Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → Mary Sue (test your character here!)
| 49 | 15107 |
Phew, I just almost got pwnt by a vacuum cleaner c.c
Anyway, Mary Sue was a 70s TV show character in which the premise was essentially that no matter what happened, she would always come out on top. This was found to have no literary credibility and therefore since then the term "Mary Sue" is taken to mean a character that is unrealistic for the world it inhabits because it appeals to so many cliches or has unreasonable powers/abilities. In general if your character is recognised as a Mary Sue, this is a sign of an incomplete character, immature or drastically overdone writing though sometimes this is more undesirable than other times.
Specifically Mary Sues are contextual and apply more to fanfiction characters as the typical Mary Sue author would be one who wants to write their character into a popular universe so much that they end up hijacking it to the extent that people just roll their eyes and call them a crap writer. However, the same characteristics carry over across various types of writing, so I've found the following guide to be extremely helpful:
The Mary-Sue litmus test
This guide is very handy if you are interested in developing a multi-dimensional character that people would actually be interested to read about without puking. As the author of this quiz does say, it's not perfect and a high score does not necessarily mean you have to kill the character or change it, but personally I encourage a healthy sense of detachment from your character's story so you are still able to tell what actually makes good writing and what just makes us say "yeah, right."
You are welcome to post your scores here and make comments naturally. For example, Orlestat, who is the main character in a novel I've just decided to rewrite (yes, rewrite) an entire book of, comes in at 17, which for my purposes is spot on. But he started out closer to a 30, and it took me a lot of angst and chipping away to get him right. Strop, on the other hand, comes in at 34 mostly because Strop is a highly autobiographical character and the target audience of the stuff he is involved in is already familiar with him, so I'm confident of getting away with that despite the score.
- 49 Replies
To lazy to comment on other people's posts.
Xzeno got a 26, which was much less then I expected. I felt like I was cheating not checking so many boxes, but hey, 26 isn't too little. He mainly got his points from violence. (Does your character solve his problems with violence? Yes he does!) Despite having a verity of powerful abilities, I didn't really check many boxes pertaining to them, as I rolled a balanced character with normal race and class. The races and classes are all ridiculously over-powered, which works in an RPG.
I just tested a whole flock of demigodlike beings. 26 of them. All together, they scored 29...
Xzeno got a 26, which was much less then I expected. I felt like I was cheating not checking so many boxes, but hey, 26 isn't too little. He mainly got his points from violence. (Does your character solve his problems with violence? Yes he does!) Despite having a verity of powerful abilities, I didn't really check many boxes pertaining to them, as I rolled a balanced character with normal race and class. The races and classes are all ridiculously over-powered, which works in an RPG.
( this is a fun test, I admit it =) )
Strengths give you points (worse), while weaknesses make you lose points (better). Just a basic form of how things work.
I could go for around a 30-40 before I decide that I made my character too powerful. Main characters or important figures cannot look like wimps, but cannot be gods either.
Mine was a creature that hunts in the night, and does a great job of doing so. Because of this, he is blind, deaf, mute, but can think rationally and uses his mind to locate and kill. He used to be a human, but was born by abusive parents and thrown out on the streets.
Some doctors found him, found out that he didn't belong to anyone, so they decided to use him as an experiment. The results made the weaknesses above, but when night fell, officials found that no one was alive at the scene and the cell bars were bent and broken off. The humans that occupied the building were just sacks of skin; the bodies were hallowed out.
Well I just took the test for all three of my characters.Over Growth was the only one that got a really poor score,but thats probably because he is a special cursed summoned creature with unnormal everything and special magical powers and is both smart and the best at growing plants or something like that.Anyways here are the scores.Its a good thing I rarely use Over Growth...
Sasquatch:20
Yeti:17
Over Growth:76
I was fairly truthful about the tests so I think that could be considered final scores for them.
Mine was a creature that hunts in the night, and does a great job of doing so. Because of this, he is blind, deaf, mute, but can think rationally and uses his mind to locate and kill. He used to be a human, but was born by abusive parents and thrown out on the streets.
Some doctors found him, found out that he didn't belong to anyone, so they decided to use him as an experiment. The results made the weaknesses above, but when night fell, officials found that no one was alive at the scene and the cell bars were bent and broken off. The humans that occupied the building were just sacks of skin; the bodies were hallowed out.
Out of interest..
Does this being still look human and have human anatomy or is it just insanely strong and savage? Also did the experiments destroy the memory of this being from before the experiment, does it know of human moral codes or is it just a killing machine?
Phil got a 25.
I went back a second time to make sure I was being truthful, and I got 27.
The music one is the one that killed me. I play guitar and bass, and so I made Phil play guitar and cello.
Yeah.
I had like every single music thing checked.
I'm going to take that other Mary Sue test soon.
And yeah...stuff.
Does this being still look human and have human anatomy or is it just insanely strong and savage? Also did the experiments destroy the memory of this being from before the experiment, does it know of human moral codes or is it just a killing machine?
The post I put down was just a basic summary. Yes, it's still a human, so it has human characteristics. It still retains its memories, and is using them to take revenge on those that abused it. Moral codes have gone chaotic.
This is what came up when I took the other Mary-Sue test. For Phil:
Phil is suspiciously similar to you as you'd like to be. He isn't really very cool: he blends into crowds, he hangs out on the fringes at parties, and wearing shades after dark makes him run into things. He may have sometimes thought that he was special, or destined for greater things, but probably dismissed the idea as a fantasy. He's got no emotional scars to speak of. And he's gotten no slack from you.
In general, you care deeply about Phil, but you're smart enough to let him stand on his own, without burdening him with your personal fantasies or propping him up with idealization and over-dramatization. Phil is a healthy character with a promising career ahead of him.
It's OK, but I could've done better. That does kinda give some funny mental images...
*wishes I could draw Phil talking to a pole at nigh time with sunglasses*
Yeah.....
i got 35. I think I may of filled inthe wrong section, and awnsered a few questions i should have left out.
That was On ding BTW. Were did you find this Strop?
Oh, we have a larger group running around in the dark with shades on, bumping into things. Someone need to draw that!
yeah when I took the second test I got the same things about walking in the dark wearing shades,although I forgot to copy the paragraph down and post it here....oh well.
yeah when I took the second test I got the same things about walking in the dark wearing shades,although I forgot to copy the paragraph down and post it here....oh well.
You guys got a paragraph? I didn't, or maybye i misssed it. All i got was my score at the bottom. Where is the paragraph on your character?
In my first post in this thread, Woody. It is a second test, with a little bit better answer.
O right thanks. Heres the answer i got.
David Cooper is suspiciously similar to you as you'd like to be. He is not at all cool; in fact, he thinks cool is a temperature reading, and when he says "Oh, I just put on whatever old thing's lying around," he means "on the floor, where I threw it last night - but I turned the underwear inside out first." There's never been anything special about him that he could see; boy, is he in for a surprise. He's got no emotional scars to speak of. And he's gotten no slack from you.
In general, you care deeply about David Cooper, but you're smart enough to let him stand on his own, without burdening him with your personal fantasies or propping him up with idealization and over-dramatization. David Cooper is a healthy character with a promising career ahead of him.
apparantly Nergy is the biggest dang mary sue out there.
Thought I was being original. . .dang technicalities <_<U.
*goes into the backyard and beats the Nergyl Child with a baseball bat*
You must be logged in to post a reply!