So how do you write a book where the main charecter isn't a Mary Sue?

[Nous]

Mary Sue has become bit of a bogeyman. I am opposed to lack of imagination, not to Mary Sue traits themselves. What actually matters is whether the character is interesting and a pleasure to read about--not whether she meets the some Mary Sue characteristics or not. Being a good Sue is not a bad thing. If Harry Potter was less heroic or successful in his actions, I doubt the books would have ever taken off like they did.

[quote name='Joanna Nox' post='1522765' date='Sep 18 2008, 07.55']Don't you mean Rothfuss? ;)[/quote]
Yeah. May I be haunted by a thousand Sues for my transgression.

[Jerec]

A character based on myself in something I've been writing scored a 29. Which isn't too bad, since most of the other characters in the story scored much higher. Mary Sue-ism only works when you have a high self-esteem. :P

[Humble Asskicker]

[quote]What actually matters is whether the character is interesting and a pleasure to read about--not whether she meets the some Mary Sue characteristics or not. Being a good Sue is not a bad thing.[/quote]

Amen. While originality is nice, particularly when it's so wanting in much of what's available, quality lies in execution.

Examples of lauded works with Marry or Gary Sue have already been mentioned, and any who says Dune or Lord of the Rings doesn't kick ass doesn't know what they're talking about. I mean, golly gee, Edmond Dantes and every other protagonist of Dumas was a Gary Sue and I don't hear people calling those works shit (if so, refer to comment on Dune and LOTR). Someone already mentioned that Jesus Christ, Moses and the rest of God's minions are all Gary Sues, as is Vishnu and all those other classic characters. And no one calls those characters crap (well, if appraised on their literary merits).

Characters executed well are good characters, period. Characters executed poorly, no matter how original, are poor characters. Originality can be contributory to quality, but it's not a definite measure. Really, I'm not sure how this could be disputed.

[Zoë Sumra]

[quote name='The Humble Asskicker' post='1523768' date='Sep 19 2008, 00.34']Characters executed well are good characters, period. Characters executed poorly, no matter how original, are poor characters. Originality can be contributory to quality, but it's not a definite measure. Really, I'm not sure how this could be disputed.[/quote]
I dispute to the level that I've found that powering down some of my leading characters (and in one case powering up the rest of my story-world instead), i.e. de-Sueifying to an extent, made them far more interesting.

[Humble Asskicker]

[quote]I dispute to the level that I've found that powering down some of my leading characters (and in one case powering up the rest of my story-world instead), i.e. de-Sueifying to an extent, made them far more interesting.[/quote]

Perhaps for your characters, and perhaps to your personal judgment. But I don't think a single anecdote should set the rules.

I can hardly imagine, for instance, Paul Atreides being de-Suiefied and having any interest to him at all. It defines his character and makes him fascinating.

Same for Jesus. What if the Bible gave him some flaws, you know, he strangled a prostitute every now and then but over all, he was a saintly chap? I think that would have destroyed his character. He needs to be a Gary Stu in order to have merit.

It depends on the execution, like I said. And again, originality, so to speak, may be contributory to making a character interesting, as was in your case.

[Mad Monkey]

[quote]It depends on the execution, like I said. And again, originality, so to speak, may be contributory to making a character interesting, as was in your case.[/quote]

What, so the sliding scale only goes from those two extremes?

I don't count religous figures such as Gods in this but even Jesus Christ had to work hard and had to suffer and die; why should Princess McFairyblossom-Malfoy the VII be superior?

I honestly can't see how someone can write an exciting story with a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Excitement requires conflict. When your character is literally [i]perfect[/i] then where does the conflict come from? It can't come from outside, since no-one else in the story is allowed to so much as rival this character in power. It can't come from within, since this character cannot doubt herself. I have to ask again; how [i]can[/i] you write an action story with no conflict anywhere?

[Galactus]

[quote]I honestly can't see how someone can write an exciting story with a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Excitement requires conflict. When your character is literally perfect then where does the conflict come from? It can't come from outside, since no-one else in the story is allowed to so much as rival this character in power. It can't come from within, since this character cannot doubt herself. I have to ask again; how can you write an action story with no conflict anywhere?[/quote]

Simple: Make a different character the protagonist or POV character. (hey, it worked for Sherlock Holmes!)

[The Wolf Maid]

[quote name='Galactus' post='1523971' date='Sep 19 2008, 10.22']Simple: Make a different character the protagonist or POV character. (hey, it worked for Sherlock Holmes!)[/quote]
But Sherlock Holmes isn't perfect. :P

(Interesting enough, I read that most stories where Holmes is the 'narrator' sold poorly compared with those where Watson's telling the story).

