut down the social media or find a way to make it difficult to check it. Then go for 10-minute intervals of work for a few days, maybe with a two-minute timed break between every ten-minute stretch. Once you grow accustomed to that, up it to fifteen-minute work stretches, and so on. Before you know it, you'll be working for one- and two-hour stretches or longer. Good luck! | Anecdotally, I have had this same problem for the last 10 years. I noticed this trend of not being able to focus on my writing (something I valued and enjoyed) and noticed similar trends of inattention in my personal behaviours, my quirks. Long story short, turns out I had undiagnosed inattentive type ADD. Now, this is not to say *you* have undiagnosed underlying mental health conditions, just that it might be something worth considering and crossing off in your quest for self-improvement. Please note, information on TikTok and Instagram is mostly anecdotal and similarities in behaviours and issues do not a diagnosis make. Please seek a qualified health professional. Hope this helps some :) | 1 | 22,050 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrcy7lh | hra7i4c | 1,641,394,312 | 1,641,340,646 | 2 | 1 | I read fiction for ~20 minutes before writing. It seems to keep me in the flow a bit longer. There's also an app called Bear Focus Time. It's just a timer: 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest. It's kind of stupid and basic but it really helps. | Same. | 1 | 53,666 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrcy7lh | hrb8cvu | 1,641,394,312 | 1,641,356,422 | 2 | 1 | I read fiction for ~20 minutes before writing. It seems to keep me in the flow a bit longer. There's also an app called Bear Focus Time. It's just a timer: 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest. It's kind of stupid and basic but it really helps. | Similar, wrote for a little then get distracted for 40 minutes on my phone. Only times I've wrote for 1 hour straight was either time restraint, or I was writing a scene I really wanted to write. | 1 | 37,890 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrbqt4o | hrcy7lh | 1,641,366,915 | 1,641,394,312 | 1 | 2 | This is a super long shot, but do you have narcolepsy? I do, and I do this at times. I have to write in the morning, right after I wake up. If I try to write later, I’ll be feeling narcoleptic a bit and trying to force myself to write actually triggers attacks. I subconsciously feel an attack coming on - I start trying to get away from what I’m doing to wake myself up again. Getting anxious about how I’m doing or getting excited about what I’m going to write can do the same thing to me. If that’s the case with you, try writing at a different time of day. Find your best time for writing and it’ll be easier to write without feeling like you need a break. | I read fiction for ~20 minutes before writing. It seems to keep me in the flow a bit longer. There's also an app called Bear Focus Time. It's just a timer: 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest. It's kind of stupid and basic but it really helps. | 0 | 27,397 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrcy7lh | hrbs1wl | 1,641,394,312 | 1,641,367,778 | 2 | 1 | I read fiction for ~20 minutes before writing. It seems to keep me in the flow a bit longer. There's also an app called Bear Focus Time. It's just a timer: 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest. It's kind of stupid and basic but it really helps. | Anecdotally, I have had this same problem for the last 10 years. I noticed this trend of not being able to focus on my writing (something I valued and enjoyed) and noticed similar trends of inattention in my personal behaviours, my quirks. Long story short, turns out I had undiagnosed inattentive type ADD. Now, this is not to say *you* have undiagnosed underlying mental health conditions, just that it might be something worth considering and crossing off in your quest for self-improvement. Please note, information on TikTok and Instagram is mostly anecdotal and similarities in behaviours and issues do not a diagnosis make. Please seek a qualified health professional. Hope this helps some :) | 1 | 26,534 | 2 | ||
rw7p6a | writing_train | 0.96 | Why can I never seem to write for more than 5 minutes at a time without feeling like I need a break? The issue isn't writer's block, it's more like I can write but after only a few minutes of typing I feel like I need a break or I need to look away from the script. Does anyone else have a similar issue and how did you overcome it? | hrcy7lh | hrcspt2 | 1,641,394,312 | 1,641,391,917 | 2 | 1 | I read fiction for ~20 minutes before writing. It seems to keep me in the flow a bit longer. There's also an app called Bear Focus Time. It's just a timer: 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest. It's kind of stupid and basic but it really helps. | Maybe for the same reason that when I stopped reading for a couple months and then got back, I could only read for 5 minutes before picking up my phone. I had short attention span and reading/writing is a slow reward process. Could be other things like lack of preparation or maybe overwhelmed by amount of things you wanna write. It’s hard to say because these things are mostly psychological, so it’s hard to pinpoint for you specific case. I guess you will have to “know thyself” | 1 | 2,395 | 2 | ||
aob1zy | writing_train | 0.86 | I write fan fiction, and I’ve been asked if I do commissions. I have no idea where to start :( I’m a sixteen year old girl who occasionally writes fan fiction. I write for a niche fanbase, which guarantees that my work is read often. I’ve received messages today asking if I do commissions, and I love the idea of it, but the only issue is is that I have no idea what to do now. I don’t have a credit card/PayPal yet, so I’m not sure how they’d pay me, and even if they could, I don’t know how to price rates. Does anyone have any tips on how to do this? | eg0277m | eg00hjb | 1,549,604,262 | 1,549,602,379 | 2 | 1 | Getting paid for fanfiction is wrong. It's non-commercial hobby. Any commissions should be free or... What about you share your earnings with original author then? | I like to pay with exposure. | 1 | 1,883 | 2 | ||
aob1zy | writing_train | 0.86 | I write fan fiction, and I’ve been asked if I do commissions. I have no idea where to start :( I’m a sixteen year old girl who occasionally writes fan fiction. I write for a niche fanbase, which guarantees that my work is read often. I’ve received messages today asking if I do commissions, and I love the idea of it, but the only issue is is that I have no idea what to do now. I don’t have a credit card/PayPal yet, so I’m not sure how they’d pay me, and even if they could, I don’t know how to price rates. Does anyone have any tips on how to do this? | eg0kxer | eg00hjb | 1,549,631,868 | 1,549,602,379 | 2 | 1 | There are sites like Kofi and Patreon that host these types of donations, but I do believe you’ll need to link some form of account. I think PayPal is your best bet. If you do plan on using a site like these or others, it may help to reach out to someone that is already using them to show you the ropes. You’ll find plenty within fandom. | I like to pay with exposure. | 1 | 29,489 | 2 | ||
aob1zy | writing_train | 0.86 | I write fan fiction, and I’ve been asked if I do commissions. I have no idea where to start :( I’m a sixteen year old girl who occasionally writes fan fiction. I write for a niche fanbase, which guarantees that my work is read often. I’ve received messages today asking if I do commissions, and I love the idea of it, but the only issue is is that I have no idea what to do now. I don’t have a credit card/PayPal yet, so I’m not sure how they’d pay me, and even if they could, I don’t know how to price rates. Does anyone have any tips on how to do this? | eg0dpfv | eg0kxer | 1,549,621,825 | 1,549,631,868 | 1 | 2 | People are paying for that? | There are sites like Kofi and Patreon that host these types of donations, but I do believe you’ll need to link some form of account. I think PayPal is your best bet. If you do plan on using a site like these or others, it may help to reach out to someone that is already using them to show you the ropes. You’ll find plenty within fandom. | 0 | 10,043 | 2 | ||
aob1zy | writing_train | 0.86 | I write fan fiction, and I’ve been asked if I do commissions. I have no idea where to start :( I’m a sixteen year old girl who occasionally writes fan fiction. I write for a niche fanbase, which guarantees that my work is read often. I’ve received messages today asking if I do commissions, and I love the idea of it, but the only issue is is that I have no idea what to do now. I don’t have a credit card/PayPal yet, so I’m not sure how they’d pay me, and even if they could, I don’t know how to price rates. Does anyone have any tips on how to do this? | eg2dnag | eg00hjb | 1,549,681,503 | 1,549,602,379 | 2 | 1 | I also write fan fiction. I have a book that took off and gets a lot of reads like yours does. I suggest just taking requests instead of doing commissions. That way, if an idea comes along that you don't want to write, you won't feel compelled to write it just because someone is paying you. | I like to pay with exposure. | 1 | 79,124 | 2 | ||
aob1zy | writing_train | 0.86 | I write fan fiction, and I’ve been asked if I do commissions. I have no idea where to start :( I’m a sixteen year old girl who occasionally writes fan fiction. I write for a niche fanbase, which guarantees that my work is read often. I’ve received messages today asking if I do commissions, and I love the idea of it, but the only issue is is that I have no idea what to do now. I don’t have a credit card/PayPal yet, so I’m not sure how they’d pay me, and even if they could, I don’t know how to price rates. Does anyone have any tips on how to do this? | eg0dpfv | eg2dnag | 1,549,621,825 | 1,549,681,503 | 1 | 2 | People are paying for that? | I also write fan fiction. I have a book that took off and gets a lot of reads like yours does. I suggest just taking requests instead of doing commissions. That way, if an idea comes along that you don't want to write, you won't feel compelled to write it just because someone is paying you. | 0 | 59,678 | 2 | ||
zatgpw | writing_train | 0.78 | Is it better to plan a story or to make it up as I go along? (Please direct me to a better sub if this isn’t a good place for this type of question) I’ve noticed that what a lot of people consider the best stories either are very planned out from the start (i.e. FullMetal Alchemist, Lord of the Rings, One Piece) OR are just made up as they go along (i.e. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Lost, Snap Cube’s fandubs). It seems to me like the worst stories just don’t commit to either of these philosophies (i.e. the Newer Star Wars movies). Though each type of story has its own flaws and benefits. Planned stories tend to be more predictable but have very few plotholes, where as made up along the way stories to tend to be more suspensful and surprising but have alot more unanswered questions and contradictions. I also want to know, if I do plan out my story, how do I organize my thoughts? I’ve heard its a good idea to put your best ideas at the start and at the end, and your worst ideas (when I say worst I’d still hope their good, just less good) you put in the middle? Or should I simply just put the less good ideas at the start and the best ideas at the end so it always feels like a story that's getting better (A lot of people say JoJo Part 5 does this well)? Or, like I said, I could just make it up as I go along, maybe I just need to trust in my ability to come up with new and better ideas I can’t imagine now. I’d like to know which type of story you guys prefer? | iynnqot | iynx6y4 | 1,670,008,369 | 1,670,012,199 | 1 | 3 | There are planners, pantsers, and hybrids. I'm not sure I agree that planned stories are more predictable. Planned doesn't mean stale or unoriginal. Though some do have this opinion. Take Stephen King, he doesn't plan anything and many say his stories don't end well, (I disagree) but his characters are awesome. That's where his focus and interest is, in characters. Every author has their own strengths and weaknesses. I say it is always good for most writers to plan. Just have a sort of map. This happens, then this, which affects this. And here's the cool thing, you can have an outline but if you want to create a plot line that you haven't planned for, you can. You make the rules here. As for where to start. Start with the parts you're excited about, you'll see how to connect them at some point, or they'll fall to the wayside. That's all I got. Hope this helps, Good luck. | I prefer a mixture for novels. I've done a few short stories in the past, and free-flow works better for those. For novels, my writing style is that the chapters are outlined (hundreds of pages of notes), but I don't outline the scenes. The scenes have to be written with "these are the major points in the chapter, don't forget key things about plot/characters/objects/setting," it has X purpose in the arc, but beyond that is free flow. Outlining Benefits (imo): * Outlining the chapters keeps my story organized and helps me feel a sense of accomplishment. * It gives me a sense of direction, but I'm also open to changing direction when I have a better idea. (I don't submit books to agents until the first draft is done for this reason.) * If I'm not in the mood to write the next chronological scene, I can jump to another chapter for the day. It helps me channel the 'right' emotions and mood for the characters based on whatever I'm feeling, and describe specific sensations rather than write stereotypes. * Having an outline also gives me more confidence. One time I had this narrator with one-page blurbs between chapters. My beta reader thought it was weird and suggested I scrap the narrator, but I refused because of the outline. By book three, when the beta reader realized the narrator's role wasn't actually to narrate but built into something else, she screamed in excited surprise. Free Flow Benefits (imo): * Free flow often has a lot of 'fluff,' but it's easier for me to whittle something already written during editing, and I can usually cut free-flow 30% and rewrite most of it to be more enjoyable. During editing, it's also more clear what my intention was. * It is more fun, and I primarily write for pleasure. I maintain a full time job and writing is my release from a long day of work. I'm not looking for a publisher or agent, yet. * Things 'click' together. As the story gets bigger, I'll realize little things that can be added to other scenes to round out the story, provide better foreshadowing, or misleading foreshadowing. * Inspiration from reality strikes more often with this method. Countless times I'm sitting at the bus stop and someone or something happens. I start writing in my little notebook and usually it ends up in a scene. * Even if what I write is scrapped later, I have a stronger emotional attachment to the characters and world, which helps me create a better sense of reality within fantasy. * I get to discover new things. This is the most exciting thing for me, and could become the most exciting thing for future readers. I have one conversation between two characters that was completely free flow about this one philosophical concept, and every single one of my friends who reads it just kind of sits there stumped and says, "I never thought about that." I never would've thought about it if I wasn't writing free-flow. I know my method might not work for everyone, but it works the best for me. I need both with editing to create my best writing. | 0 | 3,830 | 3 | ||
zatgpw | writing_train | 0.78 | Is it better to plan a story or to make it up as I go along? (Please direct me to a better sub if this isn’t a good place for this type of question) I’ve noticed that what a lot of people consider the best stories either are very planned out from the start (i.e. FullMetal Alchemist, Lord of the Rings, One Piece) OR are just made up as they go along (i.e. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Lost, Snap Cube’s fandubs). It seems to me like the worst stories just don’t commit to either of these philosophies (i.e. the Newer Star Wars movies). Though each type of story has its own flaws and benefits. Planned stories tend to be more predictable but have very few plotholes, where as made up along the way stories to tend to be more suspensful and surprising but have alot more unanswered questions and contradictions. I also want to know, if I do plan out my story, how do I organize my thoughts? I’ve heard its a good idea to put your best ideas at the start and at the end, and your worst ideas (when I say worst I’d still hope their good, just less good) you put in the middle? Or should I simply just put the less good ideas at the start and the best ideas at the end so it always feels like a story that's getting better (A lot of people say JoJo Part 5 does this well)? Or, like I said, I could just make it up as I go along, maybe I just need to trust in my ability to come up with new and better ideas I can’t imagine now. I’d like to know which type of story you guys prefer? | iynrz9n | iynx6y4 | 1,670,010,110 | 1,670,012,199 | 1 | 3 | Depends on who you are as an author and what your story is about. I’ve got several ideas, a fantasy epic with a clear theme and moral I want to push, and the other a reality tv comic about 4 quirky characters. Stories that focus on a theme should have more planning, and character driven stories are better when you make things up on the fly. Naruto is an infamous example of pantsing, because in the beginning he’s an orphan who talks about how hard work and determination can overcome destiny, and in Shippuden he’s >!from an impressive ninja pedigree and one of the few who could handle the power of a demonic god, so the old morals are tossed aside in favor of!< preaching about friendship. It’s very hard to retcon an established story. | I prefer a mixture for novels. I've done a few short stories in the past, and free-flow works better for those. For novels, my writing style is that the chapters are outlined (hundreds of pages of notes), but I don't outline the scenes. The scenes have to be written with "these are the major points in the chapter, don't forget key things about plot/characters/objects/setting," it has X purpose in the arc, but beyond that is free flow. Outlining Benefits (imo): * Outlining the chapters keeps my story organized and helps me feel a sense of accomplishment. * It gives me a sense of direction, but I'm also open to changing direction when I have a better idea. (I don't submit books to agents until the first draft is done for this reason.) * If I'm not in the mood to write the next chronological scene, I can jump to another chapter for the day. It helps me channel the 'right' emotions and mood for the characters based on whatever I'm feeling, and describe specific sensations rather than write stereotypes. * Having an outline also gives me more confidence. One time I had this narrator with one-page blurbs between chapters. My beta reader thought it was weird and suggested I scrap the narrator, but I refused because of the outline. By book three, when the beta reader realized the narrator's role wasn't actually to narrate but built into something else, she screamed in excited surprise. Free Flow Benefits (imo): * Free flow often has a lot of 'fluff,' but it's easier for me to whittle something already written during editing, and I can usually cut free-flow 30% and rewrite most of it to be more enjoyable. During editing, it's also more clear what my intention was. * It is more fun, and I primarily write for pleasure. I maintain a full time job and writing is my release from a long day of work. I'm not looking for a publisher or agent, yet. * Things 'click' together. As the story gets bigger, I'll realize little things that can be added to other scenes to round out the story, provide better foreshadowing, or misleading foreshadowing. * Inspiration from reality strikes more often with this method. Countless times I'm sitting at the bus stop and someone or something happens. I start writing in my little notebook and usually it ends up in a scene. * Even if what I write is scrapped later, I have a stronger emotional attachment to the characters and world, which helps me create a better sense of reality within fantasy. * I get to discover new things. This is the most exciting thing for me, and could become the most exciting thing for future readers. I have one conversation between two characters that was completely free flow about this one philosophical concept, and every single one of my friends who reads it just kind of sits there stumped and says, "I never thought about that." I never would've thought about it if I wasn't writing free-flow. I know my method might not work for everyone, but it works the best for me. I need both with editing to create my best writing. | 0 | 2,089 | 3 | ||
zatgpw | writing_train | 0.78 | Is it better to plan a story or to make it up as I go along? (Please direct me to a better sub if this isn’t a good place for this type of question) I’ve noticed that what a lot of people consider the best stories either are very planned out from the start (i.e. FullMetal Alchemist, Lord of the Rings, One Piece) OR are just made up as they go along (i.e. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Lost, Snap Cube’s fandubs). It seems to me like the worst stories just don’t commit to either of these philosophies (i.e. the Newer Star Wars movies). Though each type of story has its own flaws and benefits. Planned stories tend to be more predictable but have very few plotholes, where as made up along the way stories to tend to be more suspensful and surprising but have alot more unanswered questions and contradictions. I also want to know, if I do plan out my story, how do I organize my thoughts? I’ve heard its a good idea to put your best ideas at the start and at the end, and your worst ideas (when I say worst I’d still hope their good, just less good) you put in the middle? Or should I simply just put the less good ideas at the start and the best ideas at the end so it always feels like a story that's getting better (A lot of people say JoJo Part 5 does this well)? Or, like I said, I could just make it up as I go along, maybe I just need to trust in my ability to come up with new and better ideas I can’t imagine now. I’d like to know which type of story you guys prefer? | iynx6y4 | iynvq3j | 1,670,012,199 | 1,670,011,606 | 3 | 1 | I prefer a mixture for novels. I've done a few short stories in the past, and free-flow works better for those. For novels, my writing style is that the chapters are outlined (hundreds of pages of notes), but I don't outline the scenes. The scenes have to be written with "these are the major points in the chapter, don't forget key things about plot/characters/objects/setting," it has X purpose in the arc, but beyond that is free flow. Outlining Benefits (imo): * Outlining the chapters keeps my story organized and helps me feel a sense of accomplishment. * It gives me a sense of direction, but I'm also open to changing direction when I have a better idea. (I don't submit books to agents until the first draft is done for this reason.) * If I'm not in the mood to write the next chronological scene, I can jump to another chapter for the day. It helps me channel the 'right' emotions and mood for the characters based on whatever I'm feeling, and describe specific sensations rather than write stereotypes. * Having an outline also gives me more confidence. One time I had this narrator with one-page blurbs between chapters. My beta reader thought it was weird and suggested I scrap the narrator, but I refused because of the outline. By book three, when the beta reader realized the narrator's role wasn't actually to narrate but built into something else, she screamed in excited surprise. Free Flow Benefits (imo): * Free flow often has a lot of 'fluff,' but it's easier for me to whittle something already written during editing, and I can usually cut free-flow 30% and rewrite most of it to be more enjoyable. During editing, it's also more clear what my intention was. * It is more fun, and I primarily write for pleasure. I maintain a full time job and writing is my release from a long day of work. I'm not looking for a publisher or agent, yet. * Things 'click' together. As the story gets bigger, I'll realize little things that can be added to other scenes to round out the story, provide better foreshadowing, or misleading foreshadowing. * Inspiration from reality strikes more often with this method. Countless times I'm sitting at the bus stop and someone or something happens. I start writing in my little notebook and usually it ends up in a scene. * Even if what I write is scrapped later, I have a stronger emotional attachment to the characters and world, which helps me create a better sense of reality within fantasy. * I get to discover new things. This is the most exciting thing for me, and could become the most exciting thing for future readers. I have one conversation between two characters that was completely free flow about this one philosophical concept, and every single one of my friends who reads it just kind of sits there stumped and says, "I never thought about that." I never would've thought about it if I wasn't writing free-flow. I know my method might not work for everyone, but it works the best for me. I need both with editing to create my best writing. | Its all just a tool. Planning and plotting has its own strengths. so does just goin at it. I think they’re both useful skills and what you should do is what ever helps you finish. Im not as into outlines and i prefer scene cards, but pantsing helps you remember to throw caution to the wind and be interesting. But no reader cares how it was written, only that it get written. So the goal should be learning how to complete a work | 1 | 593 | 3 | ||
zatgpw | writing_train | 0.78 | Is it better to plan a story or to make it up as I go along? (Please direct me to a better sub if this isn’t a good place for this type of question) I’ve noticed that what a lot of people consider the best stories either are very planned out from the start (i.e. FullMetal Alchemist, Lord of the Rings, One Piece) OR are just made up as they go along (i.e. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Lost, Snap Cube’s fandubs). It seems to me like the worst stories just don’t commit to either of these philosophies (i.e. the Newer Star Wars movies). Though each type of story has its own flaws and benefits. Planned stories tend to be more predictable but have very few plotholes, where as made up along the way stories to tend to be more suspensful and surprising but have alot more unanswered questions and contradictions. I also want to know, if I do plan out my story, how do I organize my thoughts? I’ve heard its a good idea to put your best ideas at the start and at the end, and your worst ideas (when I say worst I’d still hope their good, just less good) you put in the middle? Or should I simply just put the less good ideas at the start and the best ideas at the end so it always feels like a story that's getting better (A lot of people say JoJo Part 5 does this well)? Or, like I said, I could just make it up as I go along, maybe I just need to trust in my ability to come up with new and better ideas I can’t imagine now. I’d like to know which type of story you guys prefer? | iynnqot | iyp6sdg | 1,670,008,369 | 1,670,032,705 | 1 | 2 | There are planners, pantsers, and hybrids. I'm not sure I agree that planned stories are more predictable. Planned doesn't mean stale or unoriginal. Though some do have this opinion. Take Stephen King, he doesn't plan anything and many say his stories don't end well, (I disagree) but his characters are awesome. That's where his focus and interest is, in characters. Every author has their own strengths and weaknesses. I say it is always good for most writers to plan. Just have a sort of map. This happens, then this, which affects this. And here's the cool thing, you can have an outline but if you want to create a plot line that you haven't planned for, you can. You make the rules here. As for where to start. Start with the parts you're excited about, you'll see how to connect them at some point, or they'll fall to the wayside. That's all I got. Hope this helps, Good luck. | I’m a pantser, so I make it up as I go. I always have a rough plot in my head with the major plot beats and ending. | 0 | 24,336 | 2 | ||
zatgpw | writing_train | 0.78 | Is it better to plan a story or to make it up as I go along? (Please direct me to a better sub if this isn’t a good place for this type of question) I’ve noticed that what a lot of people consider the best stories either are very planned out from the start (i.e. FullMetal Alchemist, Lord of the Rings, One Piece) OR are just made up as they go along (i.e. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Lost, Snap Cube’s fandubs). It seems to me like the worst stories just don’t commit to either of these philosophies (i.e. the Newer Star Wars movies). Though each type of story has its own flaws and benefits. Planned stories tend to be more predictable but have very few plotholes, where as made up along the way stories to tend to be more suspensful and surprising but have alot more unanswered questions and contradictions. I also want to know, if I do plan out my story, how do I organize my thoughts? I’ve heard its a good idea to put your best ideas at the start and at the end, and your worst ideas (when I say worst I’d still hope their good, just less good) you put in the middle? Or should I simply just put the less good ideas at the start and the best ideas at the end so it always feels like a story that's getting better (A lot of people say JoJo Part 5 does this well)? Or, like I said, I could just make it up as I go along, maybe I just need to trust in my ability to come up with new and better ideas I can’t imagine now. I’d like to know which type of story you guys prefer? | iynrz9n | iyp6sdg | 1,670,010,110 | 1,670,032,705 | 1 | 2 | Depends on who you are as an author and what your story is about. I’ve got several ideas, a fantasy epic with a clear theme and moral I want to push, and the other a reality tv comic about 4 quirky characters. Stories that focus on a theme should have more planning, and character driven stories are better when you make things up on the fly. Naruto is an infamous example of pantsing, because in the beginning he’s an orphan who talks about how hard work and determination can overcome destiny, and in Shippuden he’s >!from an impressive ninja pedigree and one of the few who could handle the power of a demonic god, so the old morals are tossed aside in favor of!< preaching about friendship. It’s very hard to retcon an established story. | I’m a pantser, so I make it up as I go. I always have a rough plot in my head with the major plot beats and ending. | 0 | 22,595 | 2 | ||
zatgpw | writing_train | 0.78 | Is it better to plan a story or to make it up as I go along? (Please direct me to a better sub if this isn’t a good place for this type of question) I’ve noticed that what a lot of people consider the best stories either are very planned out from the start (i.e. FullMetal Alchemist, Lord of the Rings, One Piece) OR are just made up as they go along (i.e. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Lost, Snap Cube’s fandubs). It seems to me like the worst stories just don’t commit to either of these philosophies (i.e. the Newer Star Wars movies). Though each type of story has its own flaws and benefits. Planned stories tend to be more predictable but have very few plotholes, where as made up along the way stories to tend to be more suspensful and surprising but have alot more unanswered questions and contradictions. I also want to know, if I do plan out my story, how do I organize my thoughts? I’ve heard its a good idea to put your best ideas at the start and at the end, and your worst ideas (when I say worst I’d still hope their good, just less good) you put in the middle? Or should I simply just put the less good ideas at the start and the best ideas at the end so it always feels like a story that's getting better (A lot of people say JoJo Part 5 does this well)? Or, like I said, I could just make it up as I go along, maybe I just need to trust in my ability to come up with new and better ideas I can’t imagine now. I’d like to know which type of story you guys prefer? | iyp6sdg | iynvq3j | 1,670,032,705 | 1,670,011,606 | 2 | 1 | I’m a pantser, so I make it up as I go. I always have a rough plot in my head with the major plot beats and ending. | Its all just a tool. Planning and plotting has its own strengths. so does just goin at it. I think they’re both useful skills and what you should do is what ever helps you finish. Im not as into outlines and i prefer scene cards, but pantsing helps you remember to throw caution to the wind and be interesting. But no reader cares how it was written, only that it get written. So the goal should be learning how to complete a work | 1 | 21,099 | 2 | ||
zatgpw | writing_train | 0.78 | Is it better to plan a story or to make it up as I go along? (Please direct me to a better sub if this isn’t a good place for this type of question) I’ve noticed that what a lot of people consider the best stories either are very planned out from the start (i.e. FullMetal Alchemist, Lord of the Rings, One Piece) OR are just made up as they go along (i.e. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Lost, Snap Cube’s fandubs). It seems to me like the worst stories just don’t commit to either of these philosophies (i.e. the Newer Star Wars movies). Though each type of story has its own flaws and benefits. Planned stories tend to be more predictable but have very few plotholes, where as made up along the way stories to tend to be more suspensful and surprising but have alot more unanswered questions and contradictions. I also want to know, if I do plan out my story, how do I organize my thoughts? I’ve heard its a good idea to put your best ideas at the start and at the end, and your worst ideas (when I say worst I’d still hope their good, just less good) you put in the middle? Or should I simply just put the less good ideas at the start and the best ideas at the end so it always feels like a story that's getting better (A lot of people say JoJo Part 5 does this well)? Or, like I said, I could just make it up as I go along, maybe I just need to trust in my ability to come up with new and better ideas I can’t imagine now. I’d like to know which type of story you guys prefer? | iyp6sdg | iyo98oi | 1,670,032,705 | 1,670,017,106 | 2 | 1 | I’m a pantser, so I make it up as I go. I always have a rough plot in my head with the major plot beats and ending. | Yes. Its good to have an idea of where the stories going but you should also let ideas just come out of you as you fill in the middle. | 1 | 15,599 | 2 | ||
zatgpw | writing_train | 0.78 | Is it better to plan a story or to make it up as I go along? (Please direct me to a better sub if this isn’t a good place for this type of question) I’ve noticed that what a lot of people consider the best stories either are very planned out from the start (i.e. FullMetal Alchemist, Lord of the Rings, One Piece) OR are just made up as they go along (i.e. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Lost, Snap Cube’s fandubs). It seems to me like the worst stories just don’t commit to either of these philosophies (i.e. the Newer Star Wars movies). Though each type of story has its own flaws and benefits. Planned stories tend to be more predictable but have very few plotholes, where as made up along the way stories to tend to be more suspensful and surprising but have alot more unanswered questions and contradictions. I also want to know, if I do plan out my story, how do I organize my thoughts? I’ve heard its a good idea to put your best ideas at the start and at the end, and your worst ideas (when I say worst I’d still hope their good, just less good) you put in the middle? Or should I simply just put the less good ideas at the start and the best ideas at the end so it always feels like a story that's getting better (A lot of people say JoJo Part 5 does this well)? Or, like I said, I could just make it up as I go along, maybe I just need to trust in my ability to come up with new and better ideas I can’t imagine now. I’d like to know which type of story you guys prefer? | iyognff | iyp6sdg | 1,670,020,381 | 1,670,032,705 | 1 | 2 | It's a bit of trial and error to figure out what works best for you. I'm a pantser; I may have general ideas of where I want the story to go or specific events that will happen, but most of it just goes directly from my brain onto the page. The downside is my first drafts are usually messy and can require some significant content passes to make a coherent narrative. But it's more fun for me to write and figuring out what happens next keeps me motivated. | I’m a pantser, so I make it up as I go. I always have a rough plot in my head with the major plot beats and ending. | 0 | 12,324 | 2 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpaao1 | fmpbbws | 1,586,277,299 | 1,586,277,805 | 6 | 12 | >but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women I think this is very medium dependant. The term Mary Sue gets thrown around a lot more in relation to male characters than female characters in anime and manga for example. | My very simple rule to avoid Mary Sues: **Whatever is great about them cannot solve the plot. Only strengths that develop before our eyes, through overcoming struggles and obstacles, can solve the plot.