The Guide to Making a Successful or Not-So-Successful Character

Every piece of writing has a character. Whether it's a charming prince or a mouse living in the underground, a character is always needed and one of the most values prospects of a story.

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To create... A Mary-Sue or a Gary-Stu

Mary Sue – An unrealistically perfect female character

Gary-Stu – An unrealistically perfect male character

Often, people mention the word 'Mary-Sue' or 'Gary-Stu' when critiquing a piece of writing. Just what is that?

Warning : When people say a character of yours is a Mary-sue or a Gary-stu, it usually is not something good.

Authors often make this mistake – perfection.

Ever read a book where a character is just too unrealistic to believe? Where one of the characters is too pretty, too smart, and too brave to be believable? When the character starts to spiral out of hand, until he/she has no flaws anymore?

Mary-Sue is the word for a girl like that. Gary-Stu is the word for perfect boys. These two words are often confused, and you may find people saying that a guy character is a Mary-Sue. Basically, though, they are all the same. Too perfect.

To create a perfect character, start first on the appearance.

Does she have silky, flowing blond hair? Bright blue eyes? Or, does he have a handsome face that girls would fall in love with at the first sight?

Perfect characters have perfect faces. For girls, cute and sexy. Maybe even go for innocent beauty.

Don't make people have hair and eye colors that don't match. Blond hair goes with greey, blue or green eyes, Black hair goes with grey, black, blue, green, brown, or even violet eyes, and brown hair can go with black, brown or hazel eyes.

Redheads always have green eyes. I don't know. It's like... an unspoken rule or something.

XxX

For the guys, make their inner male stand out.

A strong, defined jaw, I find, always make the girls salivate more. Try the brooding, sexy look, or even try the cute or innocent. It depends on what you go for.

Remember – Mary-Sues or Gary-Stus always have the perfect complexion. They just don't have acnes or pimples. And they don't sweat, either, even after they charge into battle or work out or something. It's creepy. They always look perfect, whenever and whereever.

Go to the personality, now.

A Mary-Sue or a Gary-Stu, you find, are always kind and loving. They just can't bear to see a bird struggle with a broken wing, or a homeless man begging for food. So what do they do? They do whatever they can to do help and end up with the whole world cheering 'you're so kind! You're so nice!' Yeah, That.

Never make a Mary-Sue or Gary-Stu selfish. Remember – they're always thinking about the others first. They're supposed to hate violence, but still can fight when it comes to it. They can even go around the world promoting peace or whatever. It doesn't come as a surprise – they are meant to be 'perfect'.

Make them do whatever to help. Charge into battle stupidly and helplessly, maybe, just to blindly protect someone that he/she doesn't even know.

Capability

Perfect characters are smart. They know what to do. You'll find, if it's a fantasy book with magic or something, Mary-Sues and Gary-Stus usually always exceed at the subject.

For example, a Mary-Sue character (Let's call her Bobby) decides to go to some magic school. Bobby only just arrived, but after a short while she can already do what she's not supposed to be able to do for another five years! Maybe she's extraordinarily good at spells. Or maybe she can heal someone with a touch of their hand.

Mary-Sues and Gary-Stus usually aren't stupid. Unless someone they love (or don't even know) is struggling. That's when, smartness aside, they try to help stupidly.

And here's the guide to a 'perfect' character. Remember, if you don't understand what I just typed, try to imagine a girl or guy that you want to be. Someone that you want to become. They're usually perfect.

NEXT UP : TO CREATE A VIOLENT PROTAGONIST

Violent protagonists are personally one of my favorites. They are believable, they have FLAWS **See above**, and... well, I can relate.

Appearance

A violent person should not look innocent. You should not write 'his/her big, green eyes blinked innocently at me, long eyelashes fluttering-"

**GAG**

A violent person usually has an edge to his/her's looks. Whether it's the eyes – stormy grey, maybe, or if it's the jaw – hard, chiseled...

