Mary Sues and You: Avoiding Common Character-Building Pitfalls

[Misheard Whisper]

Mary Sues and You: Avoiding Common Character-Building Pitfalls​

Creating realistic, likeable characters is far and away one of the biggest challenges for amateur writers. Pokémon fanfiction, in particular, due to its expansive nature and the fandom’s acceptance of OCs, tends to be riddled with poorly-constructed, two-dimensional characters with all the depth of a kiddie pool. Regrettably, there’s no hard-and-fast rule for avoiding these common traps, but I’d like to pass on some advice anyway. In particular, I received two nuggets of wisdom from more experienced writers in my time, and each of them changed the way I look at building characters forever.

First, however, let’s determine what makes a ‘bad’ character. It’s not as straightforward as you might think, but everyone is likely familiar with the Mary Sue archetype, so let’s start there. A Mary Sue is a character who can do no wrong. She is perfect in every way; everybody loves her, and she never struggles to achieve her goals. Any flaws she may have feel tacked on as a half-hearted counterweight to her perfection, and rarely impede her progress in a meaningful way. In the Pokémon fandom, she often hangs out with main characters for no adequately explained reason, is an incredibly skilled Trainer/Coordinator, happens to catch Legendary Pokémon while out for a stroll, and generally bends the laws of the universe to her will. Ash loves her – who’s Misty? – and they ride off into the sunset on the back of her Lugia while everybody cheers after her stunning Indigo Conference shutout win.

Now, that may sound easy enough to avoid, and rightly so; it was a deliberately hyperbolic example, and rarely does anyone create a character that blatantly perfect. Unfortunately, the trap of the Mary Sue is very easy to fall into without noticing, which brings me to that first piece of advice I received as a novice writer: create a list of flaws to hold your character back. This is far from perfect advice, and I’ll get into why in a moment, but it’s a good starting point. Think about your main character. Does he ever have to struggle to achieve his goals? And I’m not just talking about a difficult Gym battle. I’m talking repeated defeats, growing and learning each time. Progress is the hallmark of solid character development; if your character blitzes everybody from Chapter One, there’s no sense of progression, no excitement for the readers. They want to see him grow and learn.

More importantly, does he have any weaknesses? This is a tricky one to approach, because many people who’ve made it to this stage in the character creation process see it as an easy out. ‘Johnny McWonderboy is a naturally skilled Trainer with a gift for convincing powerful Pokémon to join his team! But it’s okay, because you see, he’s afraid of the dark. Also, he can’t swim and he likes to argue with people. And his nose is flat.’ They look at weaknesses and flaws as a balancing act, stacking them higher and higher in a desperate attempt to keep the scales level. All this does is create a character with a lot of breadth, but no depth. Worse, a lot of the flaws presented are what we call informed weaknesses. That is to say, nothing in the story interacts with these character traits whatsoever, to the point where they may as well not even exist. More specifically, they are mentioned once – usually in the character introduction – and are never relevant again. Johnny can’t swim? Well, surprise, he never has to. He’s afraid of the dark? It’s never so much as mentioned again, or easily overcome with a portable night light.

The point here, I suppose, is that flaws have to actively hold your character back to be worthwhile. Creating negative traits to balance the positive ones is a great starting point for assembling a balanced character, but it’s all for naught unless he has to overcome them. Johnny’s first Gym challenge is in Cerulean, so he has to fight the whole battle on a slippery surface causing him to freak out about falling in the pool, so his concentration slips and he loses the battle. He comes back a week later with an inflatable ring and faces his fears. Boom, character development. Rudimentary, but it’s there and it’s a start. His fear of the dark prevents him from chasing a Team Rocket grunt into a cave, so they get away with a valuable stolen artefact. Boom, character development and plot progression in one. It’s easy, but you have to actively work at it to make your character three-dimensional through this method.

This, of course, brings me to the second piece of advice: disregard the first one entirely. Uhh . . . Yeah. Believe it or not, the best piece of advice I ever received was to almost completely ignore what I thought I knew about character-building. Having two lists of character traits, with pros on one side and cons on the other, is a valid start, but for truly advanced and nuanced character creation, you have to merge the two together and realise that there is no such thing as a truly positive or negative trait.

