Post by Sophia Mayfair on Dec 20, 2006 3:03:02 GMT -5
Okay, let me just start off about saying how much Mary-sue characters just get on my nerves. I know how much you want your character to be the perfect one, everybody liking them, but that can just get on people’s nerves! You HAVE to have enemies! Okay, so enough of my rambling…you get the picture that I hate Mary-sue characters.
A Mary-sue character is (as you may have guessed) a ‘perfect’ person. They have the most glorious, perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect clothes…they have the cutest boy for their boyfriend, they have every boy drooling over them. It occurs basically on every site you are on, that there will be (or is someone) who has developed a Mary-sue character, and they act like they are perfect, and believe me, I’ve had to deny applications because the characters were too ‘perfect’
Number One ~ The Personality
[/u]A Mary-sue character is (as you may have guessed) a ‘perfect’ person. They have the most glorious, perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect clothes…they have the cutest boy for their boyfriend, they have every boy drooling over them. It occurs basically on every site you are on, that there will be (or is someone) who has developed a Mary-sue character, and they act like they are perfect, and believe me, I’ve had to deny applications because the characters were too ‘perfect’
Number One ~ The Personality
Enemies! Has your character none? Is their personality so dividing, separated and everything else? Does EVERYONE like them? Please take a while to think about this. Having no enemies makes your character, sure, the ‘Queen Bee’ if you like, but that can annoy most admins and members. No one likes a perfect character. Having a perfect character can also be very hard to play. They can’t have any fears; they can’t be scared, shy, and afraid of anything. They must be very confident; they must be able to do EVERYTHING that ANYONE can. You wont be able to make them fall off their bike, get lost, feel scared or lonely, always get straight As on tests. Sit down at a table with a pen and paper, and write about what YOU want your character to be like. Are they confident in what they do? If so, have they ANY flaws about their life? Did they have a horrible childhood…have they no parents, did their parents remarry, get divorced? If so, does that impact on your characters life?
Number Two ~ Special Powers, Abilities, Flaws, Fears [/u]
If your character has a special power, then you have to work out how they obtained it. Making your character have loads of powers and saying that they all just came out of luck because they’re so great, is yet again pulling your character more and more into being a Mary-Sue! If you can explain how they obtained their powers, perhaps an inheritance from their parents. Take for example, someone who was a vampire, and someone else a lycan; if they had a baby, the chances would be that their child would be a vampire/lycan (a Hybrid), a Lycan or a Vampire. It’s a trait from their parents, in their blood, so they would have to get it, unless they turned out completely normal. You see how that turns your character away from a Mary-sue? It’s explaining that your character had Vampire or Lycan (or both) for parents, and the power was just a genetic inheritance.
Abilities are another little thing that can generate a Mary-Sue. You see, if you say your character gets As in every single test they do, that’s saying they’re Mary-sue. Because you’re saying that they’re so amazingly perfect at everything they do. So, to steer away from this, say your character had tutors pushed on them as a young child, forcing them to learn, learn and learn. And add that whenever they don’t get an A they get punished, or disowned. This doesn’t mean they ALWAYS have to get As, because you’d add drama for yourself if you got that to happen.
Now, flaws, fears, phobias. Every character MUST be afraid of something, otherwise guess what (yeah, you’ve guessed it!) you have a Mary-sue character. Now, you could say they’re afraid of the dark. They hate spiders, bugs, flies or even flying. Maybe they hate water, for example, my character Sophia hates open water because she was once drowned in water after slaying a vampire. Now she was obviously brought back to life but she hasn’t been near water since, and freaks out every time she goes near it. You can develop a really good character history based upon their fears. Do they hate guys? If so, is this because their father abused them when they were young? It may not be very nice, but it’s a fear; something your character is scared of. It can develop into encounters with other people as well, so you can work on that. There, you are steering away from Mary-sue type characters! Aren’t we the clever one? [/center][/color]