[Chaldanya]

[quote name='Crazydog7' post='1517240' date='Sep 14 2008, 06.38']Holy shit I had totally forgotten about Anita Blake.[/quote]

Wish I could!

N

[Maia]

Most of Dumas's characters aren't Stus! Dantes comes close, I admit, but not anybody else. Of course, my favorite novel of his is "The Queen Margot", where the protagonists are anti-Sues/Stus and end respectively... Anyway.

I agree that an occasional Stu/Sue could be entertaining if done well - I sort of liked Lymond. But they are very difficult to do well and I think that rule of thumb should be that if you don't _have_ to make a character that way for your story to work, then don't. One of the worst negative consequences of having such a character is that it is very difficult to challenge them. Either one has to inflate the dangers to world-shattering proportions, or one has to resort to unconvincing hobbling of one's protagonist and in both cases one usually damages the story.

Re: Harry Potter, I stand by what I said. He may learn spells occasionally, but it is always some special quality of himself, his wand, "lucky" circumstances or fate that carry the day. He also did master a lot of things instantly, when they were required for the plot. It doesn't matter that Hermione is supposedly better than him in spell-casting - as she herself said in book 1, in this universe it aren't skills and knowledge that make one great. It is being brave and being "chosen".

[Ouroboros]

What did he master instantly? Flying is the only thing that comes to mind and he still trains in that all the time. And his so-called special skills, talking to snakes and all that, came with a pretty crappy price. He had a piece of his mortal enemy lodged into his head. The whole wand thing being special was only special in regards to Voldemort's wand. In fact he's only special because Voldemort made him so. He chose Harry as his mortal enemy and made him the one to kill him. He was 'chosen' by the major villain, not by fate or destiny.

[Ran]

As a spectator, it's very funny to see the various defenses of one's preferred Mary Sue against other alleged Mary Sues. It's the fannish mentality that "Mary Sue" is absolutely to be avoided, devoid of most critical considerations of the literary and narrative function that a specific character might have within a specific work. There's a real difference between the later Anita Blake and, say, Bakker's Kelhus, because on the one hand you've a self-indulgent author who has lost control of their narrative out of love of their characters, and on the other you've an author who (though possibly self-indulgent) has some very concrete narratological intentions with an exploration of a particular kind of Messiah-figure (explicitly inspired by some esoteric philosophical considerations).

Life would be boring if we were all writing and reading variations on [i]Behold the Man[/i].

Gilgamesh and Achilles were Gary Stus, back in the day. They've stood the test of time. I think it's all right to write whatever you've got inside you to write. If it's good, it's good, whether it features a "Mary Sue" or not.

ETA: On a separate note, I don't get the "if your character was abused or traumatized, they may be a Mary Sue" thing. I can get, say, Vanyel in Lackey's first book -- the pretty, slight, misunderstood budding homosexual who needs to go into a new environment to grow and become what he's supposed to be, etc., etc. But .. Janelle from Bishop's Dark Jewel series? Looking at just the first book in isolation, what the character goes through is absolutely _brutal_; it's some of the darkest stuff I've read in almost 15 years of reading fantasy. The darkness of it, and the way it pervades the whole of the first novel (the second and third, I grant, move into frothier territory; but the shadow of the first book is always hanging over them), really doesn't strike me as Mary Sue-ish at all. I understand that the idea is that such past trauma gives an alleged Mary Sue a reason to feel "bad" without actually being guilty of anything, but in certain cases it's just absurd.

[Mad Queen]

IMO a Mary Sue isn't just a perfect character, because a Mary Sue might have flaws and some very powerful characters don't feel Sue-ish. A Mary Sue is favoured and protected by the author; you can see how the author manipulates the story and the other characters. A Mary Sue succeeds without merit. She gets a good grade even though she never studies. A Mary Sue's flaws have no negative consequences. A Mary Sue's advantages don't come with a price. A Mary Sue is often annoying and selfish and all the other characters are ready to die for her all the same. If she were really great and made the reader love her, it would be only natural that the other characters would love her too, but a Mary Sue is loved even when she doesn't deserve it.

[Dumas]

I'd take all those litmus tests with a grain of salt; litmus is not a particularly sensitive indicator, after all. Even some historical figures might score highly on such a thing if you pick the right depiction of them.

How 'Sue-ish' a character is really depends a lot on setting and genre and what kind of story you're trying to write. Genre conventions and the plot will set the limits of what kind of powers, strength, whatever, a character can have without going overboard. Try to set down what your characters can and cannot do and stick to it without pulling things out of your ass and things should be fine.