Let’s take old Johnny McWonderboy from before. I gave him four weaknesses, right? One, his fear of the dark. Two, his inability to swim. Three, his flat nose, and four, his argumentative nature. One of those, the flat nose, we can discard immediately. That’s what’s called a superficial trait. It’s got nothing to do with who he is as a person or as a character. Might be good for some laughs, or for expanding into a more serious insecurity, but for the most part it’s safely ignorable. In other words, it doesn’t act as a black mark on his record at all. The fear of the dark and inability to swim are called learned behaviours. They’re a little more involved, but at the end of the day they aren’t part of who he is either, because they have come about since his birth – either due to his environment, a certain event in his past, or simply a lack of need (There’s no large bodies of water in Pewter City!). This also goes for many positive traits: he’s a skilled Pokémon Trainer, he’s learned to talk to wild Pokémon, whatever. In other words, we want those gone too. Now Johnny only has one weakness: he’s argumentative.

Things like this, I like to call true traits. It’s a fundamental part of his personality, not easily changed or remedied. It may be a learned behaviour as well – for instance, maybe Johnny’s parents fought a lot and he learned from them – but it’s a far more deeply ingrained part of him than his inability to swim, and it affects his everyday life far more. However, this brings me to the key question that stems from the second piece of advice: is this really a weakness? The answer is, of course, no. No, it isn’t. A lot of the things that people like to jot down as weaknesses to balance out their character’s strengths are actually just one half of a double-edged sword, and I would go so far as to say that every negative trait has a positive side that can be exploited and taken advantage of when writing the character. Johnny’s argumentative nature, for instance, means that he’s unwilling to back down when Lt. Surge refuses to accept his Gym challenge. Instead of accepting it quietly, he makes a point of arguing with the Lt. until he caves, and they have their Gym battle.

Other true traits have this duality too, of course. If you’ll allow me to use my own personality traits for this example, I am particularly non-confrontational. In many situations, this is a weakness, as I prefer not to stand up for myself when challenged, and I have difficulty dictating things to others. This can lead to all kinds of negative outcomes, from somebody else getting the last slice of pizza to being passed over for a job opportunity. On the other hand, it serves me well in situations where conflict would only cause problems. It keeps me out of trouble, and prevents me from making a target out of myself for violent or other retribution. Being conflict-averse makes me more willing to pursue diplomatic solutions where somebody like Johnny McWonderboy might immediately start yelling. I use myself as an example, but any character who dislikes conflict will have similar strengths and weaknesses associated with that trait.

It doesn’t end there, of course. Your character is selfish? That’s clearly a bad thing, right? Sure, except for when she’s able to act at a pivotal moment because everybody else is frozen out of concern for each other (sociopaths woo!). She’s a coward? She’ll be all the more useful when you need to sneak around a fight you can’t win.

On the flipside, many of what we consider positive character traits can also have negative inverses. A character who is brave and steadfast will occasionally refuse to back down before impossible odds, getting themselves and their friends hurt or worse. A kind, caring person may have difficulty finding the ruthlessness to dispatch Team Rocket in time to save the day. Loyalty to your friends may stand you in good stead, but when you have to choose between one of them and saving the world, will you really be able to make the right decision (coughHarryPottercough)? One of my favourite examples is pride: somebody who is proud will be honourable, just and willing to stand up for themselves, but they may also refuse to see their own faults, leading to their downfall.

At the end of the day, a solid, three-dimensional character will have some of these many traits in varying quantities. Some may indeed only display the negative side or the positive, but that can be kind of boring unless handled appropriately. Mary Sues display only the positives and ignore the negative repercussions, while doing the reverse lands you with a dull, cookie-cutter villain completely without nuance or interesting features. Dodge the pitfalls, avoid thinking about people in terms of black and white. Good and evil, strengths and weaknesses, assets and flaws: all of these are two sides of the same coin and need to be balanced and considered when crafting a character.

 

[Daren]

Very nicely done. Far too often I see advice about avoiding Mary Sues to be things like "don't give them an unusual eye color" or "have them use only unpopular Pokémon". This article not only cuts to the real issue--a "flawless" person--but gives good advice on building a realistic character as well.

