Mary Sues and How to Deal With Them

Ah, the dreaded Mary Sue and her male partner in perfect evil the Gary Stu. Somehow, despite our hardest efforts they manage to creep into every single piece of writing no matter how vigilant we are to keep out these little rascals. This instalment in the Weapons for Writers series will teach you how to pinpoint a Mary Sue or Gary Stu and how to deal with them.

“‘But I’m just a normal, regular girl!’ She cried, her beautiful inky black hair rippling in the moonlight even though she didn’t really care about it that much. He leaned in close to her, his darkly rimmed eyes staring into her bright blue ones. His hair was blacker than hers; shaggy and spiky.

‘But you’re not,’ He whispered huskily, kissing her even though they’d only met two minutes ago. All of a sudden, she grew wings! Then a bunch of bad guys came out of nowhere, and even though she had had no physical training whatsoever, she kicked 22 baddies butts without messing up her hair or her perfectly-but-totally-not makeup….”

Both of the above characters are prime examples of Mary Sues/Gary Stus. The appearance and characteristics of the average Mary Sue/Gary Stu changes with each generation of writing – once it was blondes, but now they’re a lot more frightening…

Mary Sues

·         Long black hair

·         Bright or oddly coloured eyes

·         Pretty, delicate face

·         Slender but curvy

·         Significantly shorter than the male lead

·         Dresses in ‘emo’ clothes; skinnies always floating around

·         Doesn’t ‘care’ about appearance or make up but somehow manages to pull it off

·         Feisty, fiery and pissed off for no reason

·         No self esteem

·         Co-dependent

·         Not really interesting, not much personality.

Gary Stu Appearance

·         Longish shaggy/spikey dark hair

·         Bright or oddly coloured eyes

·         Handsome

·         Super fit; abs, but not bulging muscles

·         Tight t-shirts

·         Skinnies

·         Tall

·         Confident

·         Often wears eyeliner

·         Detached

·         Strong and silent type

·         Cold

If some of your characters are starting to sound eerily like a Mary Sue or Gary Stu, then don’t throw your writing away and hide in a corner. We often uncover Mary Sues/Gary Stus in our writing because they are easy to write. They come perfectly pre-packaged, which is exactly their downfall. Mary Sues and Gary Stus can’t evolve as characters, and they fall flat on the page.

So you’ve found some Mary Sue and Gary Stu infestations in that piece of writing…

Whatever you do, don’t throw it away!!! I cannot stress how important that is. You can turn almost everything around. Ask questions about your characters – why is he so detached? Did he have a bad childhood experience? How can I make him unique and real?

Also, unless there is a super good reason like their parents were uber hippies, don’t name your characters Tiger or Falcon or Thyme or Moonlight. Falcons are birds, thyme is a herb and moonlight is moonlight. They aren’t names – surnames, maybe, but most parents don’t name their kids Daybreak or Amity or whatever.

Work on them. I read this one really good piece of advice somewhere – “Novels are like bread dough. You have to beat the hell out of them to get them to rise and work.”

Characters are the same way, so don’t be scared to grab that baseball bat.

There is one thing that a lot of writers forget and it turns super Mary Sue…

That ‘one thing’ is the family and school. Teenagers have parents and friends and school/work commitments – they can’t just disappear and go on a fantasy adventure. Mom and Dad would be worried sick, and their faces would be on milk cartons everywhere.

At least have your delinquent characters call their close family members before going off on a month-long excursion to defeat Supremo Bad Guy.

~

Work, work, and work more on your characters. Bios and back stories really help; even if they never make it into the final draft, your writing will be more confident and readers will be convinced that yes, you do know those pesky characters like the back of your hand.