STOP!

Don't fuckin' move!

Don't even move your fingers from the keyboard.

................................................. (one eternity later)

Okay, it's gone. I gave the horrible monster tree-fiddy and he says he won't kill us for making Mary Sue OC's, for now. But that is no guarantee that your readers won't tear you a new one for making the ever dreaded stereotype of the Mary Sue.

Though they have been around since the dawn of literature, with evidence pointing to Mary Sue characters in literature as far back as the mid 1800s, the term itself was only coined in the mid 1970s during a massive surge of Star Trek fanfictions. Someone actually wrote a terrible fanfiction where the protagonist was named Mary Amethyst Star Enoby Aiko Archer Picard Janeway Sue, Mary Sue for short. She was 15, the youngest lieutenant in Starfleet (not to mention just the youngest person in Starfleet), and all the commanding officers fell madly in love with her at first sight.

She was the horrible monster that can be considered the first widely known Mary Sue. And the worst part? They actually published that shit! Literal ink on paper published! That's how they did fanfiction back in the olden days!

To avoid ever having to deal with such creatures, you must take your protagonist and subject them to a little test. Just go on ahead, The Universal Mary Sue Litany Test

425293 It doesn't matter whether or not your character is not a Mary Sue if the readers don't care about them. Not to undermine Klondike's point, but just realize that a good OC is one the readers care about. If you can make your readers care about a Mary Sue... well hey!

Keep on writing!

425293 Tree-fidy? Thank god it was only that damn Lochness Monster and not Slenderman wanting his $20 or something. It's well known that Slendy has zero tolerance for Mary Sues.

425334

Well I'm fine...

I got a 17.

*BLAM*

*Ded Slnedermanz*

425293
I'm pretty sure the original Mary Sue was a parody.

425334 You know what's hilarious? I actually had a cute little Girl Scout ask me for tree-fiddy. Her mother was concerned when I nearly fell over laughing at my front door.

I got a 10. I'm so bad at making characters.

425515 That's actually a good thing. The higher the number, the more Sue-like your character is. Unless you want to have a Mary Sue character, that is.

I got a 12 on a character I plan to write stories about. Well, that encourages me quite a bit!

Thanks for this, PegasusKlondike, it was really cool. It also showed me what never to do when making a character (unless it's a parody. then every box must be ticked).

Huh. I think that that test is more for action/adventure/romance fics, and less suited to a mountain farmer. I'm pulling a 0. (There is a section where points are deducted for realism - I've ticked at least six boxes in the general test.)

Though I sent Twilight through and (my interpretation of her) got a 58!

425669
But they're so boring...

426653 Sorry, but what's so boring? There's at least four different things you statement could have referred to, and I'm a little confused.

426661
I was referring to the fact that my "original" character is probably more boring than a cardboard box due to her low score.

426671 She's only as boring as you write her to be. Even if she is just a normal earth pony, you can write her to be skilled at finding gemstones through patterns in cave walls, or if she's built a hang-glider mechanism that allows earth ponies to fly. The possibilities are endless. It's like origami; Any character can start out as boring as a blank sheet of paper, but the events of a story can shape them into something as intriguing as the secret to Pinkie Pie's shenanigans.

I got a 14, which doesn't seem too bad.

I got 7 for my least conformative character. Need better characters.

11. Seems legit

I got a 10.

Well, I got a 15, but I'm still worried. Did I miss a few checkboxes for writing a story that involves NO canon characters and takes place a couple thousand miles away? Do points get deducted for borrowing features to add to the storyverse (It's like the Atariverse, but with more sprites) from other stories you like? Do you add points for creating basing some of the character's traits off of yourself?

When does it get to be too much? I'm enjoying writing about my character, but I don't want to be a Suer...

460583
At the bottom of the page it lists some guidelines and suggestions depending on your score and the fandom your character is from.

460588

Oh, I read through that. I'm not worried about it being a traditional case of MS syndrome; I'm worried that the taint of MS will cause people to say "Nah, this isn't worth reading, it's just someone stroking their ego." I'd rather the story stand or fail on it's own merits, but the first few chapters came together with the idea of a particular protagonist and it seemed to take the life out of it to change that character. I suppose I should rephrase and ask "Will anyone read a story that features a character that looks like my avatar and shares some character traits with me, or will they reject it out of hand before judging the story on it's merits and flaws?"

Like I said, what I've got so far deals with no canon characters... aw hell, I suppose it's an Alternate Universe, really, though it follows most of the conventions. I suppose I should toss it in the Grading Room if anyone still looks at stuff there and get some feedback.

