#2: The True and 100% Accurate All-Fandom Mary-Sue Litmus Test
by Metara
Question 1: Can You Get Away With It?
if YES: Congrats! Your character is not a Sue!
if NO: I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that.
In either case, keep reading...
Well, this is the trouble with all those Mary-Sue tests: they don't take context into account. For instance, weird hair, colour-changing eyes or godlike powers will usually get you several Sue points, even if they make perfect sense within the story.
Sephiroth scored 98 on The Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test (+50 = Definitely Sue)
Luke Skywalker scored 29 on The Star Wars/Star Fox Litmus Test (20-34 = Mary-Sue, Proceed with Caution)
Sandman's Morpheus scored 69 on The Original Fiction Mary-Sue Litmus Test (56-70 = Über-Sue)
Samurai Jack scored 88 on The Original Fiction Mary-Sue Litmus Test (71+ = Irredeemable Mary-Sue)
For newbie authors and those over-fond of certain types of cartoon, a numeric ranking might be useful; let's be fair, a character with silver and purple streaked hair, opalescent eyes, a magical sword, a Hot Topic outfit and a habit of exploding in celestial fire when threatened, probably does have other issues.
But people don't always realise that it goes the other way, too. Just because your Pokemon trainer doesn't have glowing eyes or a magical pendant given to her by her dead grandmother, don't think you're safe. A character can look and act TOTALLY NORMAL and STILL be a Sue.
This is the Mary-Sue Litmus Test for the rest of us.
So what does it mean, can you get away with it?
Getting away with it is a delicate balancing act of writing well, crafting character and preserving balance in the fanverse.
This, I'm afraid, is something you'll have to pick up on for yourself. The other articles on this website might help you or give you ideas, but honestly the best way to write well is to READ EVERYTHING. Expand your comfort zone. (Can your experience get away with it?
Every book has something to teach you, even if it's how not to do something. And indeed, you may be surprised at what unusual books have to offer. I sneer at Dungeons & Dragons novels for being the absolute nadir of the fantasy genre, and 99% of the time they are, but once a death-scene in one of those books was so well written it brought tears to my eyes.
Regarding characterisation - I've given bad advice before, which is partly why I'm producing this document. To get things clear: I do not now advocate the "list physical attributes" or "build around a gimmick" methods as you will end up with something well-described but soulless. (Can your character get away with it?)
Note: the "list physical attributes" method is a common suggestion, where you start by coming up with a name, then a description of the character's appearance. The "build around a gimmick" method is another suggestion I've seen in published how-to books: start by giving the character a trait like a limp, or an Irish accent, and go on from there.
What I do advocate is daydreaming.
(What?)
To be more specific, constructive daydreaming (I should copyright that!). For many of us older authors, daydreaming is a thing we left behind in childhood, and that I think is why so many teen writers of my online generation, 1996-2000, quit writing when they went to college, left college, got a job, or in some other way attained what they personally considered to be adulthood. They grow up. They dry up.
As a writer, let's-pretend is where your power lies. Every story is an exercise in let's-pretend.
If you've been having trouble creating original characters, perhaps that's why. Perhaps you're afraid to dream. Perhaps you feel too awkward and self-aware to "be" your character, as your character needs you to be.
If you feel awkward and self-aware, your writing will feel the same. You won't feel at ease with it. It won't come easily, either. Some people think they've burned out, or lost some sort of "gift" they had when they were younger.
Understanding your character, not just theoretically but viscerally, so that when you write you speak with his voice, see with his eyes, is the one great secret to characterisation. If he is real to you, he will be real to your readers. But if he's just a collection of facts - blue eyes, yellow hair, wears green, raised by wolves, plays flute, whatever - he will not live.
I call that sense of life "thing-ness". It is the empathic sensation you get when you lose yourself in your story, when you are there, when it is so real you can touch it, feel it, smell it.
Everyone can attain thing-ness. You do it passively every time you read a good book or watch a good movie. Have you ever cried at a sad bit in a movie? That was thing-ness. You did it. You were there.
Actively attaining thing-ness is a trickier task. You're thinking and you're thinking about how to get that spark of life, and you just can't quite click... So you make a n00b mistake. You take your character and you try to make him more interesting. Maybe he'll be cooler if he's the long-lost brother of the main character, then the main character's thing-ness will rub off on him. Maybe he'll be cooler if he has a necklace given to him by his grandfather, but it's actually a magical totem - see, he's important now! And he becomes more and more "special" and less and less interesting. And you have a Sue.
Everyone can play let's-pretend. You used to, and you still can. A few ideas to get you back in the groove:
There's no quick fix for creating a character, if that's what you're looking for in this article. But the way I advocate character creation is to start with an EMOTION and go on from there. Hair and eye colour are incidental. In 99% of stories, the real story is in personality.
Note: Fanverse, not poetic verse. Poetry is in WW#03, just across the corridor.
Well, this one's easier to pin down. Your character shouldn't be able to do things other people can't do without a good reason. (Can your plot get away with it?)
For instance, and crudely: If your character can beat Link in a sword fight, you might want to wonder why Link was chosen by destiny in the first place, rather than your character. Especially when the whole point of Link is that he's the greatest warrior of the Zeldaverse.
This is what I call breaking the fandom, and it is probably the most hated trait of Mary-Sues.
I might be making myself unpopular here, but I've got to say it: If your character is as good or better than the main character/villain at the thing that defines the main character/villain, scrap him and use the main character/villain in that spot.
Don't be greedy. If you're so desperate to have your guy lead, give him his own original story. People read fanfics to get another fix of their favourite characters, not to see your character one-up them, even if he is a cool character.
There are workarounds, of course. You can get a more powerful lead by writing an Original Character story that happens to be set in the fanverse, as long as the lead character doesn't encounter any major canon characters (this is the strategy adopted by many decent Pokemon fics in the Original Trainer genre). Or, you can reuse a canon character in an unusual way (my ELOZE and Redux attempt this). The rot sets in when your character confronts and eclipses a main character in the main character's niche. Don't do this.
If the character has silver hair and glowing green eyes, there better be a reason for it. A reason is not "her mother was a unicorn, and she is a magical princess from the land of Fairycakia". A reason is central to your story's plot. For instance, "her mother was a unicorn, and she is a magical princess from the land of Fairycakia, but she doesn't know it yet" could be a reason, if your story is about her terrified flight from the shadowy minions of Fairycakia who are intent on getting her back at all costs because her evil father the tyrannical King of Fairycakia is dying of an incurable disease and only the power of the unicorn trapped within her silver hair can heal him.
Look, I didn't say it was going to make a good story.
But, in the realm of fanfiction, "...because she's Sephiroth's daughter" is not a reason, because this breaks the fandom. What could you possibly do with Sephiroth's daughter that you couldn't do even better with Sephiroth himself? Most "Villain's Daughter" fics follow a predictable tired arc of the child trying to escape her father's legacy and/or fighting against people who want to use her powers for nefarious schemes. It'd be more interesting, and a bigger crowd-pleaser, to write a story about Sephiroth trying to escape his own legacy, or fighting against people who want to use his powers for nefarious schemes.
Keep the balance by using up what you've got first, because it's canon for a reason. It works. If there's something you can't do with a canon character, then and only then consider making an original character to fill that niche. Remember, it's Sephiroth people come to see.
This was a long and wordy article. For those of you who are still with me, well done.
Now I have to advise you to take everything I've said with a grain of salt. Rules are made to be broken.
...As long as you can get away with it ;)
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