** Most attractive person in the world? It makes them a target. People distrust them easily. Strongest fighter in the world? Violence will never be the answer. Winning a fight will only lead to further problems. An incredible knack for technology? They will use that power for the wrong reasons without noticing. | 0 | 506 | 2 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpbbws | fmoaddd | 1,586,277,805 | 1,586,251,498 | 12 | 5 | My very simple rule to avoid Mary Sues: **Whatever is great about them cannot solve the plot. Only strengths that develop before our eyes, through overcoming struggles and obstacles, can solve the plot.** Most attractive person in the world? It makes them a target. People distrust them easily. Strongest fighter in the world? Violence will never be the answer. Winning a fight will only lead to further problems. An incredible knack for technology? They will use that power for the wrong reasons without noticing. | These are some truly good advice about character design! I think that many female characters usually have less "bad" or "strange" character traits than the male ones, making them too perfect to seem true. Even sympathetic characters - like people in real life - should have a flaws, and not always the most forgivable ones (I know clumsy or geeky are popular "cute" bad traits. Throw in something more severe). The most interesting characters are the ones who overcome their difficulties through the events in the story, not the ones who start off being perfect and then keep on being so (unless they're bad guys. Bad guys who enters the scene seeming good and perfect could end up becoming very interesting). Don't linger too much in the fact that a character is female. Women has as much personality as men and personality is something individual, mostly not based around sex. And if you really want to put yourself in a story - see yourself for who you are, and for who you would be in such a setting, and add your "real" self, not the one you would like to be. And unless you write fanfiction, try to stay off other writer's turf. Invent your own stuff and be original as a person and as a writer. Edit: sorry for bad grammar/ Spelling errors. I'm Swedish. | 1 | 26,307 | 2.4 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpbbws | fmodmfo | 1,586,277,805 | 1,586,255,104 | 12 | 5 | My very simple rule to avoid Mary Sues: **Whatever is great about them cannot solve the plot. Only strengths that develop before our eyes, through overcoming struggles and obstacles, can solve the plot.** Most attractive person in the world? It makes them a target. People distrust them easily. Strongest fighter in the world? Violence will never be the answer. Winning a fight will only lead to further problems. An incredible knack for technology? They will use that power for the wrong reasons without noticing. | I'd wager most Sues are female because most fanfiction is written by women. Other than that I agree that single traits like beauty, likableness and competence a Sue do not make, and that the term is used to handwave characters we don't like. Recently though I see a lot of pushback against accusing characters of being this cliché, so I wouldn't worry too much. | 1 | 22,701 | 2.4 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpbbws | fmoragw | 1,586,277,805 | 1,586,266,789 | 12 | 5 | My very simple rule to avoid Mary Sues: **Whatever is great about them cannot solve the plot. Only strengths that develop before our eyes, through overcoming struggles and obstacles, can solve the plot.** Most attractive person in the world? It makes them a target. People distrust them easily. Strongest fighter in the world? Violence will never be the answer. Winning a fight will only lead to further problems. An incredible knack for technology? They will use that power for the wrong reasons without noticing. | This post is utter nonsense. >... fictional character who is so competent or perfect that this appears **absurd**, even in the context of the fictional setting. Mary Sues are often an author's self-insertion or wish fulfillment. They may excel at tasks that shouldn't be possible for them, or they may upstage the protagonist of a fictional setting, such as by saving them. They may disregard previously established aspects of the fiction such as characterization and natural laws. * Deadpool doesn't have characteristics of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu at all. There are character far more powerful than he. * Character being a Mary Sue is not about whether they belong into the story. Plenty characters do not fit a story and are **not** Mary Sues. It's all nicely written in that definition I quoted. **ALL** of it matters. * A Song of Ice and Fire has its fair share of issues. Most popular fiction doesn't have a Mary Sue. * Mary Sues have naught to do with creating role models. You are bringing gender politics into the definition of a common writing trope/mishap. In conclusion, Mary Sues are not as common as people think they are but their main characteristics are sometimes very dominant. It is not exclusive to women, there are plenty of Gary Stus out there, far more than Mary Sues if you ask me. This post is utter bollocks. | 1 | 11,016 | 2.4 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpbbws | fmow52c | 1,586,277,805 | 1,586,269,650 | 12 | 4 | My very simple rule to avoid Mary Sues: **Whatever is great about them cannot solve the plot. Only strengths that develop before our eyes, through overcoming struggles and obstacles, can solve the plot.** Most attractive person in the world? It makes them a target. People distrust them easily. Strongest fighter in the world? Violence will never be the answer. Winning a fight will only lead to further problems. An incredible knack for technology? They will use that power for the wrong reasons without noticing. | My best advice is...do not worry about it. Create the characters you want to create. Mary Sue became a thing in the first place because somebody just wanted to feel special in their favorite fictional universe. They didn't even charge any money for the fic. Who did they really hurt? | 1 | 8,155 | 3 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmp4yyj | fmpbbws | 1,586,274,530 | 1,586,277,805 | 5 | 12 | I don't disagree with much of what you said, but it also doesn't really align exactly with what I've considered a Mary Sue or Gary Stu. For me this archetype is someone who possesses skills, gifts, virtues or lacking any weakness to an unrealistic degree. A character who is the best ever at a specific skill and only in their twenties while being skilled or gifted in other areas while being impossibly good people despite the circumstances. This is obviously somewhat subjective especially when it comes to defining 'unrealistic' in a given world, but my definition is far more broad and includes characters that you would consider to not be Mary Sue's. In fact there a few characters in popular series who I consider bad characters who exhibit characteristics which I think make them Mary Sue's, though I think most people would disagree. I'm not saying that you're wrong or that my version is correct, but if my definition of Mary Sue is wrong then what character archetype would you say I described? | My very simple rule to avoid Mary Sues: **Whatever is great about them cannot solve the plot. Only strengths that develop before our eyes, through overcoming struggles and obstacles, can solve the plot.** Most attractive person in the world? It makes them a target. People distrust them easily. Strongest fighter in the world? Violence will never be the answer. Winning a fight will only lead to further problems. An incredible knack for technology? They will use that power for the wrong reasons without noticing. | 0 | 3,275 | 2.4 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmp8rbe | fmpbbws | 1,586,276,516 | 1,586,277,805 | 2 | 12 | Like Donnie in Donnie Darko. Honestly after realizing this, the film became a cringe fest. Idk why I used to like it. | My very simple rule to avoid Mary Sues: **Whatever is great about them cannot solve the plot. Only strengths that develop before our eyes, through overcoming struggles and obstacles, can solve the plot.** Most attractive person in the world? It makes them a target. People distrust them easily. Strongest fighter in the world? Violence will never be the answer. Winning a fight will only lead to further problems. An incredible knack for technology? They will use that power for the wrong reasons without noticing. | 0 | 1,289 | 6 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmp3ls2 | fmoaddd | 1,586,273,788 | 1,586,251,498 | 12 | 5 | Mary Sue really should be a genderless term, and for me, it's someone who bypasses the heroic journey - getting the benefits without having to work for them. | These are some truly good advice about character design! I think that many female characters usually have less "bad" or "strange" character traits than the male ones, making them too perfect to seem true. Even sympathetic characters - like people in real life - should have a flaws, and not always the most forgivable ones (I know clumsy or geeky are popular "cute" bad traits. Throw in something more severe). The most interesting characters are the ones who overcome their difficulties through the events in the story, not the ones who start off being perfect and then keep on being so (unless they're bad guys. Bad guys who enters the scene seeming good and perfect could end up becoming very interesting). Don't linger too much in the fact that a character is female. Women has as much personality as men and personality is something individual, mostly not based around sex. And if you really want to put yourself in a story - see yourself for who you are, and for who you would be in such a setting, and add your "real" self, not the one you would like to be. And unless you write fanfiction, try to stay off other writer's turf. Invent your own stuff and be original as a person and as a writer. Edit: sorry for bad grammar/ Spelling errors. I'm Swedish. | 1 | 22,290 | 2.4 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmp3ls2 | fmodmfo | 1,586,273,788 | 1,586,255,104 | 12 | 5 | Mary Sue really should be a genderless term, and for me, it's someone who bypasses the heroic journey - getting the benefits without having to work for them. | I'd wager most Sues are female because most fanfiction is written by women. Other than that I agree that single traits like beauty, likableness and competence a Sue do not make, and that the term is used to handwave characters we don't like. Recently though I see a lot of pushback against accusing characters of being this cliché, so I wouldn't worry too much. | 1 | 18,684 | 2.4 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmoragw | fmp3ls2 | 1,586,266,789 | 1,586,273,788 | 5 | 12 | This post is utter nonsense. >... fictional character who is so competent or perfect that this appears **absurd**, even in the context of the fictional setting. Mary Sues are often an author's self-insertion or wish fulfillment. They may excel at tasks that shouldn't be possible for them, or they may upstage the protagonist of a fictional setting, such as by saving them. They may disregard previously established aspects of the fiction such as characterization and natural laws. * Deadpool doesn't have characteristics of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu at all. There are character far more powerful than he. * Character being a Mary Sue is not about whether they belong into the story. Plenty characters do not fit a story and are **not** Mary Sues. It's all nicely written in that definition I quoted. **ALL** of it matters. * A Song of Ice and Fire has its fair share of issues. Most popular fiction doesn't have a Mary Sue. * Mary Sues have naught to do with creating role models. You are bringing gender politics into the definition of a common writing trope/mishap. In conclusion, Mary Sues are not as common as people think they are but their main characteristics are sometimes very dominant. It is not exclusive to women, there are plenty of Gary Stus out there, far more than Mary Sues if you ask me. This post is utter bollocks. | Mary Sue really should be a genderless term, and for me, it's someone who bypasses the heroic journey - getting the benefits without having to work for them. | 0 | 6,999 | 2.4 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmp3ls2 | fmow52c | 1,586,273,788 | 1,586,269,650 | 12 | 4 | Mary Sue really should be a genderless term, and for me, it's someone who bypasses the heroic journey - getting the benefits without having to work for them. | My best advice is...do not worry about it. Create the characters you want to create. Mary Sue became a thing in the first place because somebody just wanted to feel special in their favorite fictional universe. They didn't even charge any money for the fic. Who did they really hurt? | 1 | 4,138 | 3 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmq9x7a | fmpw17p | 1,586,295,639 | 1,586,288,371 | 11 | 8 | This, and many other posts talking about this topic, is just overcomplicating the term. A Mary-Sue is simply a character who is never truly challenged in the story. Mary-Sue doesn’t have to try to be pretty, to get their love interest, to beat the bad guy, etc. They never have to question themselves or really grow. Really, the only true example of a Mary-Sue is Rey from the recent Star Wars movies. She grew up as a scavenger on a desolate desert planet, but she somehow knows how to fly the Millennium Falcon (fix it? Sure. But mechanics don’t know how to actually fly the planes they work on.) She’s only ever fought against other, self-trained scavengers, but she can go and win a fight against a Sith trained by both Luke Skywalker and a Sith lord without a single scratch. She can go up against basically space secret-service and actually hold her own against them despite barely training against some rocks. In the third movie she suddenly knows how to heal wounds through the force. She thinks she kills Chewbacca but, rather than having to deal with the thought and trauma of accidentally killing a friend, he was actually on a different ship instead. By the way, we never even see Rey have proper bonding moments with anyone where she opens up to other characters. They basically just like her instantly. She never has to question herself or her beliefs even after finding out about her heritage. You’d think that after learning that your grandfather was one of the worst people in the galaxy, basically space Hitler, would cause some kind of emotional distress. But it doesn’t. Compare this to Luke, a similar character concept. He’s never shown flying the Falcon, can barely operate its blasters, has barely gotten training from Obi-Wan and has to run from a fight with Vader and loses a master he’s grown close with. He gets beaten and kidnapped by a Wampa and almost dies from the cold. He basically crashes onto Dagobah where he has to train with another master before lifting his X-wing out of the mud, he also confronts the concept of turning to the dark side in that cave. When he leaves to save his friends, who we’ve seen at least hanging out and playing games, he’s warned because he’s not done with his training. Afterwards, he goes against Vader, loses his goddamn hand, and is visibly distraught that Vader is his father. In the next movie, Luke has to work on a plan that’s taken months to work on to get Han and nearly dies in the process. He struggles to stick with the light side when trying to convert his father, and again nearly dies. We see Luke struggle physically, emotionally, and in his beliefs. Compare that to Rey who just glides through all her conflicts. | The origin of the term comes from fanworks--specifically and OC named Mary Sue in a Star Trek fanfiction, where she warps the rules of canon in order to be Captain Kirk's one and only. Thus when I see it in original fiction... More often than not, the author has engaged before in either fanwork or fandom, and it's often the case that the original story itself is derivative. See. Bella Swan can be seen as a Mary Sue.... But that's not the worst thing about Twilight. Edward could be a Gary Stu and it's still not why the writing is bad. (Ftr Twilight is... not derivative, but Meyer frequented message boards for TV fans. She had a fan mentality that reads in her work--Twilight is very fanficcy on mutliple levels) Christopher Paolini absolutely made a Gary Stu out of his main character of Eragon (.... Was his name actually Eragon? I honestly don't remember)--but Paolini's work was outrageously unoriginal and derivative. That these characters warp reality to suit them, hold contradictory or hypocritical mindsets, are never challenged full tilt by much of anything--it's bad writing more than it is Sueishness after some point. It's no longer about characters; it's about a lack of care for setting or plot and ESPECIALLY the writing itself. Paolini and Meyer's worlds felt empty of anyone besides the main characters and their issues; they truly struggled with plot where Paolini dragged things out and was melodramatic, where Meyer was like "plot??? ... Oh yeah--vampire baseball gets interrupted"--their pacing is shitacular. Both of them had a lot of laughable grammar and diction. I feel like outside of fanworks, claiming some character is a Mary Sue in an original work... It feels like a misnomer--like we should be calling them a passive character, a one-dimensional or flat character, a self insert, impossible to relate to: stating the real problem instead of relying on fandom terminology. It's a lazy criticism that I don't think folks outside of fandom circles can really appreciate--I don't find it helpful to think of original work as tantamount tp creating an OC for fanfiction. I write fanfic and original work; they are distinct to me enough that certain terms have less real world crossover than what you might think. Mind. I was part of anti Mary Sue communities as a teenager more than 10 years ago: I am *very* done with trying to act like it's a good literary term. Holden Caulfield or Superman arent Sues, whether poorly written or well written--because then, it's a slippery slope into calling all perfect characters or all self-inserts "Sues, if they meet such and such standards" or "but its OKAY that they are because"--nah. Jesus aint a Sue. | 1 | 7,268 | 1.375 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmq9x7a | fmpaao1 | 1,586,295,639 | 1,586,277,299 | 11 | 6 | This, and many other posts talking about this topic, is just overcomplicating the term. A Mary-Sue is simply a character who is never truly challenged in the story. Mary-Sue doesn’t have to try to be pretty, to get their love interest, to beat the bad guy, etc. They never have to question themselves or really grow. Really, the only true example of a Mary-Sue is Rey from the recent Star Wars movies. She grew up as a scavenger on a desolate desert planet, but she somehow knows how to fly the Millennium Falcon (fix it? Sure. But mechanics don’t know how to actually fly the planes they work on.) She’s only ever fought against other, self-trained scavengers, but