How can I avoid making a "Mary-Sue" character?

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Raven

Member
I'm writing an original book and I'm super afraid that I'm making the main character a "Mary-Sue". I've done a limus test and it didn't really tell me much. It's my first time writing a book and I really want to get published, but I won't with a Mary-Sue! Please help!
Well, my characters' name is Sinya and she's 15 years old, she has a few good friends and a mother who really couldn't care less about her. She's got black hair with white streaks, dark blue eyes and is a little bit chubby. She has trouble with her skin and hair because it's always greasy and people tease her about it. She's an average student whose favorite class is english and least is PE. (I hope that helped! :-\)
 
L

Lucindam

New member
Add details to your question.
List everything about your character, their traits, personality, looks, how other characters act towards them and why etc...
 
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Steve

Active member
Have a listen to the podcast linked below. Some of the listeners' comments on it are good too.

I'd thought that a Mary-Sue is not just yourself as a character, but an idealised version of yourself - yourself without all the flaws that make people dislike you. I could be wrong, but I think authors who write Mary-Sues never worry about whether they're doing it. They write the character without flaws not because that's how they'd like themselves to be, but because that's how they see themselves to begin with. So if you're sufficiently self-aware to worry that your character is a Mary-Sue, she probably isn't.

(Actually, I think a Mary-Sue can have sympathetic flaws - ones that are meant to make the audience feel sorry for her, such as blindness or being in a wheelchair. I doubt you'll find a Mary-Sue who's short-tempered or racist - unless the author thinks racism is a good thing, and the Mary-Sue persuades all the other characters to join the KKK by the end of the story.)

(And a Mary-Sue is not, in herself, an obstacle to a book's success - at least not if the Twilight-haters around here are to be believed...)
 
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Sarah

Active member
all u have to do is avoid making the character look, behave and like what you like. there can be some simularities just dont make the main character u... with powers...
if that makes sense.
hope to be of help
 
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