Character Development Tips: Mary Sue Guide (Part III)
This was originally posted on deviantART (which received nearly 1200 favourites), but it was removed due to a very recent rule (so recent, in fact, that the FAQ stating the rule had grammar errors in it). A lot of people want me to repost them, so here they are.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to remind everyone of my FormSpring account, so feel free to leave any questions or general comments there.
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Thank you all very much for joining me for Part Three. It’s not necessary to read Part One and Part Two for this article (you’ll still learn something if you don’t), but Part Two is at least recommended.
For Part Three, I will be continuing with my dissecting of My Immortal, but with a little surprise for you all at the end that I hope you’ll enjoy.
Before that, I would just like to make a few statements regarding the series:
- I want to thank every single person so far who has supported this and spread this around. The success of each article always overwhelms me; you are all fantastic and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
- I would also like to thank everyone who asked me to critique their writing as a result of previous news articles. Yes, you read correctly, I’m thanking them: it was a great opportunity to sample different pieces of writing from the site and to gain experience as a critic.
- I adore reading all of your comments, so please continue to leave comments (even though I may not be able to reply to all of them).
This news article will be divided into four sections; to skip to a section, simply press Ctrl + F and enter the number provided for the section.
1.1 - The Beginning
1.2 - The Critique
1.3 - ’Nostalgia Critic’ – Critiquing my old writing
1.4 - F.A.Q.s & Misc Information
1.1 – The Beginning
My Immortal is a Harry Potter fanfiction written by author Tara Gilesbie sometime in 2006, following the adventures of Original Character Ebony (often misspelled ‘Enoby’ and ‘Eboby’ ) Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way. It was uploaded to FanFiction.Net, which proceeded to get over ten thousand reviews, mostly consisting of flames. So many people flamed the story that it quickly became one of the most reviewed fanfictions on the site. Late in 2008, the fanfic was deleted from the site for ‘Disregard for proper language: grammar, spelling, punctuation, and etc.’ (Yes, it was literally too bad to be on the site). Despite being deleted from the site, Tara Gilesbie (speculated to be a troll) has left her own legacy: many people have written various fanfictions in her ‘unique style’ of writing and various Dramatic Readings can be found of the fanfiction on YouTube.
The fanfic can now be found here, so don’t be afraid to read along.
1.2 – The Critique
Please note that the quotes I am extracting from the fanfic are only superficial problems that can used to educate others. To appreciate repetitive mistakes and other problems in the fanfic, you will need to read it all yourself. You will be in my prayers, soldier.
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B’loody Mary tried to comfort me but I told her fuck off and I ran to my room crying myself.
Strangely enough, I’m starting on a somewhat positive point (which was slightly touched on in the second article). A problem I see a lot of amateur writers suffering from is the fact that they are worried about how a reader might perceive their character – they must like them. It is alright to portray your character as an asshole at times if they’re a protagonist, it makes them more human. Sticking with Harry Potter, an example of this is when Harry shouts aggressively at Lupin in The Deathly Hallows: I wanted to murder Harry at that point (I’m a big Lupin fan), but it didn’t affect my overall opinion of him. Another example of this is Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice: the book is determined to make you hate him at the start, then your opinion of him changes gradually.
This would’ve been a perfect example of this, if only for the lack of punctuation and the odd ‘crying myself’ at the end.
“Abra Kedavra!” he yelled at Snape and Loopin pointing his womb…
Womb? WOMB? WOMB?
I’m sorry, I just needed to get that out of my system. Here is Tara Gilesbie kindly showing us that it is essential to study your Biology notes before going off to write fiction. If you don’t, you’re going to end up in the news article of some random Irish girl advising people on how to write.
Note: There is no M-Preg in My Immortal, so that can’t even be used to ‘justify’ the existence of the womb.
Hargid said and he paused in the air dramitaclly…“Because I LOVE HER!”
A staple of the typical Mary Sue in fanfiction is the fact that every existing canon character wants to be with her. Currently, Draco and ‘Vampire’ are virtually at war over Ebony, Snape and Lupin spy on her in the shower, and now poor Hagrid is declaring his lust for her. The number of people who declare their love for Ebony increases over time, eventually leading to Voldemort himself stating that he loves her. As if manipulating protagonists and minor character to love a fan character isn’t bad enough, manipulating a villain is where the line is crossed.