she can go and win a fight against a Sith trained by both Luke Skywalker and a Sith lord without a single scratch. She can go up against basically space secret-service and actually hold her own against them despite barely training against some rocks. In the third movie she suddenly knows how to heal wounds through the force. She thinks she kills Chewbacca but, rather than having to deal with the thought and trauma of accidentally killing a friend, he was actually on a different ship instead. By the way, we never even see Rey have proper bonding moments with anyone where she opens up to other characters. They basically just like her instantly. She never has to question herself or her beliefs even after finding out about her heritage. You’d think that after learning that your grandfather was one of the worst people in the galaxy, basically space Hitler, would cause some kind of emotional distress. But it doesn’t. Compare this to Luke, a similar character concept. He’s never shown flying the Falcon, can barely operate its blasters, has barely gotten training from Obi-Wan and has to run from a fight with Vader and loses a master he’s grown close with. He gets beaten and kidnapped by a Wampa and almost dies from the cold. He basically crashes onto Dagobah where he has to train with another master before lifting his X-wing out of the mud, he also confronts the concept of turning to the dark side in that cave. When he leaves to save his friends, who we’ve seen at least hanging out and playing games, he’s warned because he’s not done with his training. Afterwards, he goes against Vader, loses his goddamn hand, and is visibly distraught that Vader is his father. In the next movie, Luke has to work on a plan that’s taken months to work on to get Han and nearly dies in the process. He struggles to stick with the light side when trying to convert his father, and again nearly dies. We see Luke struggle physically, emotionally, and in his beliefs. Compare that to Rey who just glides through all her conflicts. | >but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women I think this is very medium dependant. The term Mary Sue gets thrown around a lot more in relation to male characters than female characters in anime and manga for example. | 1 | 18,340 | 1.833333 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmoaddd | fmq9x7a | 1,586,251,498 | 1,586,295,639 | 5 | 11 | These are some truly good advice about character design! I think that many female characters usually have less "bad" or "strange" character traits than the male ones, making them too perfect to seem true. Even sympathetic characters - like people in real life - should have a flaws, and not always the most forgivable ones (I know clumsy or geeky are popular "cute" bad traits. Throw in something more severe). The most interesting characters are the ones who overcome their difficulties through the events in the story, not the ones who start off being perfect and then keep on being so (unless they're bad guys. Bad guys who enters the scene seeming good and perfect could end up becoming very interesting). Don't linger too much in the fact that a character is female. Women has as much personality as men and personality is something individual, mostly not based around sex. And if you really want to put yourself in a story - see yourself for who you are, and for who you would be in such a setting, and add your "real" self, not the one you would like to be. And unless you write fanfiction, try to stay off other writer's turf. Invent your own stuff and be original as a person and as a writer. Edit: sorry for bad grammar/ Spelling errors. I'm Swedish. | This, and many other posts talking about this topic, is just overcomplicating the term. A Mary-Sue is simply a character who is never truly challenged in the story. Mary-Sue doesn’t have to try to be pretty, to get their love interest, to beat the bad guy, etc. They never have to question themselves or really grow. Really, the only true example of a Mary-Sue is Rey from the recent Star Wars movies. She grew up as a scavenger on a desolate desert planet, but she somehow knows how to fly the Millennium Falcon (fix it? Sure. But mechanics don’t know how to actually fly the planes they work on.) She’s only ever fought against other, self-trained scavengers, but she can go and win a fight against a Sith trained by both Luke Skywalker and a Sith lord without a single scratch. She can go up against basically space secret-service and actually hold her own against them despite barely training against some rocks. In the third movie she suddenly knows how to heal wounds through the force. She thinks she kills Chewbacca but, rather than having to deal with the thought and trauma of accidentally killing a friend, he was actually on a different ship instead. By the way, we never even see Rey have proper bonding moments with anyone where she opens up to other characters. They basically just like her instantly. She never has to question herself or her beliefs even after finding out about her heritage. You’d think that after learning that your grandfather was one of the worst people in the galaxy, basically space Hitler, would cause some kind of emotional distress. But it doesn’t. Compare this to Luke, a similar character concept. He’s never shown flying the Falcon, can barely operate its blasters, has barely gotten training from Obi-Wan and has to run from a fight with Vader and loses a master he’s grown close with. He gets beaten and kidnapped by a Wampa and almost dies from the cold. He basically crashes onto Dagobah where he has to train with another master before lifting his X-wing out of the mud, he also confronts the concept of turning to the dark side in that cave. When he leaves to save his friends, who we’ve seen at least hanging out and playing games, he’s warned because he’s not done with his training. Afterwards, he goes against Vader, loses his goddamn hand, and is visibly distraught that Vader is his father. In the next movie, Luke has to work on a plan that’s taken months to work on to get Han and nearly dies in the process. He struggles to stick with the light side when trying to convert his father, and again nearly dies. We see Luke struggle physically, emotionally, and in his beliefs. Compare that to Rey who just glides through all her conflicts. | 0 | 44,141 | 2.2 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmq9x7a | fmodmfo | 1,586,295,639 | 1,586,255,104 | 11 | 5 | This, and many other posts talking about this topic, is just overcomplicating the term. A Mary-Sue is simply a character who is never truly challenged in the story. Mary-Sue doesn’t have to try to be pretty, to get their love interest, to beat the bad guy, etc. They never have to question themselves or really grow. Really, the only true example of a Mary-Sue is Rey from the recent Star Wars movies. She grew up as a scavenger on a desolate desert planet, but she somehow knows how to fly the Millennium Falcon (fix it? Sure. But mechanics don’t know how to actually fly the planes they work on.) She’s only ever fought against other, self-trained scavengers, but she can go and win a fight against a Sith trained by both Luke Skywalker and a Sith lord without a single scratch. She can go up against basically space secret-service and actually hold her own against them despite barely training against some rocks. In the third movie she suddenly knows how to heal wounds through the force. She thinks she kills Chewbacca but, rather than having to deal with the thought and trauma of accidentally killing a friend, he was actually on a different ship instead. By the way, we never even see Rey have proper bonding moments with anyone where she opens up to other characters. They basically just like her instantly. She never has to question herself or her beliefs even after finding out about her heritage. You’d think that after learning that your grandfather was one of the worst people in the galaxy, basically space Hitler, would cause some kind of emotional distress. But it doesn’t. Compare this to Luke, a similar character concept. He’s never shown flying the Falcon, can barely operate its blasters, has barely gotten training from Obi-Wan and has to run from a fight with Vader and loses a master he’s grown close with. He gets beaten and kidnapped by a Wampa and almost dies from the cold. He basically crashes onto Dagobah where he has to train with another master before lifting his X-wing out of the mud, he also confronts the concept of turning to the dark side in that cave. When he leaves to save his friends, who we’ve seen at least hanging out and playing games, he’s warned because he’s not done with his training. Afterwards, he goes against Vader, loses his goddamn hand, and is visibly distraught that Vader is his father. In the next movie, Luke has to work on a plan that’s taken months to work on to get Han and nearly dies in the process. He struggles to stick with the light side when trying to convert his father, and again nearly dies. We see Luke struggle physically, emotionally, and in his beliefs. Compare that to Rey who just glides through all her conflicts. | I'd wager most Sues are female because most fanfiction is written by women. Other than that I agree that single traits like beauty, likableness and competence a Sue do not make, and that the term is used to handwave characters we don't like. Recently though I see a lot of pushback against accusing characters of being this cliché, so I wouldn't worry too much. | 1 | 40,535 | 2.2 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmoragw | fmq9x7a | 1,586,266,789 | 1,586,295,639 | 5 | 11 | This post is utter nonsense. >... fictional character who is so competent or perfect that this appears **absurd**, even in the context of the fictional setting. Mary Sues are often an author's self-insertion or wish fulfillment. They may excel at tasks that shouldn't be possible for them, or they may upstage the protagonist of a fictional setting, such as by saving them. They may disregard previously established aspects of the fiction such as characterization and natural laws. * Deadpool doesn't have characteristics of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu at all. There are character far more powerful than he. * Character being a Mary Sue is not about whether they belong into the story. Plenty characters do not fit a story and are **not** Mary Sues. It's all nicely written in that definition I quoted. **ALL** of it matters. * A Song of Ice and Fire has its fair share of issues. Most popular fiction doesn't have a Mary Sue. * Mary Sues have naught to do with creating role models. You are bringing gender politics into the definition of a common writing trope/mishap. In conclusion, Mary Sues are not as common as people think they are but their main characteristics are sometimes very dominant. It is not exclusive to women, there are plenty of Gary Stus out there, far more than Mary Sues if you ask me. This post is utter bollocks. | This, and many other posts talking about this topic, is just overcomplicating the term. A Mary-Sue is simply a character who is never truly challenged in the story. Mary-Sue doesn’t have to try to be pretty, to get their love interest, to beat the bad guy, etc. They never have to question themselves or really grow. Really, the only true example of a Mary-Sue is Rey from the recent Star Wars movies. She grew up as a scavenger on a desolate desert planet, but she somehow knows how to fly the Millennium Falcon (fix it? Sure. But mechanics don’t know how to actually fly the planes they work on.) She’s only ever fought against other, self-trained scavengers, but she can go and win a fight against a Sith trained by both Luke Skywalker and a Sith lord without a single scratch. She can go up against basically space secret-service and actually hold her own against them despite barely training against some rocks. In the third movie she suddenly knows how to heal wounds through the force. She thinks she kills Chewbacca but, rather than having to deal with the thought and trauma of accidentally killing a friend, he was actually on a different ship instead. By the way, we never even see Rey have proper bonding moments with anyone where she opens up to other characters. They basically just like her instantly. She never has to question herself or her beliefs even after finding out about her heritage. You’d think that after learning that your grandfather was one of the worst people in the galaxy, basically space Hitler, would cause some kind of emotional distress. But it doesn’t. Compare this to Luke, a similar character concept. He’s never shown flying the Falcon, can barely operate its blasters, has barely gotten training from Obi-Wan and has to run from a fight with Vader and loses a master he’s grown close with. He gets beaten and kidnapped by a Wampa and almost dies from the cold. He basically crashes onto Dagobah where he has to train with another master before lifting his X-wing out of the mud, he also confronts the concept of turning to the dark side in that cave. When he leaves to save his friends, who we’ve seen at least hanging out and playing games, he’s warned because he’s not done with his training. Afterwards, he goes against Vader, loses his goddamn hand, and is visibly distraught that Vader is his father. In the next movie, Luke has to work on a plan that’s taken months to work on to get Han and nearly dies in the process. He struggles to stick with the light side when trying to convert his father, and again nearly dies. We see Luke struggle physically, emotionally, and in his beliefs. Compare that to Rey who just glides through all her conflicts. | 0 | 28,850 | 2.2 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmq9x7a | fmow52c | 1,586,295,639 | 1,586,269,650 | 11 | 4 | This, and many other posts talking about this topic, is just overcomplicating the term. A Mary-Sue is simply a character who is never truly challenged in the story. Mary-Sue doesn’t have to try to be pretty, to get their love interest, to beat the bad guy, etc. They never have to question themselves or really grow. Really, the only true example of a Mary-Sue is Rey from the recent Star Wars movies. She grew up as a scavenger on a desolate desert planet, but she somehow knows how to fly the Millennium Falcon (fix it? Sure. But mechanics don’t know how to actually fly the planes they work on.) She’s only ever fought against other, self-trained scavengers, but she can go and win a fight against a Sith trained by both Luke Skywalker and a Sith lord without a single scratch. She can go up against basically space secret-service and actually hold her own against them despite barely training against some rocks. In the third movie she suddenly knows how to heal wounds through the force. She thinks she kills Chewbacca but, rather than having to deal with the thought and trauma of accidentally killing a friend, he was actually on a different ship instead. By the way, we never even see Rey have proper bonding moments with anyone where she opens up to other characters. They basically just like her instantly. She never has to question herself or her beliefs even after finding out about her heritage. You’d think that after learning that your grandfather was one of the worst people in the galaxy, basically space Hitler, would cause some kind of emotional distress. But it doesn’t. Compare this to Luke, a similar character concept. He’s never shown flying the Falcon, can barely operate its blasters, has barely gotten training from Obi-Wan and has to run from a fight with Vader and loses a master he’s grown close with. He gets beaten and kidnapped by a Wampa and almost dies from the cold. He basically crashes onto Dagobah where he has to train with another master before lifting his X-wing out of the mud, he also confronts the concept of turning to the dark side in that cave. When he leaves to save his friends, who we’ve seen at least hanging out and playing games, he’s warned because he’s not done with his training. Afterwards, he goes against Vader, loses his goddamn hand, and is visibly distraught that Vader is his father. In the next movie, Luke has to work on a plan that’s taken months to work on to get Han and nearly dies in the process. He struggles to stick with the light side when trying to convert his father, and again nearly dies. We see Luke struggle physically, emotionally, and in his beliefs. Compare that to Rey who just glides through all her conflicts. | My best advice is...do not worry about it. Create the characters you want to create. Mary Sue became a thing in the first place because somebody just wanted to feel special in their favorite fictional universe. They didn't even charge any money for the fic. Who did they really hurt? | 1 | 25,989 | 2.75 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmq9x7a | fmp4yyj | 1,586,295,639 | 1,586,274,530 | 11 | 5 | This, and many other posts talking about this topic, is just overcomplicating the term. A Mary-Sue is simply a character who is never truly challenged in the story. Mary-Sue doesn’t have to try to be pretty, to get their love interest, to beat the bad guy, etc. They never have to question themselves or really grow. Really, the only true example of a Mary-Sue is Rey from the recent Star Wars movies. She grew up as a scavenger on a desolate desert planet, but she somehow knows how to fly the Millennium Falcon (fix it? Sure. But mechanics don’t know how to actually fly the planes they work on.) She’s only ever fought against other, self-trained scavengers, but she can go and win a fight against a Sith trained by both Luke Skywalker and a Sith lord without a single scratch. She can go up against basically space secret-service and actually hold her own against them despite barely training against some rocks. In the third movie she suddenly knows how to heal wounds through the force. She thinks she kills Chewbacca but, rather than having to deal with the thought and trauma of accidentally killing a friend, he was actually on a different ship instead. By the way, we never even see Rey have proper bonding moments with anyone where she opens up to other characters. They basically just like her instantly. She never has to question herself or her beliefs even after finding out about her heritage. You’d think that after learning that your grandfather was one of the worst people in the galaxy, basically space Hitler, would cause some kind of emotional distress. But it doesn’t. Compare this to Luke, a similar character concept. He’s never shown flying the Falcon, can barely operate its blasters, has barely gotten training from Obi-Wan and has to run from a fight with Vader and loses a master he’s grown close with. He gets beaten and kidnapped by a Wampa and almost dies from the cold. He basically crashes onto Dagobah where he has to train with another master before lifting his X-wing out of the mud, he also confronts the concept of turning to the dark side in that cave. When he leaves to save his friends, who we’ve seen at least hanging out