A Show-Off vs. A Surprise: Mary Sues, Gary Stus, and Upstaging

Upstaging in stories is an art and can be done with what we call devastating effect, leaving the reader feeling highly satisfied.  When Cinderella sweeps into the ballroom and every eye locks on her and the prince holds out his hand to request a dance, we feel satisfied, smug even.  It a triumph, and it...

Of Mary Sues and Gary Stus ~ No One is Good at EVERYTHING

I know I said the upstaging post would come next, but I realized I had one more post before that, because there was one other element of Mary Sue/Gary Stu characters that ties into upstaging: being good at everything around them. This is very closely related to the two previous posts and elaborates somewhat on...

Of Mary Sues and Gary Stus: No One is Always Right

Being a Mary Sue is about far more than just being Perfect™.  Hallmark #2 of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character: always being right. This can manifest in a variety of ways: being the first person to notice when a 'bad guy' is masquerading as a 'good guy', breaking rules all the time simply because they...

Of Mary Sues and Gary Stus ~ Is Your Protagonist ‘Too Perfect’?

"Your female main character is a Mary Sue." The words every writer dreads.  Hearing this tends to induce heartbreak and/or gnashing of teeth, followed by either a shrug of dismissal or (in a good writer) research to see whether the reader was uninformed and parroting something they'd heard or whether the author did, in fact,...