To be a villain, a certain level of callousness and decorum must be assumed (unless it’s a wacky villain). For a villain to declare their love for a protagonist, a fan character nonetheless, simply heightens the fact that they’re a Mary Sue. In my humble opinion, I believe that a villain declaring their love for a protagonist fan character is one of the quickest ways to have your character labelled as a Mary Sue.
If you are writing original fiction, you might make it so that a villain declares their love for a protagonist to show that the villain has a softer side. It takes a very skilful writer to pull this off, so be aware of this. If you wish to show that your villain has a heart in a more straightforward manner, you may want to consider the ‘petting the dog‘ scenario.
Note: This may be different in cases where the apparent ‘villain’ is friends with the protagonist, an example being Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray.
“I know, I was just warming up my vocal cordes.” Then he screamed. “ Petulus merengo mi kremicli romacio(4 all u cool goffic mcr fans out, there, that is a tribute! specially for raven I love you girl!)imo noto okayo!”
Mary stood with a sword in her hand, scarlet blood dripping from the tip. The blood told tales of her opponent’s intestines, crying for the mercy of their owner’s HI BILLY MAYS HERE TALKING TO YOU TODAY ABOUT OXICLEAN.
And then the atmosphere was ruined. Completely ruined.
Not only is there an Author’s Note interrupting the sentence (which I discussed in the second article), but there is an advertisement. Once again, the advertisement revolves around Gilesbie’s own personal taste in music, making the writing about her once more and completely disregarding whether or not her readers might share her taste. Not only that, but it completely ruins any previous attempts to establish an atmosphere: when I read, I am completely immersed in the writing, but when an advertisement/Author’s Note interrupts the writing, I am pulled out of it like a fish on a hook.
I’m sorry for getting you involved, Mr Mays. May you rest in peace.
“OK I believe you now wtf is Drako?”
I know, I’m confused too. ‘WTF’ means ‘What the fuck’, not ‘Where the fuck’; this is also a classic example of Gilesbie re-writing something to suit her.
Although abbreviations can be incorporated into character’s speech because they are becoming more common nowadays, they shouldn’t really be left in their abbreviated form – they should be enunciated. Instead of “Lol, Mr Funny Guy”, it should be “El-oh-el, Mr Funny Guy”.
However, it might be best to consider when to use abbreviation in speech: abbreviations are mostly used when humour or sarcasm is trying to be established, for example ‘OMG’, ‘lol’ and ‘TMI’. When a character is angry, they shouldn’t say “WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?” because it doesn’t sound very threatening. Instead, just stick to the standard naughty word in the sentence.
In terms of abbreviations when narrating, these are a complete red-light zone because it is the mark of a juvenile writer: it makes the writer appear lazy.
Hairgrid stormed off back into his bed. “U r a liar, prof dumbledoree!”
In all seven Harry Potter books, I’m pretty sure you can find the line ‘Great man, Dumbledore’ being spoken by Hagrid. Even when everyone turned their backs on Dumbledore and accused him of going senile, Hagrid defended him fervently.
So why is Hagrid shouting at Dumbledore? Simple: it fits together nicely with Gilesbie’s idea of an angst-ridden teenager. Again, another OOC moment provided by our favourite Suethor.
“You look kawai, girl.” B’loody Mary said sadly…
First, we started off with Gilesbie bombarding us with her musical taste, then her ideals of stereotypes, now what she likes – Japan and Japanese culture.
I cannot emphasise this enough: please do not bombard your writing with Japanese culture if you are writing in a Western setting. If you do, you are saying to the world “I love anime and manga, so now I’m going to transfer it into my writing to show everyone! They’ll be so impressed with my knowledge of Japanese from watching subtitled anime!”. Placing a Japanese word in a sentence is the equivalent to placing an Author’s Note or advertisement – it just ruins the atmosphere. The only time I can really see this being justified is in anime fanfiction: an example of this is Ichigo from Bleach shouting ‘Bankai!’ when he uses his bankai.
Also, the word ‘kawaii’ (cute) is juxtaposed with ‘said sadly’, making absolutely no sense as the sentence would have been said with enthusiasm.
Then……… we jumped on each other and started screwing each other. …“Vampire you fucker!” I said slapping him. “Stop trying to screw me.
This is a tip for those of you who write in first-person. If you use ‘we’, it only makes sense to assume that the party of people are consenting to whatever is happening, such as ‘we got on the bus’ or ‘we went to the park together’. However, it is then implied in this scenario that Ebony didn’t consent to ‘the screwing’, which may confuse people and cause them to re-read the sentence.
Draco was there crying tears of blood. Snaketail was torturing him.
