Mary Sue: Bad Character Writing and Real World Evidence.

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Xboxlover, Aug 19, 2017.

  1. Xboxlover

    Xboxlover Senior Member

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    This isn't meant to be a brag. I'm a jack of all trades master of few type. So I can agree with what you are saying. Art, sewing, fashion design, props and costume design, diy home decor and quilting. Pattern drafting. All of these happen to have taken me years to develop and they all happen to be interconnected skill sets pertaining to art and mathematical awareness. So I would suggest if a character is multi-talented displaying them as a jack of all trades master of 1 or few, not all. You only have so much time to devote to one or the other unless they are connected, and have skills that build upon others like you start out in art (drawing) get good and move onto fashion design before learning to sew and incorporate it like I have. Instead of splattered talent. Like Ninja skills and cooking. When do you have the time to cook?
     
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  2. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I'd buy Ninja skills and cooking (a Ninja has gotta eat! :)) but maybe not also shoeing horses, building a mansion from scratch, playing the oboe with the New York Philharmonic, running a marathon in record time, designing a shopping mall, and etc.

    I reckon it's perfectly possible to be really good at more than one thing ...even if they are totally unrelated skills. And some folks pick things up more quickly than others. I'm speaking here as a jack of all trades, master of none. I do several things well enough to get by ...some of which came to me more easily than others. But I'm not a shining example of any particular talent at all. However, I do know some fantastically talented people, to whom certain skills seem to come easy, and they ARE better than anybody else.

    I'm not saying these extraordinarily talented people don't practice or work at improving their skills, but you can point to these folk and say WOW, these guys really are something special. Michael Phelps. Usain Bolt, the aforementioned Chris Thile, Meryl Streep. Okay, they train and practice ...but they all seem to have had the talent they've got from when they were very young. It would be a mistake to portray them as just ordinary people who only got where they are by working hard—implying that anybody could do it if they work hard enough. Nope. There are people who are naturally gifted in their chosen field. I wouldn't want to say no writer should ever create a character like that, for fear of creating a Mary Sue. It's just that too many talents in one character becomes difficult to believe.
     
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  3. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    That's an interesting take on it and, if anything, I think in that case then you should make them more similar than you otherwise would. Because they are all parts of one greater whole then you can give the reader the feeling of there being one singular Character but with a number of characters that are variations on that one theme. That's one way that you can make sure that the reader doesn't start playing favorites or that they forget things between sections. If they say all shared memories but not personalities that would be interesting I think; so they are all sort of reflections of each other, or what ifs. That means that the audience can feel they know all of the variations on him, even if they act differently they sort of understand where he's coming from. So, they all have the same backstory, but they all have different feelings about what they've done and who they used to be. I think you can do something quite cool with this by making the god himself be kinda amoral; a bit weird and 'moves in mysterious ways' so that he's done some bad things so that the 'paragon' shard of him is no more the real god than the 'evil bastard' shard. The whole god has good and bad and sometimes is a dick and the hero part has to accept that there's darkness in him and that he is in fact a bit two dimensional as a hero specifically because he's lacking the balance of the other parts of a complete personality. Equally the evil one discovers to his chagrin that all that power isn't just his to wield and that he's not the kind of super villain he strives to become.

    That's just some top of my head thinking, but I think there's potential there. It's a nicer approach than having a rainbow coalition of characters because the overlap helps you get over the hump while still giving you the latitude to build lots of characters with it. It also gives you a reason why you can make them all cooperate, if needs be, because even if they hate each other they kinda understand how each other think and have a grudging respect because they have literally been through the same shit and none of them is a whole enough person to really live by themselves.
     
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  4. Xboxlover

    Xboxlover Senior Member

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    So unrelated question came up for me. In the workshop, I posted a small scene. (I'd been talking in another thread on how to go about creating a battle scene.) About active and passive writing it started out. Then upon looking the answers I wanted up in my textbook, I had another question. Which my textbook answered. On character development, protagonists and antagonists. So in the chapter on plot, character, yadi yadi yada... I read about how antagonists can also be not a villain, which I already knew. They just have to meet the requirement of having opposing goals to the protagonist. Which got me thinking, all of my characters protagonist or antagonists are all opposing each other... Two of the protags, have opposing goals to each other and both have opposing goals for a female protagonist. Thereby making them, not only protags but also antags as well even if they are all friends. XD Mind blown. Talk about character development.
     
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  5. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    @Xboxlover - I was just thinking of something you wrote back a couple of posts. You said :
    That's actually pretty easy. Read some Greek/Roman/Norse mythology. Their religion was based on believing that gods were a lot more powerful than human beings, and controlled things like weather, etc, but they could be just as petty, vengeful, jealous, scheming as the people on earth. In fact, not only were they at odds with some human beings at times, but they were often at odds with each other. If something wasn't going right in your life, you figured out which god was angry at you, and you went and sacrificed or prayed to another god to take your part and help to change the other god's mind. In some ways, that makes logical sense.
     
  6. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    I second this. It's interesting to look back through the history of religion but I can't help thinking that the earlier ones were onto something; instead of one perfect sky daddy you have a bunch of (essentially) bitchy high school kids who can throw lightning and you can never get back at. I think that's a much better explanation of why everything is terrible all the time. Because the only people who can fix it are massive assholes or at least touchy with a real temper and probably a drinking problem. I think it showed a real insight into psychology from them, that people are fundamentally kinda shitty and sometimes just fuck with you.

    Sometimes the gods are on your side and shower you with riches and victory, sometimes the gods make you destined to sleep with your own mother. Easy come, easy go.

    Interesting factoid; the Greeks history and mythology kinda blends together, so they talk about figures like Alexander and Achilles as having literally divine ancestry. They literally say stuff like "Well he has a bit of Apollo from his mother's side".
     
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  7. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I'm the wrong person to ask because I don't read fantasy. But it's true of all novels that the character has to struggle to reach his/her goal, and it isn't satisfying when the struggle is only superficial (like with a Mary Sue). The god will have to want something very badly that he/she can't get easily, and has to sacrifice and sweat and cry to achieve.
     
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  8. Xboxlover

    Xboxlover Senior Member

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    How did I miss that post. