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WRITER'S WORKSHOP: Mary Sue, meet Real Life
Here begins the first of a series of Writing Workshop posts. These are both chances for us Badfic reviewers to vent in a more general way about cliches and annoyances that pop up in badfic and fandom in general, as well as offer tips on how to correct these mistakes so that in general we do start to come off as genuinely constructive, since so many have accused sites like this of "hating."
For the record, nobody at any 'fic reviewing site is any more harsh than anyone else in the business. Professionally done reviews published in newspapers are sometimes more cruel, and I'm not going to even get into the sort of responses you can expect from editors when you try to get published.
Mary Sue, new and improved?
First of all, it has come painfully to my attention that many people who write Mary Sue fiction and try to pass it off as something brilliant and original don't even know what the term Mary Sue refers to. The term is fluid enough that many writers have slightly different definitions of a Mary Sue, but they all tend to share characteristics that make them painfully obvious.
Just to make this clear, a Mary Sue (or Gary Stu/Marty Stu for the male version) is NOT a specific character. Mary Sue is the name given to a specific sort of characterization cliche, and according to lore the name is derived from a Mary Sue published in a Star Trek 'zine, who's name just happened to be Mary Sue.
To generalize, a Mary Sue has one or more of the following characteristics, in no particular order:
~Shares either the author's given name or Internet handle, or else has a rare or unusual name. Generally, a name for a female character that is any derivation of the word "cat" or can be the source of any derivation of "cat" as the nickname is suspect. Variations of "cat" are classic Sue names. This is not to say that human beings who have unusual names are Mary Sues.
~Posesses the ability to maul the established rules for the universe that she inhabits. For example, Harry Potter Sues are notorious for being able to cast spells without a wand, when all other magic-users in that universe use wands.. even You-Know-Who, who's wand is the brother of Harry's.
~Posesses some sort of highly unusual feature. This can include chromatic hair coloring in a non-anime fanfic (such as blue hair on a Smallville Sue), unusual scars (many of which have some sort of significance to the plot later on), unusual piercings (sometimes on worlds that don't have the technology base for it, or gained through impossible means in a fic that is supposedly modern-day).
~Can freely ignore all rules and regulations of the modern-day world, if the fic is set in any sort of alternate-earth world. Again, this applies to any fictional work that is supposed to take place in our world or a close approximation, like the world of Harry Potter, Stargate SG-1, X-Files, Smallville, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc., or for the "Our Reality" section of any fic that involves "girl getting sucked into fictional world of choice"
~Attracts all the attention of all the canon characters, regardless of whether or not those characters would have an actual reason to care. Sues often attract undue attention. Why would Harry Potter care about some random first-year if that first-year wasn't getting attacked by Voldemort and co.? Elven daughters of Elf-Lords are pretty much a dime a dozen in Middle-Earth, where the elven population is small enough that most can claim blood ties with nobility. The FBI has thousands of agents working for it, and a bit of turnover in the X-Files unit is to be expected.
~Becomes the center of the story, even when the canon could get along perfectly fine without the Sue. This is especially true of all "Tenth Walker" Mary Sues in the Lord of the Rings fandom, but it applies elsewhere. Just because the character is THERE does not justify them getting involved in the exploits of the canonical characters. Legolas is not going to fall in love with some random girl. Snape isn't likely to start boffing his students OR the new DADA professor, especially given that DADA professors have the sad track record of having something horrible happen to them by the end of the school year.
~Can out-wit, out-power, out-cute, out-savvy, and in all other ways out-perform the canon characters. One of the hallmarks of the Sue is her tendency to be better than everyone else. Sues also have a tendency to use this ability to "fix" everything that the author perceives as being wrong with canon, even when the creator of the canon had perfectly good reasons to make it that way. Examples of this include most "Tenth Walker" Sues and Sues who resurrect Boromir, or, for Movieverse Sues, resurrect Haldir as well. (Though I maintain that Haldir's wound was NOT bad enough to kill him outright like that.. there should have been lingering.)
~Polarizes the canon characters so that either everyone loves her or everyone hates her. Those who hate the Sue are generally either relegated to comic relief as they bumble around or are portrayed as being evil. This is not a normal behavior pattern for humans, period.
~Is often an idealized form of the author. "Sueing" oneself into a fandom is a common method of wish-fulfillment among authors.
~Can come in either gender, and doesn't necessarily share the gender of the author. It is a common misconception that if a female author writes a Marty Stu, it isn't "really" a Stu because it doesn't represent the author. This is a steaming load of bullshit.
~Is presented in a story that looks like it was typed by a 12-year-old AOLer, usually with atrocious grammar and spelling.
It is ALSO possible to "Sue" a canon character. This usually happens when a canon character is "too goody-two-shoes" or uninteresting in the author's opinion. The author then proceeds to bend that character's personality and mannerisms completely out of whack in order to fit that author's idea of "cool". A specific example is the proliferation of punk Hermione fanfics in the Harry Potter fandom, or on the other hand the proliferation of wussy Buffy fanfics over in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom. These characters stop being who they're supposed to be and become Sues with the canon character's name and niche in the canon.