Again, the author has mistaken the name of a character: it is Wormtail, not Snaketail.
”Enoby I love you will you have sex with me?” asked Snaketail.
Now we have Draco, Vampire, Hagrid, Wormtail and eventually Voldemort who are madly in love with Ebony. Oh my, it’s a love…hexagon.
“Its so unfair!” I yielded. “Why can’t I just be ugly or plain like all da other girls and preps here except for B’loody Mary, because she’s not ugly or anything.”
This line is completely unfair to any reader who suffers from low self-esteem: it is acceptable for a protagonist to consider their powers a curse as it yields a certain responsibility, but this is simply ridiculously. A character should only consider their good looks a curse if they are a character that is deliberately supposed to irritate the reader, such as Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.
Also, she is contradicting herself: she once stated that Hogwarts was filled with ‘hot gurlz’, now they are all suddenly plain and ugly. If you have a problem with consistency (which a lot of people do, myself included), always be sure to re-read previous chapters of your work.
From this line alone, I can tell that B’loody Mary is an insert of a friend of Gilesbie’s as she is deliberately being sycophantic towards her. Be careful when giving your friends cameos in fiction as it can result in ‘Author’s Darling‘.
“Oh yeah o have a confession after she got expuld I murdered her and den loopin did it with her cause he’s a necphilak.”
“Kawai.” I commnted happily.
The word ‘necphilak’ is supposed to be ‘necrophiliac’, meaning ‘an erotic attraction to corpses’. Necrophilia in its own is quite disturbing to read about, yet Gilesbie adds insult to injury by deeming it to be cute. So, er…don’t do that, readers.
“You know what I am gona give it to you free cause u look really hot in that utfit. Hey are you gonna be at the concert tonight?” he asked.
Again, Mary Sue has the ability to manipulate men so that they give her free stuff. If you insist on having a character that can charm men in this way, it might be a good idea for it to backfire on her on some stage to show that she isn’t invincible. An example of this could be attracting the wrong type of man (seeing as Ebony was given something for free because of how she looked that night) and it leading to consequences.
She had a really nice body wif big bobs and everything. She was thin enouff 2 be anorexic.
This is the part where I say ‘X, Y, and Z may find this offensive because…’, but I’m not going to. Instead, I’m going to bluntly state that I find it offensive. As someone who is aspiring to be a psychologist majoring in eating disorders, this is the exact stereotype that bugs me to see glamorised.
Some of you may have bypassed that line while reading, so always be cautious of the little things that could offend people while writing.
Dracola used to be called Navel but it tuned out dat he was kidnapped at birth and his real family were vampires. They dyed in a car crash.
Yet again, Gilesbie is re-writing a character’s backstory, the victim this time being Neville Longbottom. Neville’s parents were tortured and rendered incapacitated by Bellatrix Lestrange, they did not die in a car crash.
If you are planning a character’s death, I would advise you to choose an alternative death from a car crash as it is quickly being known as ‘the convenience death’. As much as I love Supernatural, they abuse the car crash trope to absolute death, so much so that I keep a mental tally chart of how many parents of random characters have been killed in car crashes.
“No one fucking understands me!1” he shouted angrily as his black hare went in his big blue eyes like Billie Joe in Boulevard of Borken Dreamz.
If I sat here and said ‘He’s a Gary Stu because he is moaning about how terrible his life is’, I’d be a pretty big hypocrite seeing as I just promoted tantrums in my first point. However, when making a character go into a tantrum, it is all about how it is executed. In this scene, the tantrum seems very spontaneous and he doesn’t show any signs of depression beforehand: this makes the reader have very little sympathy for the person and will just roll their eyes at it. If there is tension building up to the moment, it will seem a lot more poignant depending on how the revelation is worded.
I can’t help but feel as if Gilesbie used ‘no one fucking understands me’ because it is so deliciously, stereotypically ‘emo’. I’m not sure whether or not it is meant to be serious or sarcastic, but if you insist on associating one of your characters with a particular stereotype, try to find a way to poke fun at it to add some humour.
Then I went. Den I gasped…………………………………………………………….Snake and Loopin were in da middle of da empty hall, doin it, and Dobby was watching!
Re-write. Snape and Lupin do not get along well together. Done. Moving on!
Vampire and I began 2 make out, moshing to the muzik.
We know from previous romance novels that love triangles can be tricky things, often causing frustration and soggy pillows. Ebony is stuck in a love…ahem, hexagon, yet she so flippantly goes from one man to another without any signs of remorse. If a character does this, they should either: a) be a protagonist who recognises that what they’re doing is wrong afterwards, or b) be a character that we are supposed to loathe.
