On Mary Sue: Appearance

Think on this.

How often during the course of a day do you think about your appearance? What about other people? Do you constantly obsess over what everyone around you is wearing 24-7 regardless of whatever else you might be doing?

If you're a make-up artist, or a fashion designer or in a similar field you might get a pass on this, but is your character?

Most people might notice what someone's wearing if they're just seeing them for the first time, or if it's something particularly unusual, but unless you make an effort, how often do you notice more than 'jeans, shirt, button down, black pants?' What makes you notice what you notice?

If I had to guess, I'd say you notice when someone is wearing clothes with bright colors or an obnoxious pattern. You notice a shirt with writing on it. Once you've noticed it, you tend to let it go unless it's just so incredably unusual that you can't help but notice it.

Unless you're a boyfriend.

Boyfriends should always note what their girlfriends are wearing and comment on it.

The following is some research on appearance, to help explain why some concepts are more than likely filed under the Mary Sue catagory:

On Mary Sue Intro

Mary Sue is a character trope more commonly found in fanfiction, although they can also be found in original stories. Here are some comments made about Mary Sue:

Urban Dictionary:

A female character who is so perfect that she is annoying. The name originated in a very short Star Trek story that mocked the sort of female characters who showed up in fanfiction. It usually refers to original female chaacters put into fanfiction but can refer to any character. Mary Sues are characters who are usually extraordinarily gorgeous, amazingly talented, unusually powerful, and exceedingly attractive to whoever the author has a crush on. They often possess ridiculously fancy and pretentious first names -- Angel, Raven, Jewel, Lorelei Bianca Julia Marizza Snape -- and are very, very annoying. 

TV Tropes has a page for her:
Mary Sue on TV Tropes


Wikipedia says:

A Mary Sue (sometimes just Sue), in literary criticism and particularly in fan fiction, is a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the author or reader. It is generally accepted as a character whose positive aspects overwhelm their other traits until they become one-dimensional. While the label "Mary Sue" itself originates from a parody of this type of character, most characters labelled "Mary Sues" by readers are not intended by authors as such. Male Mary Sues are often dubbed "Gary Stu", "Larry Stu", "Marty Stu", or similar names.
While the term is generally limited to fan-created characters, and its most common usage today occurs within the fan fiction community or in reference to fan fiction, original characters in role-playing games or literary canon are also sometimes criticized as being "Mary Sues" or "canon Sues" if they dominate the spotlight or are too unrealistic or unlikely in other ways. One example of this criticism is Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The thing is that everyone bashes the Mary Sue, but how many people offer to help fix her? I haven't heard of anyone doing so. Therefore, I am going to undertake to fix a Mary Sue.


1.) Appearance
2.) Talents
3.) Personality
4.) Interpersonal Relationships
5.) Names
6.) Universe

I have way too many ideas...

Personal note:

I was organizing my laptop the other day to reflect a priority change I've had lately and I realized that I have ten works that I want to publish that are in the midst of rough draft stage.

TEN.

Over half of them are novels, one is a short story that I'm hoping to sell on Amazon at some point, there are two short story series one for kids, one for adults. Seriously brain. NO MORE IDEAS.

I am working on a rather impressive blog post but it's taking time because I want to do this right.

In the mean time I have ten works that I need to try to finish at some point.