For more information on what a Sue is, exactly, and what the different classifications and cliches-within-a-cliche are, see A Guide to the Sue in the Field, The Mary Sue Report, and run a Google search for "Mary Sue Litmus Test" to see if any characters being contemplated are in fact Sues/Stus.
Why Sues are so ANNOYING!
It mystifies me why Sue authors are mystified at the annoyance level of their characters.
They wander into the story completely without provocation. They mess up all the carefully established world-building that made the place so interesting in the first place. They usually snag "Hott Male of the Week" and force them into a romance even if they're gay/they're with another character/ they're evil/ they're DEAD.
Sues never have any appreciable flaws, which makes them boring. Who wants to read about someone who is pretty much perfect? And even if the Sue cops one of those annoying attitudes (you know the ones, they're generally extremely rude, slutty, or are just "... whatever" or any combination thereof) the canon characters generally love the Sue anyway. The sullen and sulky teenage "angst" attitude is glorified and rewarded in Sue fiction, when most serious readers of fanfic are tearing their hair out.
A Mary Sue fic is an example of what's known as "masturbatory writing." It's basically written only to please the author and to live out the author's fantasy. Like masturbation in real life, writing such as this really should be kept behind closed doors. However, because most Sue authors have it in their heads that they're God's Gift to Fandom, they post their crappy fantasy all over the Internet, forcing serious fans to wade through reams of the stuff to find one decent fanfic, let alone anything truly worthy of the word good. While writing Mary Sues seems to be a phase that ALL writers go through, most writers have the sense to keep their fantasies to themselves and not post them all over public forums.
Another real annoyance about Sues is the sheer incomprehensibility of the prose they're written in. Most of the Sue stories are almost impossible for a native speak of the English language to parse because of extensive grammatical and spelling errors. What is even worse is the fact that most of these Sue authors report themselves to be in the 14-16 year old range (and indeed, it is illegal for a service like fanfiction.net to provide service to authors under 13 years old because of the COPPA legislation) and the grammar and spelling of your average class of 10-11 year olds is better. And being a sub in my local public schools, I have SEEN examples of typical 10-11 year old writing. Even a seven year old has a better grasp of English grammar than most Sue authors.
Also, just FYI for any badfic author who happens upon this, it is actually one of the rules at the pit of voles that you're supposed to spellcheck your work and use proper grammar. The following is taken verbatim from the "Create a Story" screen on any logged in FFN author's account:
FanFiction.Net does not filter content and is an open system that trusts the writer's judgment. However, there is an inherent responsibility that falls to writers as a result.
Here is a list of conducts that should always be observed:
1. Spell check all stories and poems. There is no excuse for not doing this. If you do not have a word processor that has the spell checking feature, use a search engine such as Google.Com to find one.
2. Proofread all entries for grammar and other aspects of writing before submission. "Hot off the press" content is often riddled with errors. No one is perfect but it is the duty of the writer to perform to the best of his/her ability.
3. Respect the reviewers. Not all reviews will strictly praise the work. If someone rightfully criticizes a portion of the writing, take it as a compliment that the reviewer has opted to spend his/her valuable time to help improve your writing.
4. Everyone here is an aspiring writer. Respect your fellow members and lend a helping a hand when they need it. Like many things, the path to becoming a better writer is often a two way street.
5. Use proper textual formatting. For example: using only capital letters in the story title, summary, or content is not only incorrect but also a disregard for the language itself.
FanFiction.Net will take immediate action when the staff are alerted to them.
How many Sue authors do you know who follow ANY of the above rules?
This brings me to another corollary annoyance about Mary Sues. The attitudes of their authors tends to be utterly insufferable. They have a terrible tendency to track down and insult anyone who doesn't praise their work out of hand. Sue authors have started flame wars on The Mary Sue Report several times, including The Report on "Hermione's Back and She's Gonna Be Trouble
" which was Badficced here and the famous Report on "Living a lie" which was started on the 31st of March and didn't end until NEARLY A MONTH later, with 228 comments. Sue authors have also reviewed the fics of anyone who leaves less-than-glowing signed reviews to diss their work without even reading it. Sue authors also have the habit of writing long, bitchy author notes in which they rant about the bad reviews they've gotten and then POST these notes in where a full CHAPTER of a fic should go. (Several of the Mary Sue fics reviewed here at Badfic have this last feature)
Sure, most of this is typical teenage brattery. But it forces one to ask two very important questions: First off, if the writer is not serious about writing, then why did they waste precious hours of their lives spitting out Mary Sue crap? Second, if the writer IS serious about writing, then why do they attack the very people trying to point out to them that they need to improve?
Most of the answer appears to boil down to ego. Sue writers aren't in it for the storytelling. They're in it to get reviews. Somehow the review system at FFN has been perverted into some kind of status-marker, where authors measure themselves by the number of reviews they get and not the quality of their work. And since quality-control at FFN is virtually nonexistant, the Sues and their insufferable authors keep pouring in.
Bye-Bye Mary Sue!
How does one fix a Mary Sue fic?
