Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided?

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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby WarpGirl » Tue Jun 21, 2011 4:43 pm

Sorry for the double, but here's that post from AthenaPrime over on the KOTOR site, that taught me sooo very much. Just swap out all of the SW's terminology and the character name...
AthenaPrime wrote:It's not that difficult to de-sue a character. Even Revan, somewhat canonically uber-powerful. It all depends on what you choose to focus your story on.

You let them fail.

The basics of story is conflict. A character who completes everything without breaking a sweat, or maybe just through breaking a nail, is no character anyone will care about. We all keep watching Britney self-destruct because we don't know how she'll get out of it. We don't know if she'll get out of it or what state she'll be in if she does.

So you let Revan fail. On something s/he really cares about. The lightsaber frotzes, the blaster jams, the bad guys are just that prepared. How she loses can speak volumes more about her skill, personality, and relationships with other characters than how she wins.

You give Revan a personality. S/he may be able to kick lightsabered ass, but hasn't she ever made a bad decision? Give her consequences for her actions. Shooting some Sith secretary should guilt her just a little--especially if that secretary was pathetically easy to mow down. What makes Revan happy? What makes Revan sad? What does Revan most want out of life and will die if Revan does not get? For character flaws, it's great if Revan has one short leg, a paunch, or a persistently runny nose, but it won't matter squat if those things don't play an important role in the story. They aren't really handicaps or flaws if they don't actually slow him down.

You give the opponents motivations. Even and especially in non-combat situations, everybody has a motive, and those motives are selfish in many respects. The charming children and sympathetic widow are focused primarily on their own survival, not in making Revan feel good for charity.

It doesn't matter if the Sith Lord's a crybaby or not. People cry. You can make easy justification for a Darth Crybaby that would make a great character. Just because Anakin was a melodramatic emo-kid doesn't mean a kickass Sith assassin might not shed tears. People are quirky that way. Who's really more interesting--the coldblooded remorseless killer, or the coldblooded remorseless killer who sheds tears for every victim and has a soft spot for kittens, gizkas, and orphan twi'leks, and a thing for the color orange?
Some of these people haven't taken their medication. Let's see what happens now...
Donna Moss: The West Wing


And by people WG had herself in mind, but then the quote would have been ruined.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby Transwarp » Wed Jun 22, 2011 7:09 am

I'm coming late to the party, but I may as well offer my thoughts up for consideration: I say if you follow most of the well-established and oft-repeated tenets of good story telling, you don't need to worry about Mary Sues.

WarpGirl quoting AthenaPrime wrote:The basics of story is conflict. A character who completes everything without breaking a sweat, or maybe just through breaking a nail, is no character anyone will care about.

So there you have the root of the problem--no one will care for a character who is never in danger or in trouble or hurt or conflicted. Your characters must suffer, or bleed, or both, as they strive to overcome the obstacles that the evil author (that's you!) has set before them. There must be something at stake. There must be penalties for failure. The readers must care what happens next or they will NOT bother to read.

As a general rule, anything that distracts your readers, that pulls them out of the story, that makes them draw back and ponder the STRUCTURE of the story rather than the story itself, is a bad thing.

So, how does one accomplish this? Uh... uhm... well.. uh... Hell, I don't know.

The best advice I can give is to trust your ear. If you read back what you've written (preferably the next day), and it sounds flat to your ear or it bores you, then it will probably do the same to your readers. You should either rewrite that section or maybe even delete it completely. (Quite possibly it's a scene that doesn't need to be there.) As JustTripn said earlier:

JustTripn wrote:My advice was if it's not shocking, surprising, funny, heartbreaking, touching, or otherwise interesting, cut it and get to the part that is. And yes you can jump from one exciting event to the next. People will connect the dots, filling in the blanks from their own imagination without even noticing they are doing it.


When I'm writing a space battle, I don't concentrate on the explosions, or the phase cannon hits, or the gaping holes blown in the hull. You need a little of that, to be sure, but more than a little is boring. If you've seen one crippled starship trailing warp plasma from its scorched engine nacelles, you've seen them all. I tend to skip to the battle's decision points; those moments when the characters must decide what to do next. Why? Because they MIGHT make the wrong choice. That's when the stakes are highest. Those are the moments when the battle is won or lost. Those are the moments when the tension is highest, when we can see our characters at their finest (or at their weakest). Always remember your story is about PEOPLE, not ships or weapons or explosions. And the more REAL you make the characters, the more engaged you'll make your reader, and the less you'll need to be concerned about Mary Sues and Gary Stus.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby WarpGirl » Wed Jun 22, 2011 11:26 am

And here's where most authors (in any fandom), and ENT especially lose touch... Once the characters are out of their nasty situation there
must be reprecussions, beyond the immediate consequences!


I can't stress this enough. Everybody knows I hated the whole TD storyline. But what added insult to injury, was that supposedly T'Pol's control was perminently damaged. Yet, after this diagnosis, it was never even thought of again! It was the same with the pa'nar, how many seasons passed before it was even mentioned again? It was the same with Hoshi's torture.