and playing games, he’s warned because he’s not done with his training. Afterwards, he goes against Vader, loses his goddamn hand, and is visibly distraught that Vader is his father. In the next movie, Luke has to work on a plan that’s taken months to work on to get Han and nearly dies in the process. He struggles to stick with the light side when trying to convert his father, and again nearly dies. We see Luke struggle physically, emotionally, and in his beliefs. Compare that to Rey who just glides through all her conflicts. | I don't disagree with much of what you said, but it also doesn't really align exactly with what I've considered a Mary Sue or Gary Stu. For me this archetype is someone who possesses skills, gifts, virtues or lacking any weakness to an unrealistic degree. A character who is the best ever at a specific skill and only in their twenties while being skilled or gifted in other areas while being impossibly good people despite the circumstances. This is obviously somewhat subjective especially when it comes to defining 'unrealistic' in a given world, but my definition is far more broad and includes characters that you would consider to not be Mary Sue's. In fact there a few characters in popular series who I consider bad characters who exhibit characteristics which I think make them Mary Sue's, though I think most people would disagree. I'm not saying that you're wrong or that my version is correct, but if my definition of Mary Sue is wrong then what character archetype would you say I described? | 1 | 21,109 | 2.2 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmq9x7a | fmpsadw | 1,586,295,639 | 1,586,286,417 | 11 | 3 | This, and many other posts talking about this topic, is just overcomplicating the term. A Mary-Sue is simply a character who is never truly challenged in the story. Mary-Sue doesn’t have to try to be pretty, to get their love interest, to beat the bad guy, etc. They never have to question themselves or really grow. Really, the only true example of a Mary-Sue is Rey from the recent Star Wars movies. She grew up as a scavenger on a desolate desert planet, but she somehow knows how to fly the Millennium Falcon (fix it? Sure. But mechanics don’t know how to actually fly the planes they work on.) She’s only ever fought against other, self-trained scavengers, but she can go and win a fight against a Sith trained by both Luke Skywalker and a Sith lord without a single scratch. She can go up against basically space secret-service and actually hold her own against them despite barely training against some rocks. In the third movie she suddenly knows how to heal wounds through the force. She thinks she kills Chewbacca but, rather than having to deal with the thought and trauma of accidentally killing a friend, he was actually on a different ship instead. By the way, we never even see Rey have proper bonding moments with anyone where she opens up to other characters. They basically just like her instantly. She never has to question herself or her beliefs even after finding out about her heritage. You’d think that after learning that your grandfather was one of the worst people in the galaxy, basically space Hitler, would cause some kind of emotional distress. But it doesn’t. Compare this to Luke, a similar character concept. He’s never shown flying the Falcon, can barely operate its blasters, has barely gotten training from Obi-Wan and has to run from a fight with Vader and loses a master he’s grown close with. He gets beaten and kidnapped by a Wampa and almost dies from the cold. He basically crashes onto Dagobah where he has to train with another master before lifting his X-wing out of the mud, he also confronts the concept of turning to the dark side in that cave. When he leaves to save his friends, who we’ve seen at least hanging out and playing games, he’s warned because he’s not done with his training. Afterwards, he goes against Vader, loses his goddamn hand, and is visibly distraught that Vader is his father. In the next movie, Luke has to work on a plan that’s taken months to work on to get Han and nearly dies in the process. He struggles to stick with the light side when trying to convert his father, and again nearly dies. We see Luke struggle physically, emotionally, and in his beliefs. Compare that to Rey who just glides through all her conflicts. | Another common problem with Mary Sue's is that the author will arbitrarily give them "flaws" in an attempt to humanize them, except it falls flat because these flaws a) don't fit with the character (e.g. a character who is patient to a fault is highly unlikely to have the oft used, never-defined "anger issues.") or b) never impede the character in anything. | 1 | 9,222 | 3.666667 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpf9ps | fmq9x7a | 1,586,279,794 | 1,586,295,639 | 3 | 11 | Yeah, it's a lot more than just a checklist of tropes. Take the overpowered aspect for example. You could say Saitama from One Punch Man is clearly a Mary Sue because he can defeat any enemy in one punch. But it works in the context of the story because, despite this Saitama is not perfect. He has a satisfying character arc, which is >!learning to accept that whether or not his fights are challenging and therefore "fun" doesn't matter because being a hero is a burden of responsibility, not a vacation from the tedium of daily life.!< It works because it's a deconstruction/critique of popular battle shounen tropes, but it also simultaneously embraces how much fun over the top fights can be. When you sign up to watch One Punch Man, you're signing up to watch crazy battle scenes that end anti-climatically with a single punch, it's funny and it makes an interesting point, that's the whole appeal. So think the question should be: Is this character subversive? Do they have flaws to compensate for being all-around awesome? Does it make sense in the context of the show, or is the experience built around the "Mary Sue" with their overly awesome nature taken in to account? There are interesting ways to use Mary-Sue type characters, but they're heavily reliant on the author doing some meta-commentary and/or having a high writing skill threshold to compensate. Otherwise, you get the ones you see in fanfiction: overpowered, perfect, no growth/arc, clashes with the original work, etc. To use another anime example, Kirito from the Sword Art Online series comes to mind. He is consistently overpowered to the degree of being able to hack complicated computer systems in seconds, win knife duels with adults who are much bigger than him in real life, and be the best player of any video game he is in. None of this makes any sense in universe and seems to serve no particular narrative purpose except wish fulfillment. | This, and many other posts talking about this topic, is just overcomplicating the term. A Mary-Sue is simply a character who is never truly challenged in the story. Mary-Sue doesn’t have to try to be pretty, to get their love interest, to beat the bad guy, etc. They never have to question themselves or really grow. Really, the only true example of a Mary-Sue is Rey from the recent Star Wars movies. She grew up as a scavenger on a desolate desert planet, but she somehow knows how to fly the Millennium Falcon (fix it? Sure. But mechanics don’t know how to actually fly the planes they work on.) She’s only ever fought against other, self-trained scavengers, but she can go and win a fight against a Sith trained by both Luke Skywalker and a Sith lord without a single scratch. She can go up against basically space secret-service and actually hold her own against them despite barely training against some rocks. In the third movie she suddenly knows how to heal wounds through the force. She thinks she kills Chewbacca but, rather than having to deal with the thought and trauma of accidentally killing a friend, he was actually on a different ship instead. By the way, we never even see Rey have proper bonding moments with anyone where she opens up to other characters. They basically just like her instantly. She never has to question herself or her beliefs even after finding out about her heritage. You’d think that after learning that your grandfather was one of the worst people in the galaxy, basically space Hitler, would cause some kind of emotional distress. But it doesn’t. Compare this to Luke, a similar character concept. He’s never shown flying the Falcon, can barely operate its blasters, has barely gotten training from Obi-Wan and has to run from a fight with Vader and loses a master he’s grown close with. He gets beaten and kidnapped by a Wampa and almost dies from the cold. He basically crashes onto Dagobah where he has to train with another master before lifting his X-wing out of the mud, he also confronts the concept of turning to the dark side in that cave. When he leaves to save his friends, who we’ve seen at least hanging out and playing games, he’s warned because he’s not done with his training. Afterwards, he goes against Vader, loses his goddamn hand, and is visibly distraught that Vader is his father. In the next movie, Luke has to work on a plan that’s taken months to work on to get Han and nearly dies in the process. He struggles to stick with the light side when trying to convert his father, and again nearly dies. We see Luke struggle physically, emotionally, and in his beliefs. Compare that to Rey who just glides through all her conflicts. | 0 | 15,845 | 3.666667 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmp8rbe | fmq9x7a | 1,586,276,516 | 1,586,295,639 | 2 | 11 | Like Donnie in Donnie Darko. Honestly after realizing this, the film became a cringe fest. Idk why I used to like it. | This, and many other posts talking about this topic, is just overcomplicating the term. A Mary-Sue is simply a character who is never truly challenged in the story. Mary-Sue doesn’t have to try to be pretty, to get their love interest, to beat the bad guy, etc. They never have to question themselves or really grow. Really, the only true example of a Mary-Sue is Rey from the recent Star Wars movies. She grew up as a scavenger on a desolate desert planet, but she somehow knows how to fly the Millennium Falcon (fix it? Sure. But mechanics don’t know how to actually fly the planes they work on.) She’s only ever fought against other, self-trained scavengers, but she can go and win a fight against a Sith trained by both Luke Skywalker and a Sith lord without a single scratch. She can go up against basically space secret-service and actually hold her own against them despite barely training against some rocks. In the third movie she suddenly knows how to heal wounds through the force. She thinks she kills Chewbacca but, rather than having to deal with the thought and trauma of accidentally killing a friend, he was actually on a different ship instead. By the way, we never even see Rey have proper bonding moments with anyone where she opens up to other characters. They basically just like her instantly. She never has to question herself or her beliefs even after finding out about her heritage. You’d think that after learning that your grandfather was one of the worst people in the galaxy, basically space Hitler, would cause some kind of emotional distress. But it doesn’t. Compare this to Luke, a similar character concept. He’s never shown flying the Falcon, can barely operate its blasters, has barely gotten training from Obi-Wan and has to run from a fight with Vader and loses a master he’s grown close with. He gets beaten and kidnapped by a Wampa and almost dies from the cold. He basically crashes onto Dagobah where he has to train with another master before lifting his X-wing out of the mud, he also confronts the concept of turning to the dark side in that cave. When he leaves to save his friends, who we’ve seen at least hanging out and playing games, he’s warned because he’s not done with his training. Afterwards, he goes against Vader, loses his goddamn hand, and is visibly distraught that Vader is his father. In the next movie, Luke has to work on a plan that’s taken months to work on to get Han and nearly dies in the process. He struggles to stick with the light side when trying to convert his father, and again nearly dies. We see Luke struggle physically, emotionally, and in his beliefs. Compare that to Rey who just glides through all her conflicts. | 0 | 19,123 | 5.5 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpaao1 | fmpw17p | 1,586,277,299 | 1,586,288,371 | 6 | 8 | >but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women I think this is very medium dependant. The term Mary Sue gets thrown around a lot more in relation to male characters than female characters in anime and manga for example. | The origin of the term comes from fanworks--specifically and OC named Mary Sue in a Star Trek fanfiction, where she warps the rules of canon in order to be Captain Kirk's one and only. Thus when I see it in original fiction... More often than not, the author has engaged before in either fanwork or fandom, and it's often the case that the original story itself is derivative. See. Bella Swan can be seen as a Mary Sue.... But that's not the worst thing about Twilight. Edward could be a Gary Stu and it's still not why the writing is bad. (Ftr Twilight is... not derivative, but Meyer frequented message boards for TV fans. She had a fan mentality that reads in her work--Twilight is very fanficcy on mutliple levels) Christopher Paolini absolutely made a Gary Stu out of his main character of Eragon (.... Was his name actually Eragon? I honestly don't remember)--but Paolini's work was outrageously unoriginal and derivative. That these characters warp reality to suit them, hold contradictory or hypocritical mindsets, are never challenged full tilt by much of anything--it's bad writing more than it is Sueishness after some point. It's no longer about characters; it's about a lack of care for setting or plot and ESPECIALLY the writing itself. Paolini and Meyer's worlds felt empty of anyone besides the main characters and their issues; they truly struggled with plot where Paolini dragged things out and was melodramatic, where Meyer was like "plot??? ... Oh yeah--vampire baseball gets interrupted"--their pacing is shitacular. Both of them had a lot of laughable grammar and diction. I feel like outside of fanworks, claiming some character is a Mary Sue in an original work... It feels like a misnomer--like we should be calling them a passive character, a one-dimensional or flat character, a self insert, impossible to relate to: stating the real problem instead of relying on fandom terminology. It's a lazy criticism that I don't think folks outside of fandom circles can really appreciate--I don't find it helpful to think of original work as tantamount tp creating an OC for fanfiction. I write fanfic and original work; they are distinct to me enough that certain terms have less real world crossover than what you might think. Mind. I was part of anti Mary Sue communities as a teenager more than 10 years ago: I am *very* done with trying to act like it's a good literary term. Holden Caulfield or Superman arent Sues, whether poorly written or well written--because then, it's a slippery slope into calling all perfect characters or all self-inserts "Sues, if they meet such and such standards" or "but its OKAY that they are because"--nah. Jesus aint a Sue. | 0 | 11,072 | 1.333333 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpw17p | fmoaddd | 1,586,288,371 | 1,586,251,498 | 8 | 5 | The origin of the term comes from fanworks--specifically and OC named Mary Sue in a Star Trek fanfiction, where she warps the rules of canon in order to be Captain Kirk's one and only. Thus when I see it in original fiction... More often than not, the author has engaged before in either fanwork or fandom, and it's often the case that the original story itself is derivative. See. Bella Swan can be seen as a Mary Sue.... But that's not the worst thing about Twilight. Edward could be a Gary Stu and it's still not why the writing is bad. (Ftr Twilight is... not derivative, but Meyer frequented message boards for TV fans. She had a fan mentality that reads in her work--Twilight is very fanficcy on mutliple levels) Christopher Paolini absolutely made a Gary Stu out of his main character of Eragon (.... Was his name actually Eragon? I honestly don't remember)--but Paolini's work was outrageously unoriginal and derivative. That these characters warp reality to suit them, hold contradictory or hypocritical mindsets, are never challenged full tilt by much of anything--it's bad writing more than it is Sueishness after some point. It's no longer about characters; it's about a lack of care for setting or plot and ESPECIALLY the writing itself. Paolini and Meyer's worlds felt empty of anyone besides the main characters and their issues; they truly struggled with plot where Paolini dragged things out and was melodramatic, where Meyer was like "plot??? ... Oh yeah--vampire baseball gets interrupted"--their pacing is shitacular. Both of them had a lot of laughable grammar and diction. I feel like outside of fanworks, claiming some character is a Mary Sue in an original work... It feels like a misnomer--like we should be calling them a passive character, a one-dimensional or flat character, a self insert, impossible to relate to: stating the real problem instead of relying on fandom terminology. It's a lazy criticism that I don't think folks outside of fandom circles can really appreciate--I don't find it helpful to think of original work as tantamount tp creating an OC for fanfiction. I write fanfic and original work; they are distinct to me enough that certain terms have less real world crossover than what you might think. Mind. I was part of anti Mary Sue communities as a teenager more than 10 years ago: I am *very* done with trying to act like it's a good literary term. Holden Caulfield or Superman arent Sues, whether poorly written or well written--because then, it's a slippery slope into calling all perfect characters or all self-inserts "Sues, if they meet such and such standards" or "but its OKAY that they are because"--nah. Jesus aint a Sue. | These are some truly good advice about character design! I think that many female characters usually have less "bad" or "strange" character traits than the male ones, making them too perfect to seem true. Even sympathetic characters - like people in real life - should have a flaws, and not always the most forgivable ones (I know clumsy or geeky are popular "cute" bad traits. Throw in something more severe). The most interesting characters are the ones who overcome their difficulties through the events in the story, not the ones who start off being perfect and then keep on being so (unless they're bad guys. Bad guys who enters the scene seeming good and perfect could end up becoming very interesting). Don't linger too much in the fact that a character is female. Women has as much personality as men and personality is something individual, mostly