Author's note: Just as I feared; some of the web links are not showing up. I'll do my best to remedy that.

The Fallacy of the Mary Sue

Mary Sue. It is a word—or two—that strikes fear into the hearts and minds of writers, young and old. You may have a Mary Sue on your hands, is a sentence that causes spine-tingling shivers to run down a writer’s back; it is a single sentence that casts a dim shadow over the story, as well as doubt into the writer’s abilities. It is a travesty few can stand to have in their own work, and so they seek out specifically designed Mary Sue tests and other, better writers to run through their work before publishing it on-line. The Mary Sue it appears is consistently purged from the written word of amateur writers, hoping against hope that they are doing it for the better of their work.

The Mary Sue—or Gary Stu for male types—is a creature feared to be lurking beneath the writer’s beloved protagonist. The common, general traits of a Mary Sue are a flawless morality, perfection of numerous skills, winning persona, a divine beauty, and the whole of the universe and its denizens spinning around her or him in their otherwise meaningless world. To put it simply, such a character is boring, and it is a beast that can usually be found in amateur writing, fanfiction, and—more commonly—in self-insert fiction.

It has been in a recent movement that the ‘Mary Sue’ came to the light of day, and has now became general knowledge and a thing to fear much like the professional writer fears unoriginality. At the beginning of this enlightening period, many writers began informing others of it with the notion that it was for their own good, and soon they even began pointing out Mary Sues in public reviews quite likely with good intentions in their heart. While there is not a formal club of these dubbed Sue Slayers—at least none that I know of—there is a generous proportion of the writing population who have admitted themselves to this club, either out of a genuine hope to help others or in a selfish interest to boost their own egos.

Unfortunately the Mary Sue is a fallacy.

What was once thought a devastating rot has truly only yielded a few bad apples. The amateur writers have had their inexperience taken advantage of to do even more work fixing a non-existent problem. Or such accusations from volatile crowds have driven them from writing altogether. How has this happened? How are there no Mary Sues in fiction? I, an equally amateurish writer, shall make an attempt to answer these questions.

A character is—conflict and setting aside—the most important element in the story. The conflict could be one never seen and the setting could be very interesting, but the true saving grace of a story is the characters. Even bad stories are considered partly redeemed if they have an admirably developed cast. It is a challenge to write just one character, and a whole cast can be a handful, but it should be noted that some of the most beloved characters in fiction could go under the category of Sue: Harry Potter, Rand (from Wheel of time), Sherlock Holmes, Martin the Warrior, Captain Kirk, Solid Snake, Aragorn, and Legolas.

The term has been around for years and years, but it has now become a recent phenomenon among writers. So called Sue Slayers have been reading and reviewing stories, informing the authors that they have Mary Sues, and not necessarily in a nice manner. On Fictionpress' sister site, I would come across several stories with ten or so people telling the author her character is a Mary Sue. Some of the reviewers would be nice, and offer suggestions for possible flaws or interesting character traits to keep the character from being drab, but there were one or two who were not helpful at all. One reviewer actually told the author she was putting the fiction on her black list in her Fiction Newspaper to warn people away from said story. This is inappropriate and should be truly discouraged, and a way of getting rid of it is getting rid of the term Mary Sue altogether.

A search on the web for Mary Sue tests yields a few, but quite possibly the most used Mary Sue tests are these two(a google search should bring these two up):

The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test

The Original Fiction Mary Sue Litmus test

In these sites’ defense, they issue disclaimers. The second link issues this disclaimer:

"Obviously, no test can take every contingency into account, and we can't promise you that every character who scores high on this test is a Mary-Sue, or that every character who scores low isn't. Heck, Bono from U2 scores a whopping 72 points! That doesn't mean he's a Mary-Sue; it just means he has astonishing number of romanticized traits -- and although he's a real person, he might not make a very believable character. It's up to you as the author to decide, as objectively as you can, how your results really apply to your story."

Despite this excellent advice, one run through of a test will show that many of the questions are erroneous to either writing a novel or determining Suedom. “Does your character have a nickname or a pseudonym? Is it dangerous?” Plenty of published authors commit this apparently heinous sin, such as Robert Jordan when he bestows several nicknames on, not just Rand, but a number of his characters. Dragon Reborn, Car’a’carn, and blademaster, are just a few of the names and titles that Rand of The Wheel of Time has earned through the books.

“Does your (immortal) character appear to be much younger than he or she really is? " Lord Elrond certainly did not look his age in the Lord of the Rings movies, and typically most Immortal characters don’t. As silly as it seems that the entire idea behind immortality is to always have vigor and beauty, it would seem sillier, if a man or woman appeared and moved like they were four thousand years old, or four million years old.

“Does the character have eyes that somehow reflect hidden depths or experience or sorrow?” Have these Sue Slayers not heard that the eyes are the window to the soul? If a character has experienced a tragic life, and it’s still eating at him, of course he’ll reflect sorrow! Or if a character is old, of course he will appear wise.

“Does the character have a clone or identical twin? Are there a large number of clones in your story, and your character is neither the original or above average in prowess?” Why should a clone have to be dumber or not the original to not seem like a Mary Sue? Products of genetic manipulation can prove to be incredibly diverse, so it would be moot to make this a demerit against a clone character.

“Does the character share more than one of your hobbies or interests? And is she/he better at these hobbies or more knowledgeable about these interests than you are?” This question is obviously a part of determining self-insertions, but it is entirely irrelevant; how likely is it the reader will know the writer loves to play the violin? Or likes to photograph in his spare time? And why would it matter? As far as writing a novel goes, it is simply one less thing to research.

Another notion that might have been instilled into beginning writers, about the concept of Mary Sue, is that it is undesirable for a single character to have any Mary Sue-ish traits: beauty, natural ability, a wonderful personality, a lover, many friends etc. Interesting personalities are essential to good characters, however stripping them—especially a main character—of such things as listed in the previous sentence would only help to render them dull and dreary, instead of unique and refreshing. True, the key to admired characters is to make each one special in their own right, but this can be done through other means.

There are no Mary Sues. There are good characters, so-so characters, and bad characters, and the only way a writer can learn to distinguish between the three is from experience and practice, pure and simple. Most writers are self-taught, and many rely on constructive feedback given to them by other writers; it is quite possibly the only way most can learn, and such a word as Mary Sue carries serious negative connotations, thus it is best to avoid using it altogether. Those who are truly serious about taking writing beyond a passing whim will fast learn the subtleties of the craft. So, I say, heed not anyone who utters the word Mary Sue in their review, and rely on your own judgment to determine bad characters.