 

[chaos_Leader]

I'll be honest, I was half expecting this to be another one of those so called "character writing guides" that would be just a blurb equally shallow as the oft-lambasted Strawman Sue. I'm glad this was not the case. Effective character creation was, is, and will always be a complex, nuanced process that has few definite points. I've been doing this almost 8 years now, and I still grapple with issues like this every time I write, and I expect I will continue to going forward.

 

[Stratelier]

Agreed, this is a nice polished dissertation about what it really takes to make a good character for both the plot and the reader.

Basically it boils down to: The more you know your character, the better you can write them.

As for my personal $.02, not much I can really add but let's see if I can hit some tangents....

- One problem with mary-sue main characters is when you're doing gamefics. You know, in the game YOU'RE the hero. And one of the problems with attempting to write a "player character" is that, in their original source material, the writing team can't give them a full character profile because they're supposed to be avatars of the player. So if a fan wants to write a gamefic, it's easy to fall into the character being (by in-universe standards) too perfect at what they set out to do.

- Stories thrive on drama and conflict. There is rarely a bigger source of either than watching the hero FAIL when they attempt something. If you're writing a gamefic, with the protagonist being your player avatar, try to find places to incorporate moments where you THE PLAYER failed. (Quick example - in Explorers of Sky Drowzee beat my guys the first time. So when I wrote a story based on it, that's precisely what happened to the team there, too.) By comparison and contrast, Mary Sues generally fail at only one thing: failure itself.

- As the writer, you should always be brainstorming random things that happen to your character just to see how they react. It doesn't have to be part of the story, but thinking about how your character would handle it can give you insights into what really makes them tick (you learning more about them in the process, and in turn enabling you to write them better).

- Likewise, it's also useful to think up HORRIBLE things to do to your character -- again, stuff that isn't necessarily canonical, just a bunch of "what ifs" to drop your character into and see what happens. Leonardo da Vinci knew that one of the best ways to figure out how human bodies work was to cut them open and examine their inner workings directly. Similarly, one of the fastest ways for you (as a writer) to prove what kind of guts your character has is to slice them open and spill those guts all over the place. (Eh ... metaphorically speaking, of course.)

 

[CrystaI]

Regarding on this topic of characterization and avoiding of so-called Mary-Sueishness, this will be my two cents.


Actually, the biggest pitfall about character design that almost every single writers, both amateur and professional will fall into is that, you are simply designing the character by listing a list of attributes and traits. I found this method being inefficient, and will never make your character truly "lively". Simply because you are then looking at the inner of this character from third-person viewpoint, you are looking at the character as a passive spectator/onlooker, you as a writer and being the god of your fic is not being the concerned party that is directly involved.

It took me quite some years to realized this. Now I had developed myself a complete different method on character design, where IMO it shall make the character seems more "lively" than ever. How? It is rather very simple. Just think about this character from first-person viewpoint. When you design a character, think about the actions and reactions of him/her towards specific things, think about his/her interactions and influence towards the others, think about his/her contribution towards the story and to the in-story world. You as the writer must become the interested party that is involved directly.

Well easier said than done. Especially at the very beginning, I know it is very difficult when you don't even have the general idea of what this person is like. Yeah, therefore at the very beginning, it is forgivable in jotting out the basic characteristics outline from third-person POV. Meaning, what you planned this character to be? What is his/her role? What is his/her background and past history? What is his/her personality? Is he/she calm and composed, cool and badass, brave and hot-blooded, friendly and peaceful, fierce and emotional, etc et cetera. You don't need to go super deep in this basic step. Once you had a general idea of how the character should behave under normal circumstances, you may then proceed to the next step, which is then the most important yet probably the most difficult.

That is what I said previously: Think about the character from first-person viewpoint. Think about the character's actions and reactions towards specific things. Think about how he/she speaks towards specific questions.
The best method is hold up an imaginary interview between you and the character like a talent scout asking many important personal questions. Even if the character is meant to be silent and non-talkative, doesn't like to speaks out his/her personal things, or that the questions touches upon the sensitive zone of the character hence awkward to ask, it doesn't matter at all. Because it is the actions and reactions I would like to see, the past history and basic background is already known by the CV done in the previous step.

