McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Dunno if this has been linked before
seradhe:
--- Quote from: Shecky on October 29, 2007, 03:22:00 AM ---Interesting. The idea of the author doing a self-portrait (be it consciously or unconsciously) or a picture of himself as he'd LIKE to be is an old one; I'd just never heard a name given to this. Anyone have any idea where the term came from? Doesn't seem immediately evident.
--- End quote ---
I never heard of it myself until I came across this test. A short sacrifice to the wiki gods later, I had this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_sue
While I agree with a good portion of the definition (a characters merits greatly outweighing their flaws, etc..). I personally believe there's a little bit of the author in every main character they write.
meg_evonne:
So Mary Sue came from Star Trek (in a way).... that's cool! Thanks for the link to the explaination.
Hrankta:
--- Quote from: Shecky on October 27, 2007, 01:42:22 PM ---What the ham sandwich is a Mary Sue?
--- End quote ---
Also, a "Mary Sue", or if a male, a "Gary Stu", is a character with no real character flaws. The overly good, invincible hero. Think Drizzt, Aragorn, Will Turner, Wesley Crusher, etc.
A Mary Sue / Gary Stu can also be a character who exhibits a lot of common cliches, such as the "Angsty Sue" (Rand Al'Thorne), "Rebel Sue" (Snake Pliskin), "Anti-Sue" (villains with no redeemable qualities), "Outcast-Sue" (Wulfgar), or "Self-Sue", as someone said above, when someone basically inserts themselves.
KevinEvans:
I did the test for a story I sold,
came out a 12. But a lot of the questions are genre related, as an example I consciously wrote the character as a shadow of my self, and not enough of the questions keyed in on the genre, to reflect the bias. As to good or bad I have always heard that you should write what you know, good suspension of disbelief comes from a believable character that extends it's existence in to an interesting situation.
In my case the plot revolves around a mildly disabled vet, and his reaction to a huge life changing event. Literally (pun intended) his whole world changes when his town is shifted 367 years into the past and onto a different continent.
Stories need to be interesting, and I think the test is trying to sort out the protagontist that always has too easy a time with it's problems.
If you are interested about half the story is available for free here, http://www.grantvillegazette.com/articles/Sailing_Upwind and if you want it all, PM me, and I will send it to you.
Regards,
Kevin
Shecky:
--- Quote from: KevinEvans on November 11, 2007, 07:21:11 AM ---I did the test for a story I sold,
came out a 12. But a lot of the questions are genre related, as an example I consciously wrote the character as a shadow of my self, and not enough of the questions keyed in on the genre, to reflect the bias. As to good or bad I have always heard that you should write what you know, good suspension of disbelief comes from a believable character that extends it's existence in to an interesting situation.
In my case the plot revolves around a mildly disabled vet, and his reaction to a huge life changing event. Literally (pun intended) his whole world changes when his town is shifted 367 years into the past and onto a different continent.
Stories need to be interesting, and I think the test is trying to sort out the protagontist that always has too easy a time with it's problems.
If you are interested about half the story is available for free here, http://www.grantvillegazette.com/articles/Sailing_Upwind and if you want it all, PM me, and I will send it to you.
Regards,
Kevin
--- End quote ---
You know, I was just about to point out that this premise sounded exactly like that of 1632. Imagine my consternation when I do a quick re-read of your post to find out that that IS the story you're working on LOL!
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version