How To Stop The Mary Sue Plague

by Sunny Solaris

If you’ve been in the writing community for a while, chances are you would’ve come across the name ‘Mary Sue’. If you know of her existence, you probably hate her. If you don’t know her, well you’re probably wondering who she is.

Mary Sue is a female character who’s insanely overpowered and has no flaws. Mary Sue makes no mistakes and she’s perfect.

It’s no wonder everyone hates her.

Why do we still talk about her though, you might ask. Simple: because Mary Sue is still seen in so many books, taking over their stories and making us hate the book authors put so much effort into. Mary Sue mostly controls beginner authors, but some professional authors also succumb to her whims.

If everybody detests her so much, why do authors keep making her?

Mary Sue is often written to be a self-insert of the author. The authors envision themselves to be perfect, and they create a character just like them. However this character ends up being the idealised version of the author, used to fulfil the author’s wishes of being flawless and wonderful.

Before we discuss how to avoid writing these characters, let’s talk about the history of Mary Sue. The term “Mary Sue” originated from a Star Trek fanfic written in 1973 and published in Menagerie, a Star Trek fanzine. Mary Sue was the main character of this story. She was the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet at the age of 15 and a half… yes they really wrote the “and a half”. Mary Sue was described to be amazing in every possible way and adept at any skills required of her. Considering how she was written to be flawless, it’s no surprise that she captured the interest of Captain Kirk, Mr Spock, and Dr McKoy.

It was written that Captain Kirk confessed his love for the oh so perfect Mary Sue and she had turned him down saying she was “not that kind of girl”. After this, Mr Spock runs into her in control of the ship where he compliments her, saying she is “flawlessly logical”.

During the story, Captain Kirk, Mr Spock, Dr McCoy, Mr Scott, and her all beamed down to Rigel XXXVII where they’d been attacked and thrown into prison. Once they escaped, when they got back to the Enterprise, the men who had beamed down with Mary Sue had gotten sick while she had not. As they lay in the sick bay, Mary Sue had to run the ship all on her own, awarding her three achievements.

The disease the men had eventually caught up to her and in the end, Mary Sue dies and all the hearts she’s captured stand around her as she takes her last breath. At the Enterprise, her birthday was considered a national holiday to honour her. There is no one more Mary Sue-like than Mary Sue.

Are you concerned about the publishers who allowed them to release that piece of fanfiction into the world? Well, I was too, until I found out that it was written to be satire and its purpose was to mock authors who wrote characters for the very same reason Mary Sue characters are still written to this day. The only difference is that now there’s a term for those characters compared to back then. Characters who fall under the trap of being like Mary Sue and are female are now referred to as Mary Sue. With male characters, they’re called Gary Stu or Marty Stu.

Now, what is the problem with Mary Sue characters? Wouldn’t any author want to make their characters perfect, so that they can live vicariously through them?

No, we don’t. Mary Sues have often been laughing stocks in the writing community and it’s due to the unoriginality these characters hold.

Go back and think about your favourite characters. What about them endears them to you and makes you adore them? What draws you to them and makes sure they find an irreplaceable place in your heart?

Readers want to meet a character who’s imperfect. A perfect character gets boring and makes the story uninteresting. A reader will drop your book then and there - or if they’re like me… they’ll begrudgingly finish the book due to not wanting to leave something labelled as DNF and just rate it badly.

Everybody is imperfect and has flaws.

Recognizing these flaws makes a character more realistic and thus endears them to the reader. By constantly reading about Mary Sue characters who are perfect, your readers could begin to think they are wrong for being flawed, when in reality it is something everybody has.

In general, Mary Sue characters are One-Dimensional. The story revolves around them but they personally don’t impact it. They have no personality and are insanely bland. Authors can try to trick us into saying they have flaws but no. Most of the time, those so-called flaws are just quirks.

Besides all those other things that can already make you hate this character, Mary Sue is obviously going to be drop dead gorgeous. She’ll instantly draw everyone’s attention and everyone immediately loves her due to her perfection.

Realistic? No. Not at all. If people in real life met a Mary Sue, there’s no chance they’d immediately love her.

Now, you don’t want to write a Mary Sue. How do we avoid this from happening? How do you make your characters more realistic?

Let’s start off by being able to tell whether your character is a Mary Sue.Take a look at your character. Do they look like a fictional version of who you wish to be? I don't mean that you can't self-insert yourself into a character. I’ve done that exact thing before. What I mean is that, did you make the character to be you without your flaws? Just like in real life, readers — while most of them likely have no social lives (don’t try to deny it, we all are in the same boat /j) — will instantly be able to tell when something is off with your character. If they’re a Mary Sue, the readers will be able to get a vibe off them that just doesn’t suit their liking. Just like in reality, when you meet a sketchy character, your mind instantly marks them as a red flag.

Don’t worry if your character actually is a Mary Sue. Every writer makes this mistake and it’s easy to fix it. If you read Wattpad fanfiction written by 12 year olds, I’m sure that you’ve noticed that the character is usually a Mary Sue. Maybe you grew up reading Harry Potter x Reader fanfiction like me, they’re usually Mary Sues as well.

The fastest way to turn your Mary Sue into a character who has meaning is to give them flaws. Not quirks. Flaws. A quirk is something a person does that is unusual, while some flaws can be quirks. Quirks are not flaws.

Real human flaws are what show the character’s bad side and how it conflicts with their souls.

Research if you’re struggling to find flaws - there are tons of online resources with lists of flaws. You have to make your characters relatable - after all, those are the best kinds of characters. Make sure the flaw relates to the character’s personalities, and show how the flaws affect the character and those around them.

Make your characters lose. Have them make mistakes. They can’t always win and they won’t always save the day. They’re meant to appeal to an audience who are humans, right? Even if they’re not human and your characters are aliens or dragons or robots, readers must be able to connect to them for the story to be interesting and likeable. Have us empathise with your characters and feel bad for them when all goes haywire.

Would you pick up a book where the main character is a Mary Sue? You probably have in the past. Did you regret reading that story? What was it that made that book so unbearable to read? You don’t want your readers to regret reading your book. No one wants to read about Mary Sue.

Let’s stop the Mary Sue plague.

To learn more about the author, check out @sunnywithasideup on instagram.