Well, the first step would be to simply tear what's up off the Internet and rewrite the whole thing. Mary Sues tend to be the be-all and end-all of the stories they're featured in, and correcting the mistakes of the Sue require going back and re-writing the initial scenes that the Sue appears in. That said, there are a few practical steps that can be taken:
~Find a good beta reader who has a reputation for NOT fawning over an author's work. A beta reader is a wonderful person who can spot technical errors, inconsistancies, and characterization/canon errors that the author might otherwise miss. Even writers who are very VERY good tend to have at least one beta reader, because they care enough about their craft to make sure that it's the best it can possibly be. Making sure that your beta reader won't just tell you that your fic is great is also important. This means that you shouldn't ask your parents/ best friend/ younger siblings/ net friends who think just like you do to beta read your work. All of them are likely to tell you that your work is awesome when it's complete crap, just to save your feelings and/or keep from getting chewed out. Learn to take criticism like an adult and not take an attack on the story as an attack on the author. If you cannot emotionally separate yourself from your work, do not put your work on a public forum. It's that simple.
~Remember that the laws of physics apply to everyone all of the time. If you can't get a tattoo in the real world because you're underage and your parents won't sign for it, chances are that your sixteen year old punk Hermione who just ran away from home can't get one either. Characters dripping with expensive jewels in a mideval setting had better be careful when going into an urban area since an unescorted female is likely to get robbed blind by pickpockets.
~The first rule of writing ANY fanfiction is RESEARCH! Make sure that you understand the canon world WELL before trying to write any kind of fanfic. This means getting to know canon in its ENTIRETY. If, while going through canon, you find you don't like it, get a clue and don't write fanfiction for it. You can't write good Lord of the Rings fanfic if you loathe Tolkien. You can't write good Harry Potter fanfic if you can't stand any of the main characters. You can't write good Star Trek fanfic if you don't know how Starfleet works and are familiar with the major events in canon. The list goes on. There are several very good resources online for just about any fandom, so it's not like the information isn't there in easy-to-process form. That said, it is also not cool to write fanfic based strictly on an online resource. Most online resources assume at least a passing familiarity with the works they talk about. Otherwise why are you there?
~Keep canon characters IN CHARACTER. If you are unsure about your ability to do this, hone your writing skills on original fiction and do more research into canon before attempting to write fanfiction. Because fanfiction is MEANT to take the storyline, setting, and conflicts of the original in new and interesting directions, often the only link between a fanfic and its parent work is the fact that the major players are the same. In order to make this connection coherent, that means that your versions of the canon characters have to act logically given what is already known about the canon characters. This does not mean you cannot have the canon characters pick up new behavior and do things that they didn't do in canon. But it has to be LOGICAL. For example, Draco Malfoy will probably not decide overnight to love all of humanity and dedicate his life to rescuing puppies. Given his generally snotty and sarcastic attitude, the best you could probably get out of him would be a grudging acknowledgement that muggles might be useful to keep around and that mudbloods don't completely suck. While it would be OOC for Draco to suddenly declare that he'd always secretly had a crush on Harry Potter, it WOULD be IC for him to make remarks about how Harry has a nice butt (seriously speaking or not).The difference is pretty subtle, but it is there. If a canon character's behavior is to change, make sure it is done gradually and logically, and that your readers can understand WHY this change is occurring at every step.
~Make sure any original characters are HUMAN. This means giving them faults. Real faults. Like zits or stuttering or being terrible at math or hating sports or being uncoordinated or constantly making reference to "hawt guys" to the point that you want to strangle them. And when you have done this, MAKE THE OTHER CHARACTERS REACT ACCORDINGLY. A fault is not a fault if the entire world loves you for it. If your character is clumsy, have them trip over themselves and have the other characters be amused or annoyed as the situation dictates. If the character is rude, the other characters will probably avoid or even harass the rude character because of the behavior. Not everyone is going to believe that your original characters are the best thing since sliced bread.
~Remember that spellcheck is your friend! A good rule of thumb about writing is that if you wouldn't turn a piece in at school, you shouldn't post it on the Internet. Most word processors have some kind of spellchecker on them, and it isn't that hard to write and spellcheck a fic in MS Word (or it's equivalent) and then copy-paste it into the Fanfiction.net update window. And contrary to popular belief, grammar and spelling are important. The Internet is a mostly text-based medium, which means that people will get impressions of you through the way you write. Poor spelling and grammar on the Internet is the equivalent of having unwashed hair and food stuck in your teeth at an important party. You wouldn't want to come across as a slob at a party, so make sure that your language on the Internet isn't sloppy.
~FINALLY, be professional about your writing. Don't make excuses about your work. Nobody is really going to pity you that much if your first fanfic sucks. It being your first fanfic does not cancel the fact that it sucks. Also, if English is not your first language then you have two choices. You can either write in your native tongue or else do the extra work to make sure that you're coming across all right. A beta reader who is appraised of the sitaution can clear up grammatical and word choice errors easily (since, from my association with people for whom English is NOT their native language, they aren't any worse at spelling English than a native speaker of similar grade level is).
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