Ask your character these questions, and imagine how would they response to these questions if being asked by some random person in-universely (or if you wanted to, imagine the response if asked by specific person related to that character, because human relationship will affects the response). Feel free to add in or change to other questions if you wanted to.
Remember: It is the concerned character that will be answering these questions, not you the writer. Try to answer these questions in the character's first-person narrative.
1) Where do you come from? Could you tell me a bit about your homeland?
2) How would you describe your personality?
3) Would you tell me a bit about your past? Do you have specific moment that is very important to your personal history?
4) Do you have anything you excel in? Do you have anything you are weak in?
5) What is your interest and hobby? Would you tell me a bit about it?
6) What is your aim and life goal? Can you tell me your plan in achieving such goal?
7) What makes you happy?
8) What makes you angry?
9) What makes you sad?
10) Do you have anything you like and dislike?
11) Do you have anything you are afraid of?
12) What is your relationship and viewpoint on **Insert other character name here**?
13) How to you feel about life in general?
For Pokemon Trainer character:
14) What do you see Pokemon as? How do you feel about Pokemon Battle?
15) Why do you wanted to start a journey?
16) Why do you wanted to be strong?
Situational specific questions:
17) If you are short on money where you don't even have enough funds to buy food for tomorrow, what will you do?
18) School had finish and next week is a very long summer recess. What had you planned for this long holiday?
19) What do you wish for your birthday celebration?
20) You see an old man tumble and hurt himself where he can't stand up. What will you do?
21) If someone ask you to lend money (or your pokemon) to him/her, how would you response?
22) How do you feel about standing on the stage or inside a stadium, where you are watched by thousands of people alive and also millions of people through broadcast?
23) You are being hold captive by a robber group with dangerous weapons on their hand. What would you do?
24) There is an earthquake happening, the building crumble and you are buried, but you are alive and very luckily no severe injury. What would you do then?
Odd ball questions:
25) Your best friend, your girl/boyfriend or your wife/husband, your parents and grandparents, your siblings, your pokemon that cannot swim, are all fall into the ocean and being drown. You are there standing on the boat with only one life-buoy. Who will you rescue first?
26) Tell me 10 different recipes of egg.
27) A prophecy that is 100% true that never fails in its prediction stating the world will end and vanish in the next 24 hours. How would you spend this 24 hours?

Basically, any character that can answer all the above questions had already being successful in diverted away from the road of Mary Sue. That is because the main problem of Mary Sue is, she is not a character, but just a personification of a list of "perfect" characteristic traits without flaws. That's why she felt detached from the in-story universe, as she was meant to be a celestial being (no Gundam pun intended) differ from ordinary mortals.

Even if you are to balance out the characteristic attribute list by adding in flaws and weakness, still your character may not be livelier than how he/she was. Because you are not imagining and seeing the weakness in actions, and more importantly, you are not viewing the character as an individual with unique mental and moral qualities having their own temperament and POV towards specific things.
On the opposite, a powerful skillful intelligent character that can do anything impeccably, the kind of ideal character that a general person couldn't ask for more, regardless of is he/she an terrestrial earthling or outer space alien, can still be imperfect and interesting to the overall story. The key point lies in the personality portrayal, and also his/her interactions and influences towards the surrounding.

A character, is not simply an aggregate of personality traits and physical features, but it is also part of the collective community established within the universe of your fic. That's why when creating a character, one shouldn't just think of he/she as an individual, but at the same time think of he/she as part of the whole character group to be used in your fic, and also as a part of the entire universe within your fic.
The FMA saying that is just true in this context: "One is all. All is one."

 

[0bs1d1an_kn1ght]

on the subject of Pride, the way I use it, I sort of balance it with the character's self-esteem. I'm under the impression that, the lower the character's self-esteem is, the higher their need for pride; why else would they lash out violently when someone brings it up, right? Because, at least in media, I haven't seen a prideful character with actually good self-esteem. Conversely, most of the time whenever I see a prideful character they usually have abysmal self-esteem.

Correct me if I'm wrong if you want, I'm just pointing out what I think.