For flaws, pride is an old standby and very effective in the heroic types. Gilgamesh and Achilles had their worst moments because of their pride. A doomed love is another good one that did in Lancelot a couple times. And of course there's a special something in seeing a warrior up against something he can't just chop to bits or blow to pieces. Or a character who happens to see the world a few degrees off-center.

For me, the main feature of the Mary Sue and the most irritating one is that everyone loves her. Or there's that one guy who dislikes her but really doesn't matter because he's delusional/evil/generally stupid. And everyone hates him. Time spent writing realistic relationships and interactions between characters and a decent plot is time much better spent than worrying over whether so-and-so is a Mary Sue.

Much as it pains me to admit, I'd say that D'Artagnan might be a bit of a Stu. But that's why Athos is my favourite of the Musketeers.

[L'Sana]

[quote name='Nous' post='1523398' date='Sep 18 2008, 12.35']Mary Sue has become bit of a bogeyman. I am opposed to lack of imagination, not to Mary Sue traits themselves. What actually matters is whether the character is interesting and a pleasure to read about--not whether she meets the some Mary Sue characteristics or not. Being a good Sue is not a bad thing. If Harry Potter was less heroic or successful in his actions, I doubt the books would have ever taken off like they did.[/quote]

No question that it's [i]possible[/i] to write a good character who is a Mary Sue. It's [i]possible[/i] to write a story where the hero is an utter bastard, yet still sympathetic. For example, I've heard of this series where one of the main characters is an oathbreaker who slept with his sister, tossed an 8-year-old boy out the window, and was glad when he heard his son was dead. Yet for some reason people still like this character. Weird. If it's possible to make an evil bastard likable, it's almost certainly possible to do so for the opposite end of the spectrum.

However, I think it is much less likely that Mary Sue is going to end up a likable and sympathetic character than a character with a reasonable amount of flaws, and I think it's much harder to make her sympathetic. A good author can do it, but an average or even slightly above average one can't.

In general, I think calling a character a "Mary Sue" means two things:

1. Character was excessively perfect and stole far too much of the oxygen in the world.

2. Author failed to make excessively perfect, oxygen-stealing character sympathetic.

Aragorn and Paul are not Mary Sues, because Tolkein and Herbert succeeded. Rhapsody is one, because Author-whose-name-I-forget did not.

[Maia]

[quote name='Mad Queen' post='1524466' date='Sep 19 2008, 11.10']A Mary Sue is favoured and protected by the author; you can see how the author manipulates the story and the other characters.[/quote]

_This_ and the rest of this post is the quintessence Suedom/Studom.

[ThomasFoster]

I meant to say this earlier but forgot.

Paul Atreides is a Mary-Sue. To an extent the point of [i]Dune[/i], especially if read in conjunction with the sequel [i]Dune Messiah[/i] is an extrapolation of what might happen if a Mary Sue character were treated realistically.

[Derfel Cadarn]

[quote name='Chaldanya' post='1524209' date='Sep 19 2008, 05.24']Wish I could!

N[/quote]

I've only read the first three Anita Blake books, I'm well aware the later books turn into plotless porn. In the first book at least she isn't so bad. She's clearly outmatched by most of the supernatural creatures and knows it.

[Errant Bard]

[quote name='Ran' post='1524298' date='Sep 19 2008, 14.32']ETA: On a separate note, I don't get the "if your character was abused or traumatized, they may be a Mary Sue" thing.[/quote]Isn't it just a hint, a pattern, as authors will tend to give their characters traumas like that to counterbalance whatever ludicrous power/willpower/charisma/perfection they have now? Considering the small amount of non-sue character who seem to have been abused and traumatized in their backstory, it would seem to be somewhat of a reliable indicator.

Maybe it's more "if your character was abused or traumatized with the sole effect of making him fashionably angsty and nothing else" or "if your character was abused or traumatized when he should not have given his powers"? In the case of Jaenelle, if there was only the first book, or the two others were in the same vein, she would not be called a mary sue anymore than [i]The Iron Dragon's Daughter[/i]'s Jane is, in my humble opinion.

[Dumas]

[quote name='tomfoster' post='1525009' date='Sep 19 2008, 17.14']I meant to say this earlier but forgot.

Paul Atreides is a Mary-Sue. To an extent the point of [i]Dune[/i], especially if read in conjunction with the sequel [i]Dune Messiah[/i] is an extrapolation of what might happen if a Mary Sue character were treated realistically.[/quote]

The Bene Gesserit are more evil than we thought! They were trying to breed a Mary Sue!

Poor guy has the world come down on his head in the sequels, though. And his sister was just plain freaky.