And I know people are going to say all Treks did it!. Yeah, in some cases they did. But here's the thing... It was not as previlant! I'm sorry it just wasn't. Examples... Picard being Assimilated, the entire plot of VOY was seven years of carry over from one choice, and there were dozens more. Kirk, and Kahn... I seem to remember a few with Gul Dukat, and Garek on DS9 but nothing specific.

Nobody, nobody, wants to read page after page of conflict only to have it disappear by the time you reach the phraze "The End."
Some of these people haven't taken their medication. Let's see what happens now...
Donna Moss: The West Wing


And by people WG had herself in mind, but then the quote would have been ruined.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby Cogito » Wed Jun 22, 2011 11:45 am

And yet, isn't it the cardinal rule of serial cartoons that you always start each episode in the same state? This probably tells us something about the audience that the Trek writers were thinking of.

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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby WarpGirl » Wed Jun 22, 2011 11:54 am

:tears: Then I must be defective, I never watched cartoons as a child. Wasn't really allowed, well The Jetsons, and The Flintstones were acceptable. But here's the thing... A television series like ST, or Stargate, or even Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants, (don't laugh I had a very unusual upbringing when it came to what we were allowed to entertain ourselves with) are just that series! If ST was supposed to be a massive collection of self contained oneshots, then why have multiple story Arcs, in the course of 4 years?
Some of these people haven't taken their medication. Let's see what happens now...
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And by people WG had herself in mind, but then the quote would have been ruined.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby putaro » Wed Jun 22, 2011 11:55 am

Cogito wrote:And yet, isn't it the cardinal rule of serial cartoons that you always start each episode in the same state?


Situation comedies as well. And with the original Star Trek, you can pretty much pick up any episode and not worry about what came before. There's not that much continuity.

This is an area where I would cut TV writers a little slack but not so much for print authors (including fan fiction writers). A TV writer has a lot of different pressures that the print author doesn't and a lot less control than a print author does.

I would say, though, that publishing serially, as a lot of fan fiction authors do, shares some of the same problems that a TV writer does. Even if you have your whole plot laid out when you start, it stands a good chance of taking an unexpected turn or two when you're not expecting it and things that you introduced back in chapter 1 are no longer relevant, or perhaps you'd like to go back and change them, but...

If you don't publish until you're finished you have the option of going back and fixing things. On the other hand, I know that I can polish and refine endlessly and if I didn't push chapters out I'd probably never get around to publishing.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby WarpGirl » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:04 pm

Well sitcoms were strictly forbidden for me until I was 8. And then it was only Growing Pains, Full House, The Nanny, and Family Matters, BUT in my teen years I discovered Dharma and Greg! And again, that whole premise was based on the consequences of actions. And a lot got carried over there too.

Look I totally agree, that TV writing is a strange beast. I mean seriously, it's weird. Ocassionally, you get an amazing Arron Sorkin, John Wells, or Jeffery Zucker. And I totally get that you can't bring every little choice back into the mix. But biggies like chronic illness, torture, and what-not are useless if not used.

Besides, we don't write TV we write fanfic, since we don't have hot actors, a special effects budget, cool makeup, and costumes. We have to approach things differently. :lol: 8)
Some of these people haven't taken their medication. Let's see what happens now...
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And by people WG had herself in mind, but then the quote would have been ruined.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby putaro » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:12 pm

WarpGirl wrote:Besides, we don't write TV we write fanfic, since we don't have hot actors, a special effects budget, cool makeup, and costumes. We have to approach things differently. :lol: 8)


Yes, lack of shiny things means you'd better have some plot!
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby Cogito » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:16 pm

putaro wrote:you can pretty much pick up any episode and not worry about what came before. There's not that much continuity.


It is very rare that an episode refers to anything in a different episode. And despite that, we keep getting the "previously, on Star Trek Enterprise, ..." intros just in case our feeble minds have forgotten what the show is about or can't cope with any detail that isn't explained to us in excruciating detail. It seems obvious that the producers were catering for viewers who were not regular viewers and forgot what they had seen immediately the show ended. And that probably explains why the show was more about special effects and fast ships and big tits and sharp betleths and so on, and not so much about continuity or character development or plot.

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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby WarpGirl » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:25 pm

Actually, I think that's unfair to TOS. You have to also take into consideration that this was the "60's." They couldn't delve into the consequences of torture, sleeping with the ailen girl of the week, and warfare. You couldn't put it on screen! There were recurring villians: Khan, Mudd... And they even dealt with Spock's hang-ups over what happened with Pike. Once the series was over, they did a lot with the movies. David showed up twice, and the consequences of his death made an impact not only on the relationship between the "Big 3" when it came to the Klingons negotiating with the Federation, but the fate of the entire ST universe.

Today there is a lot less sensorship. Things like torture, and conequnces of drug addiction are put on air almost every night. So TOS can also be seen as a victim of it's own time.
Some of these people haven't taken their medication. Let's see what happens now...
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And by people WG had herself in mind, but then the quote would have been ruined.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby putaro » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:36 pm

I think you guys are talking about different shows.

Khan only showed up once in TOS that I can think of. Mudd was twice. Some of the Klingons showed up a couple of times.