 

[CrystaI]

on the subject of Pride, the way I use it, I sort of balance it with the character's self-esteem. I'm under the impression that, the lower the character's self-esteem is, the higher their need for pride; why else would they lash out violently when someone brings it up, right? Because, at least in media, I haven't seen a prideful character with actually good self-esteem. Conversely, most of the time whenever I see a prideful character they usually have abysmal self-esteem.

Correct me if I'm wrong if you want, I'm just pointing out what I think.

Tendou Souji, Kadoya Tsukasa, Kumon Kaito from the Kamen Rider series, Cornelia li Britannia from Code Geass, Edward Elric and Olivier Mira Armstrong from FMA, Kurenai Gekkou from Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi, Suzumiya Haruhi from her main anime, Vegeta from Dragonball especially in Z, Kuroyuki Hime from Accel World, all of them would like to say Hi to you.

One thing I think you had made a mistake, is that the kind of "prideful yet with low self-esteem" character you are trying to describe, another better word shall be arrogant. You can't say they are "prideful", because by literal meaning that is not the correct word to describe them. The synonym of that word is proud, where character is satisfied and possess good opinions on his/her own self, such character respect their own self. Pride and self-esteem goes hand-in-hand. If a character don't possess any self-respect and self-esteem, how would they be satisfy about their own actions, hence become proud of their own self?

There are two different kinds of high-and-mighty characters. One is the kind which is truly proud of themselves, possess excessive self-confidence and knowledgeably determined, steadfast to his/her own believe under whatever circumstances. Another kind is one don't have any self-confident about their own identity, deep inside one's heart they don't respect themselves, in order to counterbalance such emotional and mental insecurity problem, they hold a haughty and overbearing attitude towards everyone, where such attitude act as an armor in order to protect one's fragile heart.

For the former kind, I would really use the word "prideful" to describe them. But for the latter, "arrogant" or "supercilious" is the best I can say.

 

[0bs1d1an_kn1ght]

Tendou Souji, Kadoya Tsukasa, Kumon Kaito from the Kamen Rider series, Cornelia li Britannia from Code Geass, Edward Elric and Olivier Mira Armstrong from FMA, Kurenai Gekkou from Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi, Suzumiya Haruhi from her main anime, Vegeta from Dragonball especially in Z, Kuroyuki Hime from Accel World, all of them would like to say Hi to you.

One thing I think you had made a mistake, is that the kind of "prideful yet with low self-esteem" character you are trying to describe, another better word shall be arrogant. You can't say they are "prideful", because by literal meaning that is not the correct word to describe them. The synonym of that word is proud, where character is satisfied and possess good opinions on his/her own self, such character respect their own self. Pride and self-esteem goes hand-in-hand. If a character don't possess any self-respect and self-esteem, how would they be satisfy about their own actions, hence become proud of their own self?

There are two different kinds of high-and-mighty characters. One is the kind which is truly proud of themselves, possess excessive self-confidence and knowledgeably determined, steadfast to his/her own believe under whatever circumstances. Another kind is one don't have any self-confident about their own identity, deep inside one's heart they don't respect themselves, in order to counterbalance such emotional and mental insecurity problem, they hold a haughty and overbearing attitude towards everyone, where such attitude act as an armor in order to protect one's fragile heart.

For the former kind, I would really use the word "prideful" to describe them. But for the latter, "arrogant" or "supercilious" is the best I can say.

Okay, thank you or pointing it out, I knew it sounded weird for some reason.

 

[Juliko]

Totally agree. Perfect characters who can do no wrong are just not very compelling or interesting. You can't have a character who is automatically good at everything or be liked by everyone within a split second. That's just not right, and even if some people attempt to give characters flaws, if they don't hinder or hurt the character or the people around them, then they're not real flaws. I always try to make sure my characters' actions result in good and bad consequences. For example, in my fan fic, Marvelous Journey, Julia is sometimes so bound by rules that she doesn't always say what she thinks despite wanting to, Perrine is stubborn and sometimes thinks things will go exactly right and will get mad when they don't, Caiseal can be impatient and judgmental, and Amara always feels she's right about everything and doesn't want to accept that she often causes problems for others by yelling a lot and refusing to listen to people.