You have a brilliant, well thought out essay. I would agree 100%, most authors use some form of hero or protagonist that has amazing qualities. If the hero didn't do anything but watch tv all the time, he wouldn't really be a hero or worth reading about. After all most people read to be entertained, for escapism, or to vicariously live another life.

Wow, that was a real eyeopener.

Hi! I'm going to apologize right off the bat for my sorry excuse of a review. So yes, I'm sorry I can't bring myself to write particularly lengthy constructive reviews.

Anyway, have you ever noticed that in children's/young adult fiction Harry Stu's a lauded as a boon by the author to struggling parents and librarians trying to get school-aged boys to read? It rubs me the wrong way but I may be hitting on a feminist note that you didn't mean to dredge up in this essay.

Wonderful approach,

E.

An excellent essay-very well-written, and very fun to read. The writing didn't seem juvinile at all.

It seems things have gotten so out of hand that you can't have a character without enough flaws or a character with too many flaws, or "they" say you've created a Mary Sue. It's sad, really.

Thank you for writing an essay that takes a new approach to Mary Sues rather then the 'they suck' philosophy. It's refreshing to read something that looks into the history of Mary Sues and draws conclusions that haven't been thrown about a thousand times before and presents a quality argument in their defence. Well done.

~Marie Silver~

Thank you so much for this! Really, really great. As another reference for Mary Sues in fiction - Bella and Edward in the Twlilight books by Stephenie Meyer have also been called Mary and Gary Sue and Stu.

Personally, a lot of Tamora Pierce's MC are Mary-sues. Even though is is and always will be one of my favorite authors, her characters are always heroic, and amazxing, and always prevail no matter what is thrown at them. I think whats-her-face, Alana's daughter who's name I can't remember, is the biggest. Just reading the Tricksters' books now makes me want to puke, they are so filled with Mary-Sueness. Yes, she is a good author,but I cannot read those books now.

As you have clearly read most or all of her books (otherwise, one cannot really make a decent observation), I'm curious as to what your opinions on Kel are. Yes, she does things women don't typically do, even in fantasy, but she's got depth and overall, she's pretty cool.

What do you think of her?

Sorry about the rambling. I'm really bored.

Thank you very much for writing this. I really appreciate it. I write, but I don't really post it up, I guess the nervousness of not knowing if my story is good or not, or if it will be flamed or not are some of the things that hold me back.

Lurking around has given me examples of stories or authors I aspire to be at the same level with, and stories that I wish I will never end up writing.

Your essays is one of the written things that has broadened my knowledge of things I must look for in my stories, and perhaps with that start posting my stories online.

Every once in a while I find stories that have no plot, or that the characters are just not "human" enough. Even though I don't have that much knowledge I leave a comment, to make them know that their story is confusing or that it has no real point, that it lead to nothing really. One thing though that I really dislike is when some authors write their sentences based in colours like: "The purple eyed girl spun around with her shiny, chocolate brown hair, that smelled of honey and spices set eyes on the green eyed boy she..." something like that... I guess that is kind of Mary Sue-ish? It may not be a good example though...

Actually until today I fond out about Mary Sue and what it really implied, thank you again for writing this, very informative.

I knew there was something about Harry Potter! I just couldn't place my figure on it!

A lot of helpful info in this. good work!

A good essay, nice writing, I do agree with you on some points, I'm getting tired of Mary Sues, but I'm probabely guilty of writing them as well. I have once gotten critism for a story of ine and it hurt deeply, the person didn't even like my other story they reviewed but came back again. Yeah I'm rambling on here so for now good work!

I agree with this wholeheartedly. It's true that Mary Sues get annoying after a while. I myself have randomly flamed a story without reading more then half of it, just because I thought their story was Mary Sueish. I got so tired of Mary Sue stories that I just couldn't help myself. I realize now that I should've been genteler with the authors then I originally was. I realize now how I should really treat the new authors and I tend to give constructive critisim more then flames. Thanks so much!

A very well written...well, it isn't story so what can I call it? An editorial?Anyway, the whatever-it-is raises a lot of great points but overall, I personally think that Mary Sues are fine UNTIL you base the entire story around them and, in general, overdo the whole perfection thing.I also know over 50 people (yeah, 50) whose first stories have instantly been labelled Mary Sues and flamed. 35 or so either dropped the story or stopped writing completely! I think that often people just type away furious in capslock, not considering how to author will feel or even if half the things they've said apply.A lot of the time, people will merely read one chapter and find a character who has been set up at the *beginning stages* of a plot whose faults simply haven't been mentioned or come into effect yet and their flames say something along the lines of "OMFG, THIS STORII IZ SO GAII! U HAV A REATARDE MARII SUE, UR PLOT IS RUBISH N U CANT RITE 2 SAVE YO SELF, LOZA!"In case you, like I, struggled a bit to read that, it says, "Oh my *expletive-ing* god, this story is so gay! You have a retarded Mary Sue, your plot is rubbish and you can't write to save yourself, loser!"Now there are several problems with a review like this:1- Using the name of the lord in vain...not good. Religiously offensive to link the lord's name to profanity2- "so gaii"? Gay is not an insult, for crying out loud! It's like going, "You are SUCH a heterosexual!" Unless the reviewer is a complete homophobe, in which case, get a life.3- "plot is rubish" Ahem, what have they SEEN of the plot so far, maestro? It's the first chapter! The most they've seen is an introduction!4- "can't write 2 save yo self" Well, if the reviewer could read the story, the author can obviously write a whole lot better than them.

I, as an author and reviewer, am completly against flaming and no matter how awful a story is, yelling your head off won't get you anywhere except perhaps hell whereas constructive critisism could help the author improve beyond belief!

Last thing I'd like to say to tie up this very long review is good on you for taking a stand and saying something about this!

Compact, informative and perhaps even thought provoking. I like the postive stance you've taken in dealing with the subject as it's easier (and something more commonly seen) to just damn without some thought - well done, you chose the hard way out.

I think that one negative review is enough to discourage a person from writing, but sometimes newer or younger (I am generalizing here, plese forgive me) do take criticism personally when it's not intended that way. People who haven't yet developed thick skin for critique take it quite personally. So I think there's a blurry line between what constitutes as 'flaming'.

Of course if someone writes outright "you suck, stop writing - you're degrading our IQs," then that's nasty. There's no disputing that.

Personally, I'm not a fan of Mary Sue, but I occasionally find myself wanting to write about the perfect male/female character. I try to write reviews that comment on character development if i find some seriously lacking in a story i read. I think most people do try and give constuctive crit - it's not all bad.

I've not yet come across any really bad flames in FictionPress though you see them more often on FanFiction because people are more uptight about their favourite fictional characters. I shall go and look up some of those anti-MS communities you mentioned. They might provide entertainment.

I only read a sentnece of this and I already thought it sucked, and thats pathetic.

I completely agree with you. I think that some of the harsh flamers should read this. I never usually write romance in any way (I'm more of a horror/gore/supernatural person) but a friend of mine did. She ended up getting this nasty review telling her she was a 'horrible bitch for messing up the cannon.' (That's not exact, but pretty close). I couldn't even see what was really wrong, except her OC fell in love with the cannon and her name wasn't that original. I think your advice was great for people who do this, and I have heard about these sites.