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A "Mary Sue" or "Gary Stu" is a character who is perfect, beautiful, smart, talented, powerful - to the point impossibility. Often containing a mish-mosh of traits, qualities, and other things that make -no- sense, or are completely unexplained. Other characters seem to be in love with them, obsessed with them, or hate them for no particular reason. They are strong with badass fighting skills or tons of limitless magic that they can pull out of no where without consequence or weakness. These characters are often very bland, lackluster things -because- they have been packed filled with TOO MUCH. They no longer seem like a real person.
The traits you see in Mary Sues are not inherently bad in themselves! The error comes from slapping these things on to a character without giving it rhyme, reason, and having it make sense in a timeline and setting.
In this exercise, take FIVE traits you feel are "Mary Sue Traits" and put them together in a creative, thoughtful, and interesting way.
To help here is the TV Tropes List of Common Mary Sue Traits! Pick the ones you want to work with.
Remember Some of These Tips:
- If a character has a lot of talents like art, music, cooking, language, dancing, etc, consider how much time it took to learn all of those things.
- If a character has someone obsessed with them (for any reason) what sort of reasons make that character WORTH being obsessed over.
- If a character has flawless beauty, where does that beauty come from and how do they maintain it?
- If a character has tons of super powers, where did all of those super powers come from and what could the ill effects or weakness of those be?
- If a character has a cliche background (dead parents, rape, horrible breakups, stalkers, murder, suicides), what are some new twists to tired old cliches?
- If a character has this wonderful, sweet, kind, amazing, personality, what are some personality flaws they might have?
- If a character is depressed, broody, stoic, quiet, or sad all the time - what are the reasons behind it? Are they really good reasons?
The traits you see in Mary Sues are not inherently bad in themselves! The error comes from slapping these things on to a character without giving it rhyme, reason, and having it make sense in a timeline and setting.
In this exercise, take FIVE traits you feel are "Mary Sue Traits" and put them together in a creative, thoughtful, and interesting way.
To help here is the TV Tropes List of Common Mary Sue Traits! Pick the ones you want to work with.
Remember Some of These Tips:
- If a character has a lot of talents like art, music, cooking, language, dancing, etc, consider how much time it took to learn all of those things.
- If a character has someone obsessed with them (for any reason) what sort of reasons make that character WORTH being obsessed over.
- If a character has flawless beauty, where does that beauty come from and how do they maintain it?
- If a character has tons of super powers, where did all of those super powers come from and what could the ill effects or weakness of those be?
- If a character has a cliche background (dead parents, rape, horrible breakups, stalkers, murder, suicides), what are some new twists to tired old cliches?
- If a character has this wonderful, sweet, kind, amazing, personality, what are some personality flaws they might have?
- If a character is depressed, broody, stoic, quiet, or sad all the time - what are the reasons behind it? Are they really good reasons?