Also, moshing while making out? I predict some bruised foreheads in the morning.
It turns out that Darkness, Diabolo, Crab and Goyle’s dad was a vampire. He committed suicide by slitting his wrists with a razor…
Re-write. How could they possibly all have the same father? Done. Moving on!
“Very well.” Dumbledore said angrily. “Butt we cannot do this. We can’t close the school. There is only one person who is capable of killing Voldemort and she is in the school. And her name is…………………………………………………………………..Enony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way.”
Huzzah! Out of all capable students at Hogwarts, it is only Mary Sue that can save the day.
You may argue that Harry Potter could be the same, but I very much doubt that Harry would’ve gotten as far as he did in the war against Voldemort if it weren’t for his friends helping him. In fact, even Rowling herself makes fun of the ‘chosen one’ trope: in nearly every book, he is some form of ‘chosen one’, and most of the time it isn’t even him.If you are writing fanfiction involving an OC of your own, it would be a bad idea to make them the only character in existence that can save something/prevent something: it undermines all of the canon characters to make your character look superior, which may irritate hostile readers.
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1.3 – ‘Nostalgia Critic’ – Critiquing my old writing
Something I dislike seeing greatly is the belief that all critics are ‘high and mighty’ and just critique others to pad their ego. For around 90% of the time, this is absolutely not the case, so I thought it would be a good idea to show that I can laugh at myself by digging up some of my old writing. We all start somewhere, it’s just too bad that I started off as an absolute brat.
Before I start with the self-critique, I’d like to give a little bit of hilarious background into this piece that will shock you.
I’m not sure exactly when I wrote this, but I’m pretty sure I was around twelve years old. At this age, I thought I was the best writer in the universe and absolutely no one had ever given me a critique in my life, so I wasn’t used to criticism.
At the time I was writing this, I was good friends with a fellow writer only around three weeks older than me; we always wrote little stories for one another over MSN and we got along really well together.
Then, one random night, I asked her if she found any particular faults with my writing. Her response? “Well, not really, but I think you use too many exclamation marks sometimes.”
My own personal response? “FUCK YOU, YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WRITING”. I then proceeded to block her for the entire day and began crying at my computer desk.
No, really, that is genuinely what happened.
Now, when I receive a critique, I practically knit it a nice little jumper and give it a name. Learning to accept critiques isn’t always a natural process for people, but it is always worthwhile in the long run, so don’t be afraid to ask for critiques.
Now, on with my terrible writing!
Note: Now, when I add an exclamation mark in a sentence, I think to myself ‘Is it really necessary?’. That’s from a flippant remark made five years ago, which shows the power of critiquing.
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X was extremely gifted, he had the mental brain of a Harvard student and in 2 weeks he would be moving to Seattle Grace High School, regarding his age of 5 years old, if he saw a painting once, he could paint it again from memory, Y cherished the painting of the Mona Lisa he did for her 26th birthday.
Wait, what? Huge Gary Stu characteristics, lack of full stops/periods and stolen place names? (Seattle Grace being the name of the hospital in Grey’s Anatomy) Ah, to be twelve years old again.
Not a wrinkle grew on his face, not a bit of weight did he put on, he looked the same after 5 years, the long hair brushed his shoulders keeping them spotless, she almost forgot what he looked like since he cleared off during the birth after someone wanted to speak to him, but as soon as she lay eyes on him, all the memories they shared came flooding back.
If anyone can read this sentence out loud without the aid of an inhaler, I will happily give them a giant cookie. I like to call this ‘Run-Along Sentence Syndrome’: if you don’t divide up your sentences with appropriate punctuation, your inner voice will become tangled and confused. Run-along sentences can sometimes be used in first-person narration for humour or even poignancy, but this just takes the biscuit (no, not giant cookie, biscuit). Also, ‘cleared off’ is a way too colloquial term to use in third-person narration.
Of course Z wasn’t his real name, it was a name Y gave him because he told her he was the king of a foreign country and to pronounce his real name, a part of her tongue would have to be surgically removed, so what was she to do? Get her tongue cut off, or give him a name easily pronounced, I think you all know the answer!
This is what I like to call the ‘Wallbreaker’ paragraph: this makes so little sense that I want to bang my head off a wall. According to my previous logic, a woman who is obviously being lied to (oh, how so very obvious… ) should marry the man lying to her and have children with him. The worst thing about it is that I tried to portray Y as a ‘strong female character’.
