Mary Sue 101: Who IS She?

Who is Mary Sue, you ask?

She is a pest, a scourge, a CURSE upon the world of fiction; a dull, cliche character who mostly invades the fan fiction universe (especially in fandoms like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter), but can also be found in original work, TV shows, movies, etc. In fan fiction, she's usually the fangirl's way of inserting herself in the story and pairing herself up with the cutest/hottest character. This evil, annoying pest can be identified by the following traits:

1: She is stunningly/unusually beautiful. Perfect hair, perfect eyes (that "sparkle like jewels" and/or "pierce into your soul"), perfect skin, perfect figure, gorgeous gowns/snazzy warrior outfits, cool-looking weapons, etc...though she may bear a striking resemblance to the author of the story. Oh yes...she sometimes shares the author's name (that includes middle, last, nicknames, acronyms, etc.)

2: She frequently has special abilities or skills (like she can somehow "wield a blade" really well without years of training and experience). It could be anything from being insanely talented at music, to being dazzlingly clever, to having a magic jewelry item or weapon, to shape-shifting into something, to having magic powers or super-powers, etc.

3: She's always being uber-heroic and saving the day or the fate of Life, The Universe and Everything depends on her or something like that.

4: At least one character falls immediately/insanely in love with her (in Narnia fic, it's usually Peter. Go figure.)

5: She's kind and virtuous, sometimes feisty (especially if she has red hair), has a "great personality" with the occasional "stubborn streak"...no big character flaws of any kind. She's usually either a "sweet angel" type, "mysterious woman" type or the "rebellious, untamed princess" type.

6: All the good characters in the story just seem naturally drawn to her (especially children and fuzzy animals).

7: There is also sometimes a prophecy about her and it's all about her uber-important destiny and her love interest, blah blah blah...

8: She is generally portrayed as being cooler or more important/powerful than everyone else in the story. Everything's always either about her or her love-interest. She doesn't know the meaning of "teamwork" and she steals the spotlight from everyone else. (Which is somewhat annoying, considering the Pevensies were normal British schoolchildren with NO magic powers, but they helped save the day ANYWAY.)

9: She often has a tragic/angsty/mysterious past and her love interest has to "heal her wounded heart" or something. If she doesn't have a tragic/angsty/mysterious past, she always finds SOMETHING to angst about...and of course, her Twoo Wuv always rushes to comfort her. Oy.

10: Sometimes she dies tragically/heriocally. And in some cases, much to our dismay, she is brought back to life again.

11: She is so darn perfect that it's annoying and boring. She's either so perfect or so weird that the readers can't relate to her or grow to truly care about her. Strip away the gorgeous looks, the special powers and the all-important destiny and what do you have underneath? Virtually nothing.

I'd like to mention two other people:

Meet Gary Stu, the boy version of Mary Sue! He can be all of the above, as well as being the muscular, uberly-hot guy who's always saving the damsels in distress, bravely fighting the Bad Guys, hacking into computers like an expert and diffusing the bomb that's hidden in the wedding cake with the pair of pliers he just happened to have in his pocket. (Though in Narnia fan fiction, he tends to do more of the damsel-in-distress stuff...like saving Queen Lucy from a random Calormene that crawled through her window or something.)

Last and definitely least, there's Marty Sam. He's closely related to Gary Stu, only he's a lot more sensitive and angsty. Usually he has a dark, super-tragic past (like his alcoholic dad beat him as a kid or something) and he's always throwing melodramatic pity parties about how miserable and wretched he is. He swoons over the beautiful girl of his dreams and weeps over how he's oh-so-unworthy of her. He can be every bit as handsome as Gary Stu (though not quite so muscular) OR he can pull a Hunchback of Dotredame routine, i. e. so ugly that his beautiful love interest can't help but take pity on him and love him for his "pure but broken heart." (Mr. Tumnus has a tendency to get turned into Marty Sam a lot in Narnia fanfic. It's a bit disturbing.)

Now that I've gotten you acquainted with these cliche creatures, here are some tips on how avoid them:

One thing I've found that leads to a Mary-Sue is getting too attached to your heroine. You might have a brilliant back story for your girl, but does the audience really need to know every detail? You might have designed every ounce of her clothing and styled her hair just right, but is it integral to the plot? Probably not. A lot of the time what makes a Mary-Sue so awful is that so much of the focus is on this character that no one reading the story really cares all that much about her.

Another thing to keep in mind is to avoid having the character be too flawed. If you have a character that has a terminal illness, a bad back, is blind, can't hear, and is wielding a sword in battle and totally kicking butt and saving the day, you've got a problem. It's fine to have a character with one of those "flaws" or traits, but not all of them, and make them act accordingly. Make sure the flaws have something to do with the story and aren't just things you stick in to make her appear less perfect. Too flawed is just as bad as too perfect.

Give your character a good balance of virtues and flaws, strengths and weaknesses. Deepen and develop her (or his) character, and make her believable - someone your readers can truly care about and relate to. Show how she struggles to overcome real-life obstacles like everyone else. The more human and believable she is, the better.

Having said that, you don't have to go to extremes and make her totally boring. It's okay to give her a talent or two and add a little spice to her. As long as she's a real person and not some angsty warrior princess from heaven who's half angel and is destined to save the universe blah blah blah...well, you get the idea. There are extremely rare cases where the character can be all that and NOT be a Mary Sue (like Galadriel in LotR)...but they are very, VERY rare and chances are your case isn't an exception. Sorry.

So there you have it. If you have written a main character into one of your stories who possesses many or all of these qualities, beware! You may be the creator of a Mary Sue (or her lesser-known cousin, Gary Stu). Get someone to look over your work, lest this infamous pest overtake you!