It's a different type of story telling. We were all a lot more forgiving of the cheesy acting, cheesy special effects and some times overly preachy writing in TOS because it was new, we hadn't seen anything better, and a lot of the plots hadn't been done.

Enterprise recycled more than one of the TOS plotlines and since we'd already seen them, it didn't go over well. Like "Chosen Realm" with the terrorists was basically the same plot as "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" (with the black/white guys fighting over which side should be white/black).

If you're going to doing the same plot you need to add some twists or some really good character interaction or SOMETHING so that people don't just go "Oh, I know this plot."
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby WarpGirl » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:53 pm

Worst offense when it came to recycling plots in ENT The Communicator... :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: Now, sometimes recycling works. I happen to think Dawn was quite good comparatively speaking, when it comes to ENT episodes. But that said, Patrick Stewert is HUGE shoes to fill! CT did very well. The alien guy was not quite as compelling...

Anyway... TV is one beast, and fic is another. Good fic writers don't think like TV writers.

Ooooh and neither do video game writers. Here's an example, David Gaider, Game developer for Bioware (or he was the last time I checked) wrote and developed the original SW's Knights of the Old Republic game. And wonder of wonders, he wrote a fanfic! He generously allowed it to be posted, and did what he couldn't do writing the RPG. It was brilliant! And he said in his little Author's note how different it was, and how he was touched and amazed by what fic writers could do with his "baby".
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And by people WG had herself in mind, but then the quote would have been ruined.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby Silverbullet » Wed Jun 22, 2011 2:15 pm

Some of the TOS plots were good and some asinine. At times I wanted to turn of the TV but it was SciFi done in Prime time that wasn't Grade ZZ. The first season we got an awaful lot of Kirk's raunch. Second Season much more of Spock, McCoy and a little of Scotty. Second and third seasons started to make TOS but the suits didn't understand it and zapped the series. I have one or two favorite episodes of TOS and a couple that still makes me cringe. I believe one problem was that Roddenbury didn't hire some more professional SciFi writers. when he did there were some great episodes. I belive Roddenbury did hire some good directors and Potographers plus special effects companies that were state of the art at the time.

Ent did't do much of what it should have. Better writers, continuity was deserperately needed. Character development (at least in TOS there was some) Professional directors. One or two that were used for all episodes and seasons so they would have a handle on the characters. Instead we got poor everything. Exceptions being CT's acting and JB's beauty.

I was always irked at the Photographer. He/she loved photographing directly in to bright lights. All that was seen was a very bright screen. Couldn't see the Actors or the action just those damned lights. In the past photographers understood that the camera was supposed to be the actor looking at things being lit by his light(s) These photographers instead made the lights the actor and drowned out everything. Guess it is the fad of the day. so often I see it in other TV shows. Especially the shot of the Sun through tree limbs or Bright lights and nothing else.

I guess all of have in mind what we would have done had we owned the Star Trek franchise and the Ent series.

Conflict doesn't mean tha the main characters must be playing the perils of Pauline each week. Conflict was the basis of the third season and that was between the Xindi and the HUmans. Stupid but Conflict. Other than that it was a series of seperate episodes where Archer was the only character allowed to do anything.

Ent needed to be an Ensemble series (I keep harping on this but it is true) it needed episodes devoted to one of the other characters or a while Arc. In which Archer was left out other than he was the Commander of Enteprise in the background.

Malcolms background in Section 31 was fertile soil for some good episodes. Hosi's background. It was only revealed at the end of season four that she was a gambled and a martial arts expert. What could have been done with that?

Brining us to Trip and T'Pol. It could have taken up no more than 5 percent of the sries but out of that the whole romance could have been developed.

I guess I am rambling. It is early in the morning here in Arizona. I am tired, as usual. Old people tend to ramble anyway.

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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby putaro » Thu Jun 23, 2011 7:51 am

Silverbullet wrote:Conflict doesn't mean that the main characters must be playing the perils of Pauline each week.


This is certainly true. What I was taught, long, long ago, was that conflict is the basis for plot and there are only so many basic conflicts (and "man" is used here in the huMan sense, not male/female sense):

Man vs Man
Man vs Nature
Man vs Supernatural
Man vs Himself
Man vs Society
Man vs Machine/Technology
Man vs Destiny

Sounds trite, but when you break down plots this is what you come up with (for the purposes of this discussion, aliens and robots will be treated as "men").

Conflict doesn't necessarily mean wars and explosions (though it includes that). It's more like a contest. And it doesn't have to be resolved, or even "won". But it will exist or you don't have a story.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby WarpGirl » Thu Jun 23, 2011 11:28 am

Very, true. However, part of writing most sci-fi is that 90% of the time it is inherently dangerous. Dangerous aliens, dangerous natural phenomina, dangerous technology... There's a reason that most of the time the crew is in a bad spot working furiously to get out alive. It's also why most of the best stories feature some kind of danger in them. space is dangerous!
Some of these people haven't taken their medication. Let's see what happens now...
Donna Moss: The West Wing


And by people WG had herself in mind, but then the quote would have been ruined.
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