McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Is your character a Mary Sue?
meg_evonne:
Fun site, Liz! Afraid I don't really understand what a mary sue is, but thankfully my character scored a 12 and seems quite normal and interesting. I hope that means he's someone others will find fun to read and know. To be honest, I started wondering if I knew enough about my character--but since I feel very comfortable with his "wearability" I won't worry!
Thanks for the site! Meg in IA
JamiSings:
Your Mary Sue Score: 33
21-35 points: Borderline-Sue. Your character is cutting it close, and you may want to work on the details a bit, but you're well on your way to having a lovely original character. Good work.
Funny thing is, I did this for a character from my story My Ideal - in which the character, Misty, is a total Mary Sue. She's my physical description, my tastes in music, movies, my beliefs, ect. A lot of my stories lately are Mary Sues, in fact, especially the romantic ones because I have no romance in my life and have given up all hope of ever finding true love. So I live it out in short stories instead.
The thing is, most of the test did not apply to my story. Except for the time traveling angle of the story, there's nothing super natural or sci-fi about it. Girl meets 70s rock star who seems to know everything about her, 70s rock star gives her a gift and reveals to her he knew her five years before she was even born, she gets thrown back in time where she meets 70s rock star before he's famous.
Pinky Narfanek:
--- Quote from: JamiSings on May 30, 2007, 06:23:39 PM ---Funny thing is, I did this for a character from my story My Ideal - in which the character, Misty, is a total Mary Sue. She's my physical description, my tastes in music, movies, my beliefs, ect. A lot of my stories lately are Mary Sues, in fact, especially the romantic ones because I have no romance in my life and have given up all hope of ever finding true love. So I live it out in short stories instead.
--- End quote ---
As an odd note, I had to do that [give up hope] to find myself in my current situation (getting married in just over seven months)...
Anywho...To the point of the matter. Well, one of the characters that I've created scored me a nice number in the mid-40s. Which strikes me as odd. Sure he's a great warrior and immortal. He chose immortality to serve his country and king along with a group of four other individuals, he's not naturally an immortal. He can be killed, at least temporarily, and if the ritual is no longer performed he stays inbetween this world and the afterlife. After a few lifetimes of battle, you're going to be good at it and people will know who you are. :-\ Should he still not know the business end of a sword, axe or maul? Should he not try to find a couple hobbies to relieve the stress of all that carnage (again, with all that time to practice some folks are bound to know your skill level even if you have a wide variety of hobbies)? Now, what happens if the ritual is misperformed or corrupted somehow?
And he is responsible for thousands of deaths both directly and indirectly. The last time I checked, that was part of being a General/Warleader. It's going to be kind of tough to not think about things like that from time to time.
Aha!
He should be a completely inept warrior that feels no guilt for the lives he has taken or led to their dooms! And he should completely suck at anything else he does (but especially combat), because after a few centuries of making jewelry, gardening or learning the occassional language, he's not going to remember any of it...
Right? ???
But then I suck as a writer.
JamiSings:
--- Quote from: Pinky Narfanek on May 31, 2007, 03:39:20 AM ---But then I suck as a writer.
--- End quote ---
*shrugs* So do I. But sometimes a story won't let me go until I write it. I hate that. I'd rather read then write.
I don't get, actually, how making your character beautiful or really good at something makes them a Mary Sue. To me a Mary Sue is when the character is exactly like you. IE: I wrote a fan fiction called Star Trek: The Mary Sue where I put myself and my dog in it. My exact description, my name, etc. Just - get to fight the Borg in one story and sleep with Spock in the sequel.
That is the ultimate Mary Sue. Now other stories I've written have characters that are nothing like me - but they do have super powers and fight super villians. Does a tall woman who's chosen to freeze her emotions and is beautiful qualify more as a Mary Sue then a character who's short, fat, and can sing just like me?
Spectacular Sameth:
I found out one of my comic characters was, but she's the fan favorite.
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