Not only that, but the narrator is interacting with the reader with the line ‘I think you all know the answer’ – this should never happen. The closest a narrator should get to a reader is in first-person narrative, an example being Nick’s narration in The Great Gatsby: Nick never physically addresses the reader, yet there are times when it seems that he is scolding the reader for the lifestyle choice they may have.
Z couldn’t give it away, he couldn’t, but he decided to tell the truth. “Why do you think that?” he asked. Y’s breathing was silenced, clutching her hand into a fist, how could he be so naïve!
This paragraph started off on third-person focusing on Z, then it switches to Y, then I throw a random thought in there. The focus of narration should never fluctuate mid-paragraph; it may fluctuate per chapter, or even in a separated piece of a chapter (though it may get confusing), but never mid-paragraph. If the narration is third-person and a thought wants to be included, it’s best to put it in italics to show that it’s a thought.
Then she remembered something, something she couldn’t get out of her head, those eyes haunted her every night when she went to bed. “And the birthday party…” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes, trying to forget.
“Ring the doorbell!” Y laughed. A looked up at her, although she could only make out one eye, that eye gleamed.
From one paragraph to another, I have skipped back to around a year ago without any prior warning. Great, fantastic! If you want to avoid the mistake I’ve made while transitioning through time, separate your paragraphs with several dashes ( – ) or asterisks ( * ).
When R came to her room with A, everyone’s eyes lit up, he was always the life of any party, all the boys wanted to be his best friend, all the girls wanted to be WITH him, he greeted all the guys, knowing their names off by heart, and of course, hugging all the girls.
YOU’RE LIKE FOUR, YOU SHOULDN’T BE HUGGING AND FLIRTING WITH GIRLS.
Ahem, anyway…
If you have a protagonist who is popular with a lot of people, their introduction is crucial as the reader can deem them as ‘just another popular kid’. I have done just this, flaunting how amazing he is to everyone in an obnoxious manner. The only type of character that should have this sort of introduction is a character whom we’re supposed to dislike. Again, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast comes to mind seeing as there’s a song in the film dedicated to how amazing he is.
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1.4 – F.A.Q.s & Misc Information
Where did you come across My Immortal?
To be honest, I really can’t remember. I remember coming to it at one point, laughing my head off, then coming back to it a while later. I still remember those late nights on MSN laughing my head off with a friend reading through it. Not only that, but my best friend and I did a Dramatic Reading of the first ten chapters, but I can’t find a converter for the file format I recorded it in. It was quite funny; I called ‘Hilary Duff’ ‘Hilary Duck’ by accident.
I hate people who go around telling people their characters are Mary Sues. Do they have nothing better to do than pick fights with people!?
Who says that informing someone that their character is a Mary Sue has to end in a fight? A Mary Sue character (unless done deliberately for humour) is often the mark of an inexperienced story creator, so it’s only fair that someone should point it out so that they can improve. No one pointed out to me that X was a Gary Stu, I had to figure it out for myself.
Okay, I was accused of having a Mary Sue character, now I fixed them. Will people get off my back now?
This is another mistake I often see people making: they give a character a quick touch-up and never return to them again. I’m sorry to break it to everyone, but character development is a never-ending process. I’ve been developing a few of my characters for the guts of four years, and they are still being chopped and changed to this day. Your characters should be a reflection on your story-creating ability, so why keep a character completely the same after, say, two years improvement?
How do I find out if my character is a Mary Sue?
Well, the quickest way may be to take the Mary Sue Litmus Test. However, I insist that you read the whole introduction to increase validity of results and to possibly minimize hurt feelings.
I want to say something/ask you something, but I’m too scared.
I know this seems like quite a cocky question on my part, but I am genuinely amazed at the amount of people who are too afraid to approach me about something. I’m a big fuzzy teddy bear, don’t be afraid!
Misc Information
Here are some very helpful follow-up guides, or simply some amusing links related to the topic:
- TVTropes – A very fun website which reveals names given to certain aspects of writing (an example being ‘ Petting the dog ’ earlier). I can literally spend hours on this site, and I hope you can too.
- Mary Sue’s Evil Twin…? – A very informative news article on the anti-Sue, a close relative of the Mary Sue. This article by the lovely mayfire44 is definitely recommended.
- WTP’S GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE DEVIANTART CRITIQUING – A great read for anyone who has been inspired to help other deviants by critiquing.
Thank you all so much for your support so far and thank you for reading. x
