How to Avoid Writing a Mary Sue (Pt. 1)

Since you're reading this, I am going to safely assume you know what a Mary Sue is. (If not, write me, and I'll let you know.) Don't laugh. A lot of people have trouble not writing Mary Sues, and that's okay. If you're genuinely trying to get better, I'm never going to slight you. I might hold my head in my hands and beg the Heavens Above for patience (when you're away, of course.) But I will never slight you for wanting to get better.

So, here's a few step-by-step guides, and we're going to go by way of a character sheet. These are things you will usually have to fill out, and how to avoid making a character Sueish.

Disclaimer: Listen. These are not cut-and-dry rules. I would likely say "More like guidelines", but then someone is going to take that our of proportion, break every "guideline" of mine, make a terrible MegaSue, and then cry "But the Harra-lady said they're only guidelines!" Okay. I am not saying that having one of these traits will make your character an instant Sue. If we look through the roster of my characters, we'll notice that half of my characters have at least one trait that I'll be talking about. It's perfectly fine to have Sueish traits, so long you balance them out and 'flesh the character out', so to speak.

WITH that out of the way. Let's get started!

Name: Oh man names. This is (most likely) the first impression someone is going to get about your character. And boy, do names either make or break a character. A name like "Dante" is going to make someone think of your character as something of a Badass Normal, or maybe someone who knows things, whereas "Serenity" (although making me gag) is going to allude to some mysterious waif-like figure. (Keep in mind: "Serenity" and similar names are near instant Sue traits. You would do best to avoid them.)

Another thing. Make sure the name fits the setting. Renaissance England is NOT going to have a girl named "Serenity Moonflower", if it's fantasy Renaissance England and she's an elf? Maybe. But other than that, not so much. And please. Please. Cut it out with the Asian names for non-Asian characters. Your ancient Greek warrior is not named Keiichi. Please make it stop.

Multiple names should probably be avoided. "Princess General Serenity Jasmine Snapdragon Romani Moonflower" just... it's too much, it's ridiculous, and there's no reason for it. If a character's culture involves multiple names, then go for it, otherwise... please just don't. As for titles, it's usually best to just list the main one, and talk about the others through Character History. (More on that later.)

Gender/Sex: Male, female, hermaphrodite, transgendered, you can have fun with this, just try not to step into the clichés. Not all MtF people are completely androgynous crossdressers with a desire to get into every man's pants that they see. If you know any stereotypes, it's usually not best to perpetuate them in RP, it makes you come off as an uneducated jerk. (However, if the RP is a parody... then you should probably have clearance to perpetuate anything you want.)

Age: Please be sure this makes sense for an RP. They're not going to allow ten year olds to pilot fighter jets (hopefully.) Likewise, a thirty-some year old character as a student in high school doesn't make much sense either.

A note on Immortals (or other mythical beings with an obscenely long lifespan.) Stop making every single freaking Immortal "Looks like they're twenty". Let me put it this way. We'll say a creature has a lifespan of 20,000 years. That means Years 1-4,000 (respectively), would be spent growing up, finally reaching adulthood between 3,600-4,000. They'd be middle-aged by 10,000 years, and a senior citizen at 15,000 years. Make sense? Besides that. Is it such a crime to have an Immortal-esque character actually look old? My half-Angel looks to be about fifty, and he's only 1,500 years old. (And is basically immortal, his aging just stops at fifty.) Logic needs to play a part in this somewhere.

Appearance: We're just going to have to break this one down. There is far too much to cover to try and keep this in a paragraph. (This is also where most of my pet peeves come from.)

---> Hair: First things first, this had better not take more than fifty words to describe. And even more than twenty is a bit overkill. I like details as much as the next person, but we really do not need a giant paragraph on your character's hair. Describe the colour, length, style, and maybe thickness if you're that interested.

Seriously. Compare the two.

Hair: He has reddish-brown hair, long enough to get into his eyes, and very very messy and unkempt. It's clear he doesn't take very good care of it.

That's plenty enough to know a small amount about the character. The state of his hair alone is enough to tell you that he doesn't take very good care of himself. It gives you a visual about the rest of the character, right? Moving on. Here comes the Purple Monster.

Hair: Dr. Crane has mangled, yet flowing locks that reach no further than the mid-line of his neck. Said honey-auburn tresses often enough find their way traveling into his eyes when he finds himself hunched gracefully over his latest book. He does not pay attention to these locks, instead letting them weave their own course from his head to his pale face, slender neck, and sometimes shoulders if he has really neglected a haircut.

As we can tell, purpose prose is not my specialty, but you get the point, right? We could easily cover his bad posture in another section, and the amounts of detail just aren't necessary for such a simple section.

Another note: If you are describing your character's looks with food, you probably need to get out from your desk and eat. Likewise, if you have to look through a thesaurus for more than five words in your character sheet... you probably shouldn't be writing. Thesauri are good for people like me who re-use words to an obscene amount, not for people who just want to make their character into a "Speshul Snowflake".

Eyes: "Eyes are the window to the soul." How many times have you heard that phrase? Probably a few too many, but all the same there is truth to that statement. Eyes are usually the first things people notice about you, and where RP is concerned, make a big impression about characters.

Your character could have any eye-colour (so long it makes sense to the setting.) But what you do with these colours makes all the difference. (And I am going to give you a note right now: Try to avoid purple eyes. I have nothing against purple eyed characters, and even one of my stock characters has this trait, however, it is very hard to actually pull off right in a character, and I have noticed many Suethors just put it in to make their character "Speshul".) Just as long as they fit for the setting, then there is nothing to worry about. (Take Mundane Earth: You get brown as the most common, then blue, then green, and even some gray and pitch black. I've been told there were reports of one woman who had purple eyes, but that was likely due to the blood vessels making her light-blue eyes appear purple. Likewise, Albinos have pink eyes due to their bodies having no pigment whatsoever. This is a rare condition and you should research beforehand before declaring your character an albino.)

