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 » Sun Jun 19, 2011 6:49 pm

Oh I don't think Archer is a "Gary Stu" either. While he may have always been triumphant, he most certainly was not universally adored. And you're absolutely right, if he had been a true "Gary Stu" he wouldn't have had to drag an injured Hoshi to the Reptilian Ship at all.

This is precisely why I do not want to turn this thread into something about Archer himself. Some of the things that happened in episodes are the starting steps of turning a character into a Mary Sue or a Gary Stu. But Archer absolutely does not qualify!

PS If anyone wants to talk about Archer, they can go here... viewtopic.php?f=3&t=191 or here... viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1708

But I think comments here should be limited to certain things done that fit into the mold of writing a POTENTIAL Sue/Stuish character.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby Asso » Sun Jun 19, 2011 7:34 pm

putaro wrote:Well, I agree with SB's points but I don't think they make Archer into a Gary Stu. It's poor writing but of another kind.

On the Xindi weapon, a Gary Stu would have been the one to break the code, the one to fight all the reptilians, sent Trip and T'Pol a message explaining how to zap the spheres, etc.

Archer getting all the credit and not sharing it around just makes him a jerk

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

Postby WarpGirl » Sun Jun 19, 2011 8:16 pm

Well let's be fair, he at least gave vague credit to people in his speech when they came home. Let's look...
ARCHER: I've been told that people are calling us heroes. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me. But I think it's important that we remember the heroes who aren't with us. the twenty seven crewmen who didn't make it back. Without their sacrifice, I wouldn't be standing here right now. None of us would. But I'm sure I speak on behalf of my entire crew when I say it's good to be home.


So let's not go so overboard that we blow bad writing out of proportion. Did other Trek Captains do better? Yes! Picard especially, but Sisko, Kirk, and yes all you VOY haters, Janeway did much better at praising their crews, and offering promotions and commendation both written and medals.

But it's not like Archer had an attitude of "Bow to me I and I alone saved the human race!" Hopefully we can now take Archer's flaws and virtues to the appropriate threads.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby justTripn » Sun Jun 19, 2011 9:31 pm

I haven't seen too much of the Mary Sue problem in fanfic, but as putaro says, sometimes I see the whole crew being a little too perfect in fanfic. I agree with putaro, if there is no conflict and everthing is going fine, skip it! Skip to the part with the conflict. I used to give this advice out all the time to first time writers who would write a story which was a basically a huge group hug. Like: "I love you." "No, I love you more!" "What?!!! Trip and T'Pol, you are a couple, now?!! Well that's suprising, but so happy for you both." "What? And there is a baby on the way? That's wonderful!!!!"

ARGGHHHHH!!!!!

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.

As for the Mary Sue problem in particular, Distracted helped me with that one. I was afraid my Tiva, the Triannon missionary would become a Mary Sue, because she was an introduced character in love with Trip and some of her background was the same as mine. D. told me to match her to a real person and give her all the positive and negative character traits of that person. So I did. I got some feedback that some people were surprised by her negative traits. They expected her to be a hero with no negative traits. One beta was like, "So she's trying to save the world and is a good person?" Correct. "So why did she just dump So-and-So?" Same reason she fell for him in the first place. Because she is flightly.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby WarpGirl » Sun Jun 19, 2011 9:56 pm

I find it so funny that when people (and I've had this discussion with many different writers all wildly different) talk about "what not to do," and "what to do," when it comes to avoiding the "Sue" effect, is that you look it and think "Oh that's so easy! I can do that with my eyes closed." Then when you take a good long look, you realize...

OMG I'M GOING NUTS HELP!!!!!!!!!

Avoiding writing a Sue or Stu is hard work. And what you may consider to be a henious flaw others might consider a virtue. But I think it's important that all new writers remember that adding nasty personality traits DOES NOT guarentee your character is a not a Sue/Stu! A character can be a first class jerk, but if there aren't any consequences he or she is still Sue/Stu. And by consequences I don't just mean the prequisite comupence. I mean consequences that reach outside of that character.

Also it is possible to write a character that is genuinely good and not fall victim to the trap, an example I used before was a cooking disaster. Here's what I meant...