I think there's a better way to detect Mary Sue characters or... Joe something.. the male counter part...

Anyhoo.

I read this online sometime when reading about character creation somewhere.
I'd link but it totally eludes me.

This test though is long, boring, and as a writer I'd rather not do it.

What I found out is that the best way to make sure your character is not a Mary Sue or overly generic is to ask a few simple questions.

Who is your character? Their gender, age, where they live, where they come from, how they look, how they act, etc.
What is the goal of this character? They're in the story for a reason so they need a goal to accomplish such as fight off the dragon, stop the hero from succeeding, or whatever.
Why do they bother doing any of this? Are they evil because they just are? Are they saving the world because the king randomly asked them to? What's in their past that lead them to try and accomplish the earlier what
When did any of this happen or the points of history for the character? Does what happen make sense in the setting, environment, and general timeline of the story?
Where did this character come from when they first appeared? If the hero meets them at a tavern and they offer to help or want to stop him, they probably weren't there for convenience sake.

So just a general outline like this can really flesh out your character if you put some work into it.
Now, this more or less applies to the fantasy genre and fanfiction than any other sort of writing but a lot of people skim on these details and it leaves their characters and worlds a bit bland or empty.

Setting What's the year? How is it read on a calendar? Have Calendars been invented? What's the fauna and flora like? The houses? Who's in charge? What sort of transportation exists? And more questions like that. This seems like trivial story details but they give a focus and pattern to the story creating process. It makes it easier to make everything seem like it belongs because once you decide "It's like this!" you'll start automatically to integrate that information in the creation process of events and characters.\

Unique Factor A clear understanding of your world's special feature is crucial to keep it interesting, sensible, and without alienating the reader. Often, the unique thing is magic or super powers. You have to ask yourself how does it work? Why does it work? Who can use it? How does this character know this? What can the character do and not do with this? How do these things relate to every other character and how to one another?

This just helps keep magic and stuff of the sort out of the god mode area where the protagonist is amazingly overpowered (A good example of this is the Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks, of course it was intentional however and quite humorous but for most amateur writers, especially fanfiction writers, this is accidental and easily ruins the story.)
But the Unique Factor can be absolutely anything that isn't considered normal such as flying cars, a modern world where airships replace airplanes, where people can breathe in the sea, where people are born with animal ears. The latter are much easier to manage but anything that you make up can easily be abused where the protagonist is simply to conveniently equipped to deal with the world.

Umm.. I'm sure there's more but I lost my focus.
So yeah.. hope this helps somepony out.

Hello everyone, I'm new here but I've got a serious question. We all know the problem with Mary Sue's yet at the same time, "The Writer Gets Sucked Into His Own Story" is another common trope. So I'd like to ask your opinions on where the line stands between Mary Sue qualities being acceptable or not?

So imagine an intention Sue with meta knowledge of the world, but they start out with nothing. No home, no money, no friends, and in a pony case not even clothes on their back. But over time they build up. Over the course of dozens of story arcs they reach the typical "Mary Sue Power Level" but they do it slowly. Like after 30 or 40 chapters or more.

I just wanted to get another writer's thoughts on this.

425293
This lecture is very helpful, so thank you for making it

6776804
People will create lists of traits that define a Mary Sue, then attempt to not write those items into their character. This is a fundamentally flawed approach.

Regardless of what traits your character has, write a character that fits the story. Superman, for example, is a very powerful and nearly un-killable character. But stories featuring Superman can still be good because he faces challenges. The world Superman is in challenges him, and his strength is relevant and needed for those stories.

When writing your story, if your character is challenged and has to overcome those challenges, then your character isn't a Mary Sue. If readers enjoy your story and find it entertaining, then you didn't write a Mary Sue. You wrote a Mary Sue if your character is either not particularly challenged by the world/plot, and/or the challenges they face don't feel very compelling to the readers.

The list of traits described by most people to identify Mary Sues are simply common pitfalls. Writers often seek to self-insert to describe a fantasy. What they'd like to have happen to them. This isn't a very interesting story for anyone else. Doing this on purpose doesn't make the story suddenly interesting and entertaining. If you see things on the list and have an idea of how to make an interesting story with them, do so.

Your specific example: the start and the length of the story in chapters don't absolve the Mary Sue. Doing it on purpose doesn't absolve the Mary Sue. If you write an entertaining character and story, regardless of the specifics of the character and length, then you haven't written a Mary Sue. No one can answer yes or no to your specific question. It's about execution. If you write 30 or 40 chapters of interesting stuff, then people will like the story. If you write 30 or 40 chapters of boring stuff, they won't.

6777386
That answer was perfect and I thank you for it.