Some things to keep in mind. Heterochromia (having two different eye-colours) does occur, but it is generally very rare. If you want to make your character heterochromia, then go ahead, just be sure to do the research beforehand, and try to cut down on other traits to make them "Speshul Snowflakes". (You'll notice I adore using this term.) And another thing. If your character's eyes can change colour, then douse yourself with cold water right now. I'm not saying you can't do it (what with magical artifacts, demonic possessions, and whatnot), but it is possibly one of the highest Sue-traits, and is best to just be avoided at all costs. It's just too cliché to even consider nowadays.

Skintone: Is it so bad to have characters with dark skin nowadays? Everyone is a Pale Princess, and it's virtually unheard of to have a character that isn't Caucasian or Asian. I'm not chastising people for not having dark-skinned characters, but it's just a trend I've noticed in RPs. Everyone is Caucasian, Asian, or some magical proxy thereof. In some cases, it would make sense, others? Not so much. A melting-pot society would have characters from all walks of life, while a secret village hidden in the middle of nowhere would have people that generally are homogenous. Likewise, keep the weather in mind. Hotter, sunnier climates generally have people with darker skintones as to provide protection from the sun, darker, cooler climates have paler people because they don't need the sun protection. Make sense?

Height and Weight: Make sure it makes sense. While 5'10", 90lbs people exist in real life, they're fairly uncommon. (And let me assure you. A woman with those measurements will NOT have DD Breasts. Let's squish that character out of existence right now.) Likewise, if you're dealing with measurements for unnaturally tall or unnaturally short characters, or fantasy races, start with a basic height/weight chart and go from there. This requires sixth grade math skills, and fraction multiplication. You're smart, this shouldn't be hard.

Other Discerning Features: This is where you get to talk about things not mentioned above. Maybe a character's horrible posture (Dr. Crane, I'm looking at you!) Or that scar under their eye from an accident a few years ago. About scars: Know what kind of scars come from different wounds. If you got half your face slashed off from a claymore and then sewn back on, you're not going to have a fine, white line of scar-tissue. Likewise, a character who has spent their entire lives in battle will have more than just two or three scars from their journeys. My Fiancee's character comes to mind, his body is practically covered in scars of varying deepness, width, length, colour, and whatnot due to his various accumulations of injuries. Delightful.

~~~

All the same, this is about enough to start you out with, more later on Personality, History, and all sorts of delightful things~

For the Love of God! (And other Celestial Beings)

Well! Let's start this blog off with a bang, shall we? My very first rant, and oh, the delight I shall have.

Angels. Demons. They're fun to play, I know. However! There are certain things that just. Need. To. Stop.

First of all. Angels are already badassed. They don't need extra badassery. (Depending on your mythology), they're already muscely, made of practical light, and could probably make a tough guy shit himself. There's a reason they have to shout "Fear not!" When they're about to deliver a message to people. Yeah. They're badassed. Piling on more badass is overkill. You do not need to give your Guardian Angel a gun. He doesn't need a gun, even if he did assume some sort of human form. Chances are he could still bench press a car. I mean come on.

Likewise, if you're going to use the Archangels, at least get their mythology right. Gabriel is not going to be toting around a gun. That's Michael's thing. Michael's the warrior, Gabriel is the messenger. I'm not saying to have to be perfectly in 'character' about it all the time (I mean seriously, Michael may have a soft side, you never know), but just randomly applying streetsmart gun-toting badassery to Gabriel just makes me think you don't know jack about what you're talking about.

Besides that, whatever happened to Angels, yanno, having jobs to do while they're on Earth? I doubt they have all the time in the world to make sure poor Mary Sue is staying out of trouble. (Unless, of course, that's actually their job.) Chances are, Michael has evil to smite, not enough time to stand around looking hot and giving girls the "Come hither" look.

Right, right. We can tell, I study Angels every now and then, and therefore have developed pet peeves with RPers who use them wrongly. What about other beings of the Heavens and Hells?

Demons. Don't get me started. Virtually no one can play a good demon/devil/other force of evil nowadays. If she's a girl, she's totally a sex kitten (without any mention of being a succubus in sight.) She'll be so hot that both mortal and immortal men alike swoon over her. (Oh. She's probably also Satan's daughter, even though the mythos of the 72 states he has a son, and a granddaughter, but no daughter.) Men, on the other hand, are aloof and cold (but totally have a soft spot inside, doncha know?) Just... can we cut the cliches for once? Is it so hard to play a true Complete Monster without any soft spots?

And don't get me started on playing God and Satan. I don't think I've ever seen them played right. Not that I'm a judge or anything, but I don't think God is a drunk asshole (well, not all of the time.) And I highly doubt Satan is some mysterious bishounen who wants nothing more to romance your Mary Sue. Augh. Make it stop.

So yes, first rant of the day. More to come later (and hopefully more thought out, seeing as it's right before school and I'm a little rushed.)

Love ya all~

Welcome!

Well, this is certainly a change from the normally upbeat Subculturist. Roleplayer's Remorse is a blog about all things Roleplay. (With heavy emphasis on text-based RP, and some LARPs. Miiight include Tabletop, but I don't have too much experience in those.) Essentially, I've been RPing for seven years at the time of writing this post... and because of that have a lot of stories to share. (Didn't help my internet RP consisted of Neopets and Gaia for a long long time. Cue groaning.)

In the spirit of my blog-writing, there will be how-tos, and some good, joyful ranting. As you should know right now, always always feel free to write to me about comments, concerns, and ideas on what I can do to make your reading experience more pleasant.

Without further ado, I present to you: Roleplayer's Remorse!