not based around sex. And if you really want to put yourself in a story - see yourself for who you are, and for who you would be in such a setting, and add your "real" self, not the one you would like to be. And unless you write fanfiction, try to stay off other writer's turf. Invent your own stuff and be original as a person and as a writer. Edit: sorry for bad grammar/ Spelling errors. I'm Swedish. | 1 | 36,873 | 1.6 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpw17p | fmodmfo | 1,586,288,371 | 1,586,255,104 | 8 | 5 | The origin of the term comes from fanworks--specifically and OC named Mary Sue in a Star Trek fanfiction, where she warps the rules of canon in order to be Captain Kirk's one and only. Thus when I see it in original fiction... More often than not, the author has engaged before in either fanwork or fandom, and it's often the case that the original story itself is derivative. See. Bella Swan can be seen as a Mary Sue.... But that's not the worst thing about Twilight. Edward could be a Gary Stu and it's still not why the writing is bad. (Ftr Twilight is... not derivative, but Meyer frequented message boards for TV fans. She had a fan mentality that reads in her work--Twilight is very fanficcy on mutliple levels) Christopher Paolini absolutely made a Gary Stu out of his main character of Eragon (.... Was his name actually Eragon? I honestly don't remember)--but Paolini's work was outrageously unoriginal and derivative. That these characters warp reality to suit them, hold contradictory or hypocritical mindsets, are never challenged full tilt by much of anything--it's bad writing more than it is Sueishness after some point. It's no longer about characters; it's about a lack of care for setting or plot and ESPECIALLY the writing itself. Paolini and Meyer's worlds felt empty of anyone besides the main characters and their issues; they truly struggled with plot where Paolini dragged things out and was melodramatic, where Meyer was like "plot??? ... Oh yeah--vampire baseball gets interrupted"--their pacing is shitacular. Both of them had a lot of laughable grammar and diction. I feel like outside of fanworks, claiming some character is a Mary Sue in an original work... It feels like a misnomer--like we should be calling them a passive character, a one-dimensional or flat character, a self insert, impossible to relate to: stating the real problem instead of relying on fandom terminology. It's a lazy criticism that I don't think folks outside of fandom circles can really appreciate--I don't find it helpful to think of original work as tantamount tp creating an OC for fanfiction. I write fanfic and original work; they are distinct to me enough that certain terms have less real world crossover than what you might think. Mind. I was part of anti Mary Sue communities as a teenager more than 10 years ago: I am *very* done with trying to act like it's a good literary term. Holden Caulfield or Superman arent Sues, whether poorly written or well written--because then, it's a slippery slope into calling all perfect characters or all self-inserts "Sues, if they meet such and such standards" or "but its OKAY that they are because"--nah. Jesus aint a Sue. | I'd wager most Sues are female because most fanfiction is written by women. Other than that I agree that single traits like beauty, likableness and competence a Sue do not make, and that the term is used to handwave characters we don't like. Recently though I see a lot of pushback against accusing characters of being this cliché, so I wouldn't worry too much. | 1 | 33,267 | 1.6 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpw17p | fmoragw | 1,586,288,371 | 1,586,266,789 | 8 | 5 | The origin of the term comes from fanworks--specifically and OC named Mary Sue in a Star Trek fanfiction, where she warps the rules of canon in order to be Captain Kirk's one and only. Thus when I see it in original fiction... More often than not, the author has engaged before in either fanwork or fandom, and it's often the case that the original story itself is derivative. See. Bella Swan can be seen as a Mary Sue.... But that's not the worst thing about Twilight. Edward could be a Gary Stu and it's still not why the writing is bad. (Ftr Twilight is... not derivative, but Meyer frequented message boards for TV fans. She had a fan mentality that reads in her work--Twilight is very fanficcy on mutliple levels) Christopher Paolini absolutely made a Gary Stu out of his main character of Eragon (.... Was his name actually Eragon? I honestly don't remember)--but Paolini's work was outrageously unoriginal and derivative. That these characters warp reality to suit them, hold contradictory or hypocritical mindsets, are never challenged full tilt by much of anything--it's bad writing more than it is Sueishness after some point. It's no longer about characters; it's about a lack of care for setting or plot and ESPECIALLY the writing itself. Paolini and Meyer's worlds felt empty of anyone besides the main characters and their issues; they truly struggled with plot where Paolini dragged things out and was melodramatic, where Meyer was like "plot??? ... Oh yeah--vampire baseball gets interrupted"--their pacing is shitacular. Both of them had a lot of laughable grammar and diction. I feel like outside of fanworks, claiming some character is a Mary Sue in an original work... It feels like a misnomer--like we should be calling them a passive character, a one-dimensional or flat character, a self insert, impossible to relate to: stating the real problem instead of relying on fandom terminology. It's a lazy criticism that I don't think folks outside of fandom circles can really appreciate--I don't find it helpful to think of original work as tantamount tp creating an OC for fanfiction. I write fanfic and original work; they are distinct to me enough that certain terms have less real world crossover than what you might think. Mind. I was part of anti Mary Sue communities as a teenager more than 10 years ago: I am *very* done with trying to act like it's a good literary term. Holden Caulfield or Superman arent Sues, whether poorly written or well written--because then, it's a slippery slope into calling all perfect characters or all self-inserts "Sues, if they meet such and such standards" or "but its OKAY that they are because"--nah. Jesus aint a Sue. | This post is utter nonsense. >... fictional character who is so competent or perfect that this appears **absurd**, even in the context of the fictional setting. Mary Sues are often an author's self-insertion or wish fulfillment. They may excel at tasks that shouldn't be possible for them, or they may upstage the protagonist of a fictional setting, such as by saving them. They may disregard previously established aspects of the fiction such as characterization and natural laws. * Deadpool doesn't have characteristics of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu at all. There are character far more powerful than he. * Character being a Mary Sue is not about whether they belong into the story. Plenty characters do not fit a story and are **not** Mary Sues. It's all nicely written in that definition I quoted. **ALL** of it matters. * A Song of Ice and Fire has its fair share of issues. Most popular fiction doesn't have a Mary Sue. * Mary Sues have naught to do with creating role models. You are bringing gender politics into the definition of a common writing trope/mishap. In conclusion, Mary Sues are not as common as people think they are but their main characteristics are sometimes very dominant. It is not exclusive to women, there are plenty of Gary Stus out there, far more than Mary Sues if you ask me. This post is utter bollocks. | 1 | 21,582 | 1.6 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmow52c | fmpw17p | 1,586,269,650 | 1,586,288,371 | 4 | 8 | My best advice is...do not worry about it. Create the characters you want to create. Mary Sue became a thing in the first place because somebody just wanted to feel special in their favorite fictional universe. They didn't even charge any money for the fic. Who did they really hurt? | The origin of the term comes from fanworks--specifically and OC named Mary Sue in a Star Trek fanfiction, where she warps the rules of canon in order to be Captain Kirk's one and only. Thus when I see it in original fiction... More often than not, the author has engaged before in either fanwork or fandom, and it's often the case that the original story itself is derivative. See. Bella Swan can be seen as a Mary Sue.... But that's not the worst thing about Twilight. Edward could be a Gary Stu and it's still not why the writing is bad. (Ftr Twilight is... not derivative, but Meyer frequented message boards for TV fans. She had a fan mentality that reads in her work--Twilight is very fanficcy on mutliple levels) Christopher Paolini absolutely made a Gary Stu out of his main character of Eragon (.... Was his name actually Eragon? I honestly don't remember)--but Paolini's work was outrageously unoriginal and derivative. That these characters warp reality to suit them, hold contradictory or hypocritical mindsets, are never challenged full tilt by much of anything--it's bad writing more than it is Sueishness after some point. It's no longer about characters; it's about a lack of care for setting or plot and ESPECIALLY the writing itself. Paolini and Meyer's worlds felt empty of anyone besides the main characters and their issues; they truly struggled with plot where Paolini dragged things out and was melodramatic, where Meyer was like "plot??? ... Oh yeah--vampire baseball gets interrupted"--their pacing is shitacular. Both of them had a lot of laughable grammar and diction. I feel like outside of fanworks, claiming some character is a Mary Sue in an original work... It feels like a misnomer--like we should be calling them a passive character, a one-dimensional or flat character, a self insert, impossible to relate to: stating the real problem instead of relying on fandom terminology. It's a lazy criticism that I don't think folks outside of fandom circles can really appreciate--I don't find it helpful to think of original work as tantamount tp creating an OC for fanfiction. I write fanfic and original work; they are distinct to me enough that certain terms have less real world crossover than what you might think. Mind. I was part of anti Mary Sue communities as a teenager more than 10 years ago: I am *very* done with trying to act like it's a good literary term. Holden Caulfield or Superman arent Sues, whether poorly written or well written--because then, it's a slippery slope into calling all perfect characters or all self-inserts "Sues, if they meet such and such standards" or "but its OKAY that they are because"--nah. Jesus aint a Sue. | 0 | 18,721 | 2 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmp4yyj | fmpw17p | 1,586,274,530 | 1,586,288,371 | 5 | 8 | I don't disagree with much of what you said, but it also doesn't really align exactly with what I've considered a Mary Sue or Gary Stu. For me this archetype is someone who possesses skills, gifts, virtues or lacking any weakness to an unrealistic degree. A character who is the best ever at a specific skill and only in their twenties while being skilled or gifted in other areas while being impossibly good people despite the circumstances. This is obviously somewhat subjective especially when it comes to defining 'unrealistic' in a given world, but my definition is far more broad and includes characters that you would consider to not be Mary Sue's. In fact there a few characters in popular series who I consider bad characters who exhibit characteristics which I think make them Mary Sue's, though I think most people would disagree. I'm not saying that you're wrong or that my version is correct, but if my definition of Mary Sue is wrong then what character archetype would you say I described? | The origin of the term comes from fanworks--specifically and OC named Mary Sue in a Star Trek fanfiction, where she warps the rules of canon in order to be Captain Kirk's one and only. Thus when I see it in original fiction... More often than not, the author has engaged before in either fanwork or fandom, and it's often the case that the original story itself is derivative. See. Bella Swan can be seen as a Mary Sue.... But that's not the worst thing about Twilight. Edward could be a Gary Stu and it's still not why the writing is bad. (Ftr Twilight is... not derivative, but Meyer frequented message boards for TV fans. She had a fan mentality that reads in her work--Twilight is very fanficcy on mutliple levels) Christopher Paolini absolutely made a Gary Stu out of his main character of Eragon (.... Was his name actually Eragon? I honestly don't remember)--but Paolini's work was outrageously unoriginal and derivative. That these characters warp reality to suit them, hold contradictory or hypocritical mindsets, are never challenged full tilt by much of anything--it's bad writing more than it is Sueishness after some point. It's no longer about characters; it's about a lack of care for setting or plot and ESPECIALLY the writing itself. Paolini and Meyer's worlds felt empty of anyone besides the main characters and their issues; they truly struggled with plot where Paolini dragged things out and was melodramatic, where Meyer was like "plot??? ... Oh yeah--vampire baseball gets interrupted"--their pacing is shitacular. Both of them had a lot of laughable grammar and diction. I feel like outside of fanworks, claiming some character is a Mary Sue in an original work... It feels like a misnomer--like we should be calling them a passive character, a one-dimensional or flat character, a self insert, impossible to relate to: stating the real problem instead of relying on fandom terminology. It's a lazy criticism that I don't think folks outside of fandom circles can really appreciate--I don't find it helpful to think of original work as tantamount tp creating an OC for fanfiction. I write fanfic and original work; they are distinct to me enough that certain terms have less real world crossover than what you might think. Mind. I was part of anti Mary Sue communities as a teenager more than 10 years ago: I am *very* done with trying to act like it's a good literary term. Holden Caulfield or Superman arent Sues, whether poorly written or well written--because then, it's a slippery slope into calling all perfect characters or all self-inserts "Sues, if they meet such and such standards" or "but its OKAY that they are because"--nah. Jesus aint a Sue. | 0 | 13,841 | 1.6 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpsadw | fmpw17p | 1,586,286,417 | 1,586,288,371 | 3 | 8 | Another common problem with Mary Sue's is that the author will arbitrarily give them "flaws" in an attempt to humanize them, except it falls flat because these flaws a) don't fit with the character (e.g. a character who is patient to a fault is highly unlikely to have the oft used, never-defined "anger issues.") or b) never impede the character in anything. | The origin of the term comes from fanworks--specifically and OC named Mary Sue in a Star Trek fanfiction, where she warps the rules of canon in order to be Captain Kirk's one and only. Thus when I see it in original fiction... More often than not, the author has engaged before in either fanwork or fandom, and it's often the case that the original story itself is derivative. See. Bella Swan can be seen as a Mary Sue.... But that's not the worst thing about Twilight. Edward could be a Gary Stu and it's still not why the writing is bad. (Ftr Twilight is... not derivative, but Meyer frequented message boards for TV fans. She had a fan mentality that reads in her work--Twilight is very fanficcy on mutliple levels) Christopher Paolini absolutely made a Gary Stu out of his main character of Eragon (.... Was his name actually Eragon? I honestly don't remember)--but Paolini's work was outrageously unoriginal and derivative. That these characters warp reality to suit them, hold contradictory or hypocritical mindsets, are never challenged full tilt by much of anything--it's bad writing more than it is Sueishness after some point. It's no longer about characters; it's about a lack of care for setting or plot and ESPECIALLY the writing itself. Paolini and Meyer's worlds felt empty of anyone besides the main characters and their issues; they truly struggled with plot where Paolini dragged things out and was melodramatic, where Meyer was like "plot??? ... Oh yeah--vampire baseball gets interrupted"--their pacing is shitacular. Both of them had a lot of laughable grammar and diction. I feel like outside of fanworks, claiming some character is a Mary Sue in an original work... It feels like a misnomer--like we should be calling them a passive character, a one-dimensional or flat character, a self insert, impossible to relate to: stating the real problem instead of relying on fandom terminology. It's a lazy criticism that I don't think folks outside of fandom circles can really appreciate--I don't find it helpful to think of original work as tantamount tp creating an OC for fanfiction. I write fanfic and original work; they are distinct to me enough that certain terms have less real world crossover than what you might think. Mind. I was part of anti Mary Sue communities as a teenager more than 10 years ago: I am *very* done with trying to act like it's a good literary term. Holden Caulfield or Superman arent Sues, whether poorly written or well written--because then, it's a slippery slope into calling all perfect characters or all self-inserts "Sues, if they meet such and such standards" or "but its OKAY that they are because"--nah. Jesus aint a Sue. | 0 | 1,954 | 2.666667 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpw17p | fmpf9ps | 1,586,288,371 | 1,586,279,794 | 8 | 3 | The origin of the term comes from fanworks--specifically and OC named Mary Sue in a Star Trek fanfiction, where she warps the rules of canon in order to be Captain Kirk's one and only. Thus when I see it in original fiction... More often than not, the author has engaged before in either fanwork or fandom, and it's often the case that the original story itself is derivative. See. Bella Swan can be seen as a Mary Sue.... But that's not the worst thing about Twilight. Edward could be a Gary Stu and it's still not why the writing is bad. (Ftr Twilight is... not derivative, but Meyer frequented message boards for TV fans. She had a fan mentality that reads in her work--Twilight is very fanficcy on mutliple levels) Christopher Paolini absolutely made a Gary Stu out of his main character of Eragon (.... Was his name actually Eragon? I honestly don't remember)--but Paolini's work was outrageously unoriginal and derivative. That these characters warp reality to suit them, hold contradictory or hypocritical mindsets, are never challenged full tilt by much of anything--it's bad writing more than it is Sueishness after some point. It's no longer about characters; it's about a lack of care for setting or plot and ESPECIALLY the writing itself. Paolini and Meyer's worlds felt empty of anyone besides the main characters and their issues; they truly struggled with plot where Paolini dragged things out and was melodramatic, where Meyer was like "plot??? ... Oh yeah--vampire baseball gets interrupted"--their pacing is shitacular. Both of them had a lot of laughable grammar and diction. I feel like outside of fanworks, claiming some character is a Mary Sue in an original work... It feels like a misnomer--like we should be calling them a passive character, a one-dimensional or flat character, a self insert, impossible to relate to: stating the real problem instead of relying on fandom terminology. It's a lazy criticism that I don't think folks outside of fandom circles can really appreciate--I don't find it helpful to think of original work as tantamount tp creating an OC for fanfiction. I write fanfic and original work; they are distinct to me enough that certain terms have less real world crossover than what you might think. Mind. I was part of anti Mary Sue communities as a teenager more than 10 years ago: I am *very* done with trying to act like it's a good literary term. Holden Caulfield or Superman arent Sues, whether poorly written or well written--because then, it's a slippery slope into calling all perfect characters or all self-inserts "Sues, if they meet such and such standards" or "but its OKAY that they are because"--nah. Jesus aint a Sue. | Yeah, it's a lot more than just a checklist of tropes. Take the overpowered aspect for example. You could say Saitama from One Punch Man is clearly a Mary Sue because he can defeat any enemy in one punch. But it works in the context of the story because, despite this Saitama is not perfect. He has a satisfying character arc, which is >!learning to accept that whether or not his fights are challenging and therefore "fun" doesn't matter because being a hero is a burden of responsibility, not a vacation from the tedium of daily life.!