Suppose it's Malcolm and Hoshi's aniversery. Malcolm wants to do something nice so he decides to grab a hot-plate and make her a meal for a change. Of course he wants to make something very, very, special. So he finds a recipy he's never made, but knows Hoshi will love. So he cooks the meal, but what he didn't realize was the outside cooked faster than the inside and the whole dish is undercooked. Hoshi ends up deathly ill in sickbay.

Right there is an example of both epic failure and severe consequences! And those are the types of things that kill any potential Sue.

Another thing I like to do it take a virtue and turn it into a handicap. For example...

Take a character and make them a neat freak, to the point of OCD. Every time the person walks into a room they straighten pictures, fluff throw pillows, and go a little bonkers if the carpet isn't vaccumed in a checkerboard pattern. So they will head to the closet and grab the vaccume.

How do people deal with this person? How does this person function? What do they have to do to make sure their weakness doesn't cripple them? They did a whole TV show about this character! It's called, Monk! :lol:

The bottom line is it's not easy to make a rich complex character. But the effort is well worth it.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby putaro » Mon Jun 20, 2011 5:33 am

WarpGirl wrote:
Suppose it's Malcolm and Hoshi's aniversery. Malcolm wants to do something nice so he decides to grab a hot-plate and make her a meal for a change. Of course he wants to make something very, very, special. So he finds a recipy he's never made, but knows Hoshi will love. So he cooks the meal, but what he didn't realize was the outside cooked faster than the inside and the whole dish is undercooked. Hoshi ends up deathly ill in sickbay.

Right there is an example of both epic failure and severe consequences! And those are the types of things that kill any potential Sue.


Kill Sue? Closer to killing Hoshi! :tears: Thank you, I'll be here all week.

It doesn't have to be so dramatic - too much drama doesn't read realistically either. It could also just be that Hoshi eats it, says it's wonderful, Malcolm thinks he's great and then you could switch to Hoshi's POV and how she's working really hard to eat this terrible meal.

My wife and I have a bunch of little cross-cultural stories (she's Japanese and I'm American) that we enjoy. For example, there was the time she was sick and wanted tonjiru (it's a Japanese pork soup - really yummy, actually) - nothing else would do. I said fine, I have a Japanese cookbook, I'll make some. No, no, no, you're an American you can't make it, you'll screw it up. Turns out I make a damn good tonjiru - mainly because I actually read and follow the directions in cookbooks.

That kind of episode would work well for our cross-cultural couples like TnT or Malcolm-Hoshi.

I think T'Pol often starts to veer toward Mary Sue-ism in some fan fictions. She's smart, telepathic, the perfect wife, always horny (for Trip only), puts up with Trip's human customs but doesn't make too many demands of her own, everyone thinks she's wildly attractive.

You know, I think Jolene/T'Pol is damn hot, but she's not necessarily every man's cup of tea. From certain angles she's kind of funny looking, and she could be described as being on the skinny side. Some men like tall, or petite (Jolene's 5'6" - that's not petite. Ambassador V'Lar - Fionnula Flanagan - is 5'2 - that's closer to petite. Funny, I thought Linda Park was shorter than Jolene but she's actually 5'7". Must be those heels they always had T'Pol wearing), blondes, brunettes, Asians, etc. T'Pol is basically humorless and that's a turnoff for a lot of guys. And as for the sex - well, I could see a lot of "Not tonight honey, I need to meditate."

And making the character less perfect makes the character MORE interesting not less interesting. Fluff pieces are fun and I'm not criticizing them as a genre. But, there's only so many ways to tell the story of "happily ever after." Throw in how they get over a disagreement or cultural misunderstanding and it's a lot more interesting.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby WarpGirl » Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:39 am

When I said "deathly ill" I didn't mean actually dying. :tears: I kinda meant what happens to me if I eat onions. Severe cramps, upset stomach, and I'm usually on the floor somwhere pleading for it to stop before my insides turn into my outsides.

As I've said before, I have seen T'Pol turned Sue-ish. I find stories that when TnT are finally in a comitted relationship and they never, get angry with each other, or fight ever again in a serious way, kind of sad. Not only because I think it's massively OOC, because these two people are hard headed, stubborn and have completely different ways of looking at things...

But also because a real relationship, has arguements, disagreements, and both people will hurt the other at times. That's part of love to. Nobody loves anyone because they're "perfect." We love people even though they can make us angry, hurt, and even at times break our hearts. It's when people stick together with all the imperfection that makes a love story compelling.

