McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Avoiding Mary Suehood?
logarithm.and.blues:
--- Quote from: Starbeam on April 22, 2010, 02:04:13 AM ---Looking it up, self inserts look to generally be as minor characters, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-insertion. A lot of people tend to consider self inserts to be pretty much the same as being a Mary Sue, but it's really not.
--- End quote ---
Can main characters be self-inserts?
Also, are author surrogates necessarily the same as Mary Sues? You see, in my story, I have a number of people in my cast of characters, and I'm simply trying to avoid any possible Mary Sues. I can't really use the test, though, 'cause I haven't finished the story yet, and I think some of the questions on the quizzes are related to the plot, of which I haven't really settled on yet.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: logarithm.and.blues on April 26, 2010, 02:39:20 AM ---Can main characters be self-inserts?
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Definitely. There's a fairly strong argument to be made for LKH's main characters being self-inserts, frex.
--- Quote ---Also, are author surrogates necessarily the same as Mary Sues?
--- End quote ---
Not at all. You can always write yourself in as a helpful secondary character who dies horribly, for example.
Flintlock:
sure fire way to avoiding mary suehood: kill him. no one is perfect if they're a corpse.
Starbeam:
--- Quote from: Flintlock on April 27, 2010, 02:37:17 PM ---sure fire way to avoiding mary suehood: kill him. no one is perfect if they're a corpse.
--- End quote ---
Supposedly, the original Mary Sue character did die. So, no, that one doesn't quite work.
Hoyled:
You can always read some Dirk Pitt novels and read how the author self inserts himself. Half the time its harmless and amusing, the other half he saves the main characters from certian doom. Deus ex Cussler
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