< It works because it's a deconstruction/critique of popular battle shounen tropes, but it also simultaneously embraces how much fun over the top fights can be. When you sign up to watch One Punch Man, you're signing up to watch crazy battle scenes that end anti-climatically with a single punch, it's funny and it makes an interesting point, that's the whole appeal. So think the question should be: Is this character subversive? Do they have flaws to compensate for being all-around awesome? Does it make sense in the context of the show, or is the experience built around the "Mary Sue" with their overly awesome nature taken in to account? There are interesting ways to use Mary-Sue type characters, but they're heavily reliant on the author doing some meta-commentary and/or having a high writing skill threshold to compensate. Otherwise, you get the ones you see in fanfiction: overpowered, perfect, no growth/arc, clashes with the original work, etc. To use another anime example, Kirito from the Sword Art Online series comes to mind. He is consistently overpowered to the degree of being able to hack complicated computer systems in seconds, win knife duels with adults who are much bigger than him in real life, and be the best player of any video game he is in. None of this makes any sense in universe and seems to serve no particular narrative purpose except wish fulfillment. | 1 | 8,577 | 2.666667 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpw17p | fmp8rbe | 1,586,288,371 | 1,586,276,516 | 8 | 2 | The origin of the term comes from fanworks--specifically and OC named Mary Sue in a Star Trek fanfiction, where she warps the rules of canon in order to be Captain Kirk's one and only. Thus when I see it in original fiction... More often than not, the author has engaged before in either fanwork or fandom, and it's often the case that the original story itself is derivative. See. Bella Swan can be seen as a Mary Sue.... But that's not the worst thing about Twilight. Edward could be a Gary Stu and it's still not why the writing is bad. (Ftr Twilight is... not derivative, but Meyer frequented message boards for TV fans. She had a fan mentality that reads in her work--Twilight is very fanficcy on mutliple levels) Christopher Paolini absolutely made a Gary Stu out of his main character of Eragon (.... Was his name actually Eragon? I honestly don't remember)--but Paolini's work was outrageously unoriginal and derivative. That these characters warp reality to suit them, hold contradictory or hypocritical mindsets, are never challenged full tilt by much of anything--it's bad writing more than it is Sueishness after some point. It's no longer about characters; it's about a lack of care for setting or plot and ESPECIALLY the writing itself. Paolini and Meyer's worlds felt empty of anyone besides the main characters and their issues; they truly struggled with plot where Paolini dragged things out and was melodramatic, where Meyer was like "plot??? ... Oh yeah--vampire baseball gets interrupted"--their pacing is shitacular. Both of them had a lot of laughable grammar and diction. I feel like outside of fanworks, claiming some character is a Mary Sue in an original work... It feels like a misnomer--like we should be calling them a passive character, a one-dimensional or flat character, a self insert, impossible to relate to: stating the real problem instead of relying on fandom terminology. It's a lazy criticism that I don't think folks outside of fandom circles can really appreciate--I don't find it helpful to think of original work as tantamount tp creating an OC for fanfiction. I write fanfic and original work; they are distinct to me enough that certain terms have less real world crossover than what you might think. Mind. I was part of anti Mary Sue communities as a teenager more than 10 years ago: I am *very* done with trying to act like it's a good literary term. Holden Caulfield or Superman arent Sues, whether poorly written or well written--because then, it's a slippery slope into calling all perfect characters or all self-inserts "Sues, if they meet such and such standards" or "but its OKAY that they are because"--nah. Jesus aint a Sue. | Like Donnie in Donnie Darko. Honestly after realizing this, the film became a cringe fest. Idk why I used to like it. | 1 | 11,855 | 4 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpaao1 | fmoaddd | 1,586,277,299 | 1,586,251,498 | 6 | 5 | >but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women I think this is very medium dependant. The term Mary Sue gets thrown around a lot more in relation to male characters than female characters in anime and manga for example. | These are some truly good advice about character design! I think that many female characters usually have less "bad" or "strange" character traits than the male ones, making them too perfect to seem true. Even sympathetic characters - like people in real life - should have a flaws, and not always the most forgivable ones (I know clumsy or geeky are popular "cute" bad traits. Throw in something more severe). The most interesting characters are the ones who overcome their difficulties through the events in the story, not the ones who start off being perfect and then keep on being so (unless they're bad guys. Bad guys who enters the scene seeming good and perfect could end up becoming very interesting). Don't linger too much in the fact that a character is female. Women has as much personality as men and personality is something individual, mostly not based around sex. And if you really want to put yourself in a story - see yourself for who you are, and for who you would be in such a setting, and add your "real" self, not the one you would like to be. And unless you write fanfiction, try to stay off other writer's turf. Invent your own stuff and be original as a person and as a writer. Edit: sorry for bad grammar/ Spelling errors. I'm Swedish. | 1 | 25,801 | 1.2 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpaao1 | fmodmfo | 1,586,277,299 | 1,586,255,104 | 6 | 5 | >but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women I think this is very medium dependant. The term Mary Sue gets thrown around a lot more in relation to male characters than female characters in anime and manga for example. | I'd wager most Sues are female because most fanfiction is written by women. Other than that I agree that single traits like beauty, likableness and competence a Sue do not make, and that the term is used to handwave characters we don't like. Recently though I see a lot of pushback against accusing characters of being this cliché, so I wouldn't worry too much. | 1 | 22,195 | 1.2 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpaao1 | fmoragw | 1,586,277,299 | 1,586,266,789 | 6 | 5 | >but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women I think this is very medium dependant. The term Mary Sue gets thrown around a lot more in relation to male characters than female characters in anime and manga for example. | This post is utter nonsense. >... fictional character who is so competent or perfect that this appears **absurd**, even in the context of the fictional setting. Mary Sues are often an author's self-insertion or wish fulfillment. They may excel at tasks that shouldn't be possible for them, or they may upstage the protagonist of a fictional setting, such as by saving them. They may disregard previously established aspects of the fiction such as characterization and natural laws. * Deadpool doesn't have characteristics of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu at all. There are character far more powerful than he. * Character being a Mary Sue is not about whether they belong into the story. Plenty characters do not fit a story and are **not** Mary Sues. It's all nicely written in that definition I quoted. **ALL** of it matters. * A Song of Ice and Fire has its fair share of issues. Most popular fiction doesn't have a Mary Sue. * Mary Sues have naught to do with creating role models. You are bringing gender politics into the definition of a common writing trope/mishap. In conclusion, Mary Sues are not as common as people think they are but their main characteristics are sometimes very dominant. It is not exclusive to women, there are plenty of Gary Stus out there, far more than Mary Sues if you ask me. This post is utter bollocks. | 1 | 10,510 | 1.2 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpaao1 | fmow52c | 1,586,277,299 | 1,586,269,650 | 6 | 4 | >but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women I think this is very medium dependant. The term Mary Sue gets thrown around a lot more in relation to male characters than female characters in anime and manga for example. | My best advice is...do not worry about it. Create the characters you want to create. Mary Sue became a thing in the first place because somebody just wanted to feel special in their favorite fictional universe. They didn't even charge any money for the fic. Who did they really hurt? | 1 | 7,649 | 1.5 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpaao1 | fmp4yyj | 1,586,277,299 | 1,586,274,530 | 6 | 5 | >but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women I think this is very medium dependant. The term Mary Sue gets thrown around a lot more in relation to male characters than female characters in anime and manga for example. | I don't disagree with much of what you said, but it also doesn't really align exactly with what I've considered a Mary Sue or Gary Stu. For me this archetype is someone who possesses skills, gifts, virtues or lacking any weakness to an unrealistic degree. A character who is the best ever at a specific skill and only in their twenties while being skilled or gifted in other areas while being impossibly good people despite the circumstances. This is obviously somewhat subjective especially when it comes to defining 'unrealistic' in a given world, but my definition is far more broad and includes characters that you would consider to not be Mary Sue's. In fact there a few characters in popular series who I consider bad characters who exhibit characteristics which I think make them Mary Sue's, though I think most people would disagree. I'm not saying that you're wrong or that my version is correct, but if my definition of Mary Sue is wrong then what character archetype would you say I described? | 1 | 2,769 | 1.2 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmp8rbe | fmpaao1 | 1,586,276,516 | 1,586,277,299 | 2 | 6 | Like Donnie in Donnie Darko. Honestly after realizing this, the film became a cringe fest. Idk why I used to like it. | >but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women I think this is very medium dependant. The term Mary Sue gets thrown around a lot more in relation to male characters than female characters in anime and manga for example. | 0 | 783 | 3 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmp4yyj | fmow52c | 1,586,274,530 | 1,586,269,650 | 5 | 4 | I don't disagree with much of what you said, but it also doesn't really align exactly with what I've considered a Mary Sue or Gary Stu. For me this archetype is someone who possesses skills, gifts, virtues or lacking any weakness to an unrealistic degree. A character who is the best ever at a specific skill and only in their twenties while being skilled or gifted in other areas while being impossibly good people despite the circumstances. This is obviously somewhat subjective especially when it comes to defining 'unrealistic' in a given world, but my definition is far more broad and includes characters that you would consider to not be Mary Sue's. In fact there a few characters in popular series who I consider bad characters who exhibit characteristics which I think make them Mary Sue's, though I think most people would disagree. I'm not saying that you're wrong or that my version is correct, but if my definition of Mary Sue is wrong then what character archetype would you say I described? | My best advice is...do not worry about it. Create the characters you want to create. Mary Sue became a thing in the first place because somebody just wanted to feel special in their favorite fictional universe. They didn't even charge any money for the fic. Who did they really hurt? | 1 | 4,880 | 1.25 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmqwqc8 | fmpsadw | 1,586,308,721 | 1,586,286,417 | 4 | 3 | tldr version: a character isn't a Mary Sue because they ticked the right boxes on the Mary Sue checklist, and you will save yourself a lot of hassle if you ignore people who clearly don't know what they're talking about. | Another common problem with Mary Sue's is that the author will arbitrarily give them "flaws" in an attempt to humanize them, except it falls flat because these flaws a) don't fit with the character (e.g. a character who is patient to a fault is highly unlikely to have the oft used, never-defined "anger issues.") or b) never impede the character in anything. | 1 | 22,304 | 1.333333 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmp8rbe | fmpsadw | 1,586,276,516 | 1,586,286,417 | 2 | 3 | Like Donnie in Donnie Darko. Honestly after realizing this, the film became a cringe fest. Idk why I used to like it. | Another common problem with Mary Sue's is that the author will arbitrarily give them "flaws" in an attempt to humanize them, except it falls flat because these flaws a) don't fit with the character (e.g. a character who is patient to a fault is highly unlikely to have the oft used, never-defined "anger issues.") or b) never impede the character in anything. | 0 | 9,901 | 1.5 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpf9ps | fmqwqc8 | 1,586,279,794 | 1,586,308,721 | 3 | 4 | Yeah, it's a lot more than just a checklist of tropes. Take the overpowered aspect for example. You could say Saitama from One Punch Man is clearly a Mary Sue because he can defeat any enemy in one punch. But it works in the context of the story because, despite this Saitama is not perfect. He has a satisfying character arc, which is >!learning to accept that whether or not his fights are challenging and therefore "fun" doesn't matter because being a hero is a burden of responsibility, not a vacation from the tedium of daily life.!< It works because it's a deconstruction/critique of popular battle shounen tropes, but it also simultaneously embraces how much fun over the top fights can be. When you sign up to watch One Punch Man, you're signing up to watch crazy battle scenes that end anti-climatically with a single punch, it's funny and it makes an interesting point, that's the whole appeal. So think the question should be: Is this character subversive? Do they have flaws to compensate for being all-around awesome? Does it make sense in the context of the show, or is the experience built around the "Mary Sue" with their overly awesome nature taken in to account? There are interesting ways to use Mary-Sue type characters, but they're heavily reliant on the author doing some meta-commentary and/or having a high writing skill threshold to compensate. Otherwise, you get the ones you see in fanfiction: overpowered, perfect, no growth/arc, clashes with the original work, etc. To use another anime example, Kirito from the Sword Art Online series comes to mind. He is consistently overpowered to the degree of being able to hack complicated computer systems in seconds, win knife duels with adults who are much bigger than him in real life, and be the best player of any video game he is in. None of this makes any sense in universe and seems to serve no particular narrative purpose except wish fulfillment. | tldr version: a character isn't a Mary Sue because they ticked the right boxes on the Mary Sue checklist, and you will save yourself a lot of hassle if you ignore people who clearly don't know what they're talking about. | 0 | 28,927 | 1.333333 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmqwqc8 | fmp8rbe | 1,586,308,721 | 1,586,276,516 | 4 | 2 | tldr version: a character isn't a Mary Sue because they ticked the right boxes on the Mary Sue checklist, and you will save yourself a lot of hassle if you ignore people who clearly don't know what they're talking about. | Like Donnie in Donnie Darko. Honestly after realizing this, the film became a cringe fest. Idk why I used to like it. | 1 | 32,205 | 2 | ||