Putaro wrote:And making the character less perfect makes the character MORE interesting not less interesting.... Throw in how they get over a disagreement or cultural misunderstanding and it's a lot more interesting.


I like to write those fics. :oops: :D
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby Silverbullet » Mon Jun 20, 2011 4:39 pm

I have read some stories where T'Pol ws less than perfect. I hated them. As far as I am concerned canon is that she loves Trip and Trip alone that she would be faithful to him. Once she had resolved things in her mind. Sure a lot of guys see her as the perfect woman. They idealize her. Kowing full well that they would never meet her or her kind. I always saw Trip and T'Pol's love like those brave types in the late 50's and early 60's blacks and whites who became couples. Society, law, custom was against them. But nonetheless a few went public. Took guts in some places. I know from experieince. I wantd to marry a black woman who knew that it wouldn't work for a long time and she wasn't sure what our redception would be like in the Foreign Service. She wouldn't do it. We broke up after that. She is one of the only three women I remember (other htan my wife) from my past.

Might ask JT if she has had any problems from her mixed marriage.

Trip is Human, T'Pol is vulcan. The difference would be much greater than Black and White on Earth. At least Black and White are both human.

Loving a woman in the face of that would take great courage and she would have to be quite a woman in his eyes to justify the cost.

So excuse me if I see perfection in T'Pol. She is one of the most beloved haracter I know from Film, TV or print media.

Pity her charctr ws in the hands of such poor writers who never semed to either care or didn't understand what they had.

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

Postby WarpGirl » Mon Jun 20, 2011 5:26 pm

SB I'm pretty sure Putaro and I were not equating "perfection" with fidelity. I also believe T'Pol loves Trip and would be faithful to him. However, fidelity isn't a gurentee of a problem free marriage. There can be other issues they would face together. Things that they would disagree and argue about. Things that hurt each other. But nobody is saying anything about T'Pol being with other men.
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby Silverbullet » Mon Jun 20, 2011 7:25 pm

Yes, they would have problems. like having children, could they? If they coud would they want to bring a child in to what would be a hostile environment. Child would have acceptance problems among some on Earth and Vulcan. How do you raise and protect a child in that kind of world. Would the child be betrothed at seven? (I always believed that T'Pol actually was against that) but she would have Vulcan Society to contend with plus her clan. Trip would not want it but might for T'Pol's sake. The child when he/she got older might not want to be betrothed and rebel, refusing the engagement. What waould T'Pol do? Let the child do as he/she wishes or insist on tradition and custom which are very impoortant to her.

respecting customs and traditioons of each others Society. BIG difference there. Could Trip remember to keep his hands off T'Pol on vulcan and could T'Pol learn to accept Trip's affectionate hugs, pats and hand holding in public n Earth.

but that is somewhat like what humans go through when they mary in to a different cultre and society than the one they came from. There are those who come from a reserved culture like Sweden or Japan who might be appaled at the Italians boistrous life style of closeness, speaking with their hands as much ass the voice.

Sure there would be issues but nothing that couldn't be worked out. Especially if they subscribed to "Never take an argument to bed with you."

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

Postby WarpGirl » Mon Jun 20, 2011 7:36 pm

But that's what Putaro and I were trying to say. Too often T'Pol in fanfic always comes around to the "human POV" Suppose she wanted their sons betrothed early because she didn't want to risk the Pon Farr killing them... Because of their human DNA there is no way for any Doctor to have a frame of reference to even begin to guess at what might happen. So T'Pol being a loving mother wants to cover all of the bases.

What is NOT REALISTIC is for T'Pol to constantly concede to Trip's wishes. And frankly 8 times out of 10 in fanfic she does. That's why Putaro and I say she is "Suefied" regularly.
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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 Cogito » Mon Jun 20, 2011 7:52 pm

"Suefied".

Is that even a real word?

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

Postby WarpGirl » Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:02 pm

I learned it from a professional author on the SW's site where I got my start in fic. So maybe she made it up. But it's a good word. 8)
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Re: Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu What Are They? How Can They Be Avoided

Postby Cogito » Mon Jun 20, 2011 9:05 pm

:roll:

You were supposed to say "Of course it is. Just ask Hoshi, she uses it all the time."

:duh:

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

Postby WarpGirl » Mon Jun 20, 2011 9:08 pm

Have I mentioned I take almost everything literally. I'm working on it. :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:
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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