You usually don't give a violent person a round, plump child face. You just don't. It doesn't look violent.

Personality

Since we're talking about protagonists here (the good people), even violent good people don't go around killing everyone. Even if their violent.

A violent person, you may find, has anger management. Maybe he/she gets wound up easily, and has a hard time controlling his/her desire to strangle someone. They are usually easily provoked.

Or maybe their anger explodes fast. When a violent person gets really, really pissed off, their anger usually starts clouding their judgement, and in a split moment of anger they might just kill someone.

Of course, with it being the protagonist's case here, they will still feel guilty afterwards, if it's an innocent person.

Sometimes bitterness goes with anger. Maybe the character's bitter about something, which leads to a bout of anger that's always with-in.

Capability

A violent person acts on his/her thoughts. Fantasizing about killing someone is not being violent. It's thinking violent.

Violent people usually rely on combative sport, where he/she can land a satisfying punch or kick to an enemy's face. Combat and punching is the best friend of a violent character.

A violent person, may also be fueled by anger. Maybe he/she isn't usually good at magic, but in a split moment of extreme anger, grabs the wand and casts a spell that he/she shouldn't have been able to do.

And so, this is how a violent person is made. Don't make them cry a lot. In fact try not to make them cry at all. Though, usually, when I write, I like to make a violent/strong character who's never cried since years ago have a breakdown in someone he/she loves' arms. Yes, I'm a sucker for good romance stories.

TO CREATE AN EVIL PERSON WHO STILLS HAS EMOTIONS

I love evil people. Not the emotionless, killer-machine evil, no. I love evil people who... have a reason to be.

Appearance

Either make them too beautiful or too ugly. Actually, you can make them average, too, if your evil character is hidden in the beginning and is revealed as a shocker at the end of your story.

Make them look a tad bit suspicious if you want to.

Personality

For the hidden evil:

If you want to reveal the antagonist as a shocker, and want the person to blend in but still make sense to be the evil one, make them a seem like a side-character.

Be vague. Just sort of float through the person's descriptions, because the more you describe him/her the more likely the reader's going to guess who it is. Don't describe their hand twitching motions or the exact expression on their face. Try to make them absent a lot, for example if he/she was to meet up with someone, he/she could suddenly some down with a bug. That will make it make sense for him/her to be the evil one, and the readers should just read through it if you make them vague enough. The readers should not pause to think about the fact that he/she has not arrived.

If you want to reveal the antagonist early on in the book, make them seem very cynical and insane. Or very smart and mean. He should be demanding and seem to rule. Then, as you progress through writing, you can slowly start to show sighs of the fact that the person still has feelings and the fact that the antagonist might have a cause to be evil. Maybe something horrible happened to him/her, or maybe him/her got made fun of when he/she was small. Sneak in the factors that might have led to him/her becoming evil.

Capabilities

Good antagonists usually aren't stupid or really easily taken down. If so, then there's no threat to the protagonists, and your story will rapidly sink.

Antagonists could seem invincible at first, then slowly reveal his/her's Achilles point. Whether it's bringing back his/her's worst nightmares, or if it's slowly opening his feeling's wound.

For example, if the evil person got betrayed and that was the reason why he turned evil, you could make the protagonist slowly make the evil person start to trust him/her. Then the protagonist could betray him again and ruin him once and for all. (Don't make a Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu do that. They're too nice.)

The way the evil person is defeated is based on the reason why he became evil. What hurt him enough for him to start killing.

OR, you could make the protagonist fail at destroying the evil. And make the evil rule the world. But I wouldn't recommend that.

Coming soon:

What type of character do you want me to make a tutorial about? A emotionless killing machine? The evil's stupid side-kick/assistant? A random funny guy (usually not the main character?) Or something else?

Please Review and tell me if you have anything to add and/or if you think this will help. Because I really hope it does. Help, that is.

:D