fwh35h | writing_train | 0.8 | People don’t know what a Mary Sue is, yet constantly throw it as a criticism. Understand what one is first, because you don’t have to avoid certain archetypes just because they remind you of Mary Sues, it’s the way they are written that matters Every time I hear someone use Mary Sue they describe something akin to “absolutely perfect, can do nothing wrong and has no flaws.” That’s not it, that’s absolutely not it. I get how this came to be, it’s pretty common in self-insert fanfics to create characters like that. Fans just want to insert themselves in the story and be useful in it, by solving the issues other characters take time too. Fans also like to idealize themselves when they insert themselves in the story: beautiful, have proven how strong and resilient they are in their tragic backstory, are loved by people etc. Please do not avoid writing a character simply because they are beautiful, have a tragic backstory, or look otherwise perfect, it’s how they are written in the story that matters the most. All you need to stop writing a Mary Sue is make your character belong in the story, and the reader feels they belong there. Fandoms have a habit of creating Mary Sues because fans don’t belong in the story that another author is writing. At most, if the author references fans in their story, it will be either a throwaway line, or a throwaway character, because that’s how much they really matter in what they are writing. Let’s take an example, Deadpool is a character who has pretty almost all Mary Sue checklist traits (notable exceptions is his looks) but is not one. Why? Because his character works in the stories he is, he still undergoes development, his stories still make sense in context, they make the reader feel he deserved to get what he got. That’s what you should aim. People notice when a character doesn’t belong in the story, and they don’t need to know the name for it to feel aversion towards it. Mary Sues don’t really belong in the story, and yet the story seems to revolve around them. This also doesn’t mean avoid writing portal fantasies like Narnia too, the characters come from a different world but they most certainly belong in the story, they have a role to play and they do play it. It’s not about the world they inhabit, but the story. # In General I have noticed the easiest way to create a Mary Sue is by making them a stand in for the author and/or their values/ideas/politics, which often do not make sense in the world they inhabit, because they don’t really belong there. It’s ok to make a political statement, but make it believable for what you are writing. For example, a rebel who has lived all their lives in a dystopian world and wants to bring down an authoritarian government to change the way things are in their world and bring democracy. Why? Because the author has learned in our world that authoritarian government bad, democracy good. That absolutely makes no sense for the character though, because if that’s the only reality they know, they won’t really have much issue with the authoritarian government or see the benefit of democracy. They are used to it and the status quo doesn’t bother them, that’s just the way life is. People don’t simply get ideas about overthrowing the government out of the blue, it has to be a lot more to truly convince someone to do something like that. You can have a story about that kind of character, but make it believable. Make them puppets of a rival government or something, radicalized with the promise of a better world. Or read Lois Lowry’s The Giver to see (spoilers, I don’t know the format) how he planted unhappiness in the main character’s head who was other pretty happy in living in a dystopia. Make the reader understand why the character chooses the path they do, don’t just use them as a tool to spew around your views. Always have something to say, do make political arguments if you want to, but make them believable in story. # For Female Characters: Mary Sue is also a term usually reserved for female characters. I do think that it’s a term that’s thrown around unfairly to female character the read doesn’t like, but it is true that in recent times, most Mary Sues are women, and note that I said in recent times. One of the reasons why Mary Sues are often female is because there is a social pressure to create role models for little girls to look up to. It’s not enough for female characters to be characters, they have to be strong too, so the readers are inspired by them. Show readers that women can partake in traditionally masculine jobs too, that they can be whoever they want to. Forget that. I know it’s important for girls to lift up girls, but the only thing that has managed to do is limit the potential of what one can do with female characters and create is girls who don’t like being like “other girls.” Write believable female characters, not role models. Take a look at the women of ASOIAF, every single one of them makes sense for the world they grew up with. Do you like all of them? Probably, but also probably not. Luckily, you don’t have to like someone to understand where they come from. Take Cersei for example, she is easy to hate. It’s very important to Cersei’s character that she is part of a mixed-gender twin couple, because grew resenting womanhood. She was born equal to Jaime in every way, but they weren’t treated equally growing up because she was born female. She was even born the eldest, shouldn’t the eldest child inherit? Not in the parts of the world she was born in, that’s for the eldest son. Everything she does in the story is to grab power she believes it’s denied to her due to her sex. She wants to have what Jaime would have had, had he not become Kingsguard. She belongs in the story because the story is about how societal roles affect people. Hell, she drives the story with her desire for retribution, no matter how much it hurts others. You don’t have to like her to see she is an extremely well-written character. And she is not a role model. **What other advice do you have in terms of avoid writing Mary Sues?** | fmpf9ps | fmp8rbe | 1,586,279,794 | 1,586,276,516 | 3 | 2 | Yeah, it's a lot more than just a checklist of tropes. Take the overpowered aspect for example. You could say Saitama from One Punch Man is clearly a Mary Sue because he can defeat any enemy in one punch. But it works in the context of the story because, despite this Saitama is not perfect. He has a satisfying character arc, which is >!learning to accept that whether or not his fights are challenging and therefore "fun" doesn't matter because being a hero is a burden of responsibility, not a vacation from the tedium of daily life.!< It works because it's a deconstruction/critique of popular battle shounen tropes, but it also simultaneously embraces how much fun over the top fights can be. When you sign up to watch One Punch Man, you're signing up to watch crazy battle scenes that end anti-climatically with a single punch, it's funny and it makes an interesting point, that's the whole appeal. So think the question should be: Is this character subversive? Do they have flaws to compensate for being all-around awesome? Does it make sense in the context of the show, or is the experience built around the "Mary Sue" with their overly awesome nature taken in to account? There are interesting ways to use Mary-Sue type characters, but they're heavily reliant on the author doing some meta-commentary and/or having a high writing skill threshold to compensate. Otherwise, you get the ones you see in fanfiction: overpowered, perfect, no growth/arc, clashes with the original work, etc. To use another anime example, Kirito from the Sword Art Online series comes to mind. He is consistently overpowered to the degree of being able to hack complicated computer systems in seconds, win knife duels with adults who are much bigger than him in real life, and be the best player of any video game he is in. None of this makes any sense in universe and seems to serve no particular narrative purpose except wish fulfillment. | Like Donnie in Donnie Darko. Honestly after realizing this, the film became a cringe fest. Idk why I used to like it. | 1 | 3,278 | 1.5 | ||
jdc2fd | writing_train | 0.8 | How would you write a character that's speaking English as their second language? I'm trying to write a short story about a couple that one is fluent in English and the other only speaks English as a second language. As a clarification I'm not looking to write an accent, I'm specifically looking for how to write just smaller minor mistakes that someone who didn't learn it from birth might make when speaking. The story will revolve a lot around speaking and language and that's why I need it to sound obvious but not exaggerated. Thank you in advance for anyone who chooses to answer | g971e7i | g973317 | 1,603,008,172 | 1,603,009,434 | 1 | 3 | I'm not bilingual so I don't know if I'd be the best person to answer this, but I have some ideas when I think about learning French when I was younger. I would have the character avoid using figures of speech such as say, "beat around the bush" or "hit the hay" for example, as they might not understand the meaning. Also, the speech would probably be more formal than informal, except when it comes to words or phrases and slang used by the English-speaking people they spend a lot of time with. But I think a lot of it would have to depend on how fluent the character is with English. If they're supposed to be fluent, you might not have to change much except for them maybe not understanding something, or using a word that technically means what they're trying to say, but doesn't work in that specific context (sorry, I can't think of any examples at the moment but I hope that makes sense). If they're still learning, consider the sentence structure of the character's native language to English and compare. And I would listen. Listen to people who you know or could tell is not a native English speaker (especially from people whose first language is the same as your characters) and make mental notes of their speech patterns. If they make a grammatical error, or if you notice any quirks, make note of it. Look for any patterns that might come up and hopefully that will help. | My German and Bulgarian friends confuse “receipt” for “recipe” and the Bulgarian (we write together) constantly has people sitting on the table instead of at it. She also occasionally repeated the same words in her sentence but in two places. When I was in Spanish in school I accidentally said “shattered the speed limit” because the term for “to break” doesn’t apply in the same way. (You actually use “goes over the speed limit”) It depends on how their first language works. English is subject verb object. Japanese is object subject verb (I believe, it’s been years.) Spanish is also subject verb object. Gaelic is both verb subject object and (verb) subject verb object. For example: take “the house is green” and here are the direct translations. Spanish: “the house is green” Japanese: “the house green is” Gaelic: “is the house green” Sometimes phrases work weird too. One translation of “to have sex” in Spanish comes back to English as “to do it in (the) bed” while “just in case” comes back as “for if the flies.” Even possession phrases can be strange. Spanish: [item] of [person] Japanese: [person] of [item] Gaelic: [item] (he/she/it) has [person] And yes, these are very simplified forms but even at the basic level there are many complicated ways translations and second languages get messy. In conclusion, it really depends on their first language and when they learned their second. And how many years of practice they had. And if they ever studied through immersion. My Bulgarian friend writes English light years better than when we first met six years ago. My suggestion is to go to YouTube and see if you can find people speaking in English whose native tongue is the first language you want for your character. Just listen to them talk to note what patterns they have in what they mess up. If a lot of people who learned English after that language mess the same things up then you have a grasp of what concepts don’t translate between languages well. Or if the first language is fictional, then pick a language you think it’s comparable to and search for native speakers of that. The point is to find the consistencies in why things are messed up so that you get a better feel for the cause of the struggle. | 0 | 1,262 | 3 | ||
r0tuey | writing_train | 0.73 | Any writers with English as their second language? I moved to US for college, and stuck around ever since. Now, almost 10 years in, I lost my natural flow in my first language due to having spoken and read everything in English for last ten years. Therefore, I realized I can only write in English since it’s practically the language I think in, however my vocabulary is not as strong as I’d like it to be and the way I bind thoughts and sentences together comes off a bit odd to native English speakers at times. Has anyone else experienced this? What did you do to get better? | hlunn3t | hlw0fsy | 1,637,721,352 | 1,637,752,944 | 2 | 6 | I'm in a similar boat I guess. I moved back and forth between countries since I was a child and became fluent in both languages. But while I read novels in both languages, I was only forced to write in English, because my native language classes didn't require much writing. On the other hand, English speaking schools that I went to had much more emphasis on writing. I did go through something similar to what you described, but there really is no easy way to fix it. All you can do is learn more words and read/listen to more people online and offline. But if I were to recommend one thing to help with your vocabulary, it would be to look up the etymology of words (you can do this with google these days). It reveals a lot about the nuances in those words and let's you learn other words with more ease. | My non-native ass gains a little confidence every time someone mixes up your and you're. | 0 | 31,592 | 3 | ||
w7q8nq | writing_train | 0.88 | Reading a short Jerry Jenkins dialogue guide. He says "said" is the only attribution tag that should be used, and attribution tags such as replied, retorted, exclaimed, and declared have become clichéd and archaic. I've been working on a YA, modern day setting novel. I'm about half way through my second draft and have been studying how to properly format my dialogue and came across this guide: https://jerryjenkins.com/how-to-write-dialogue/ I agree with everything else in the guide 100% but I've been using alternate attribution tags, and according to him, I'm wrong. I don't mind fixing them all to modernize my story but I guess I don't understand why someone wouldn't care for the additional description. reading them aloud it sounds fine and also breaks up the "said" monotony. \_\_\_\_ In this example vs the two, if we had to use an attribution tag, I think snapped tells a better story than said. Ideally in this situation though, no tag would be more telling than said in my opinion. Pam stomped her foot, "What you mean?!" She snapped. vs Pam stomper her foot, "What do you mean?!" She said. \_\_\_\_ What does everyone else think? I want to conform to modern standards for my first novel. | ihl15iu | ihkyghy | 1,658,760,565 | 1,658,759,451 | 67 | 8 | To me, "said said said" gets so monotone. I've read dialogue where it's just "he said she said he said" and I feel like tearing the page off, crumpling it up and throwing it in the bin. I'm a big fan of making dialogue more animate without having to describe it in detail. | Read some contemporary novels and note what dialogue tags they use and when the authors use them. That will answer your question. | 1 | 1,114 | 8.375 | ||
w7q8nq | writing_train | 0.88 | Reading a short Jerry Jenkins dialogue guide. He says "said" is the only attribution tag that should be used, and attribution tags such as replied, retorted, exclaimed, and declared have become clichéd and archaic. I've been working on a YA, modern day setting novel. I'm about half way through my second draft and have been studying how to properly format my dialogue and came across this guide: https://jerryjenkins.com/how-to-write-dialogue/ I agree with everything else in the guide 100% but I've been using alternate attribution tags, and according to him, I'm wrong. I don't mind fixing them all to modernize my story but I guess I don't understand why someone wouldn't care for the additional description. reading them aloud it sounds fine and also breaks up the "said" monotony. \_\_\_\_ In this example vs the two, if we had to use an attribution tag, I think snapped tells a better story than said. Ideally in this situation though, no tag would be more telling than said in my opinion. Pam stomped her foot, "What you mean?!" She snapped. vs Pam stomper her foot, "What do you mean?!" She said. \_\_\_\_ What does everyone else think? I want to conform to modern standards for my first novel. | ihl15iu | ihky2z8 | 1,658,760,565 | 1,658,759,294 | 67 | 4 | To me, "said said said" gets so monotone. I've read dialogue where it's just "he said she said he said" and I feel like tearing the page off, crumpling it up and throwing it in the bin. I'm a big fan of making dialogue more animate without having to describe it in detail. | That's leaning into the show-don't-tell guidance. Can you show Pam is upset without using "She snapped" maybe "she said, in a snappish tone?" *Pam's eyes flared and she stomped her foot. "What do you mean?"* | 1 | 1,271 | 16.75 | ||
w7q8nq | writing_train | 0.88 | Reading a short Jerry Jenkins dialogue guide. He says "said" is the only attribution tag that should be used, and attribution tags such as replied, retorted, exclaimed, and declared have become clichéd and archaic. I've been working on a YA, modern day setting novel. I'm about half way through my second draft and have been studying how to properly format my dialogue and came across this guide: https://jerryjenkins.com/how-to-write-dialogue/ I agree with everything else in the guide 100% but I've been using alternate attribution tags, and according to him, I'm wrong. I don't mind fixing them all to modernize my story but I guess I don't understand why someone wouldn't care for the additional description. reading them aloud it sounds fine and also breaks up the "said" monotony. \_\_\_\_ In this example vs the two, if we had to use an attribution tag, I think snapped tells a better story than said. Ideally in this situation though, no tag would be more telling than said in my opinion. Pam stomped her foot, "What you mean?!" She snapped. vs Pam stomper her foot, "What do you mean?!" She said. \_\_\_\_ What does everyone else think? I want to conform to modern standards for my first novel. | ihl15iu | ihkyz7u | 1,658,760,565 | 1,658,759,669 | 67 | 4 | To me, "said said said" gets so monotone. I've read dialogue where it's just "he said she said he said" and I feel like tearing the page off, crumpling it up and throwing it in the bin. I'm a big fan of making dialogue more animate without having to describe it in detail. | >What does everyone else think? I want to conform to modern standards for my first novel. Best thing to do is to look at other modern YA novels. How do other authors do it? I use 'said' in the majority of cases, if I use a dialogue tag at all. I use a different tag when I conclude with an exclamation mark (which is also very rare). I don't use interrobangs or multiple punctuation marks at the ends of sentences, so in your example I'd use 'snapped' in place of the exclamation mark. | 1 | 896 | 16.75 |
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