Mary Sue Test

[eskimoRock]

I've just found a really useful test you can take to determine if your characters are Mary-Sues! I've found some pretty awful ones before, but this one is detailed and I thought it would be handy for anybody writing fanfiction, RPGs or even original stories. It only takes 5-10 minutes, so give it a go.

www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm

[RandomPasserby]

Oh how I loathe Mary Sue tests (and the general name - I'm aware of the history but I dislike the fact that it's such a gendered insult).

While they can be a useful tool authors who are actually writing characters who do not make sense in the context of an already existing world are quite willing to perform the mental gymnastics in order to get their character a low score on these tests (been there, done that).

Springhole's one is good because they've updated it as critics of the Mary Sue Litmus test have become more vocal. It still has what I consider to be a number of questions which don't highlight the actual problems of shallow characterisation or overpowered characters (that is, a lack of appropriate consequences).

For example 'Any ordinary name spelled or changed so that it's more unusual?'. That's every ridiculously named kid ever. Hell, my name qualifies as that.

'Did you base your character's looks on your own?' - While I understand the point of this, it seems like it means that you cannot write any characters who are similar to you. Does that mean I'm not allowed to write about brunettes or people with blue eyes?

You're not allowed to name a character anything you particularly like. You aren't supposed to write a character you think people will empathise with or look up too. You aren't supposed to write one who is above average in the looks department or who can sing or dance well or who can speak several languages or who owns multiple pets or who has similar beliefs to you. Or (heaven forbid) does more than one of those at once.

If anything, these tests encourage people to write characters who are less interesting, less well rounded and less human just so they can say that the character isn't a Mary-Sue. And frankly the definition of 'Mary-Sue' changes depending entirely on the person defining it.

Harry Potter himself gets a huuuuuuge total on that test. Huge. So do a lot of much beloved fictional characters.

Isn't humanity what we aim for when we write. Not writing to a test, but writing so that the characters seem human, so that they can step off the page. Humans have talents, they also have foibles.

That's one thing that the Springhole test is bad on. There's a huge number of faults which simply aren't addressed, and at least one De-Suifier which has consistently boggled me.

'If your character had a bad past with xir parents, does xe reconcile with them at any point?' - Why is this a De-Suifier? They're not explicitly reconciling because the character is giving in to pressure, or because the character is a coward. No, they just got over whatever 'bad past' they had (which is so vague it could mean everything from being abandoned to being abused to just having a nasty argument which they didn't reconcile from for a while).

That just sends my brain into a deathspiral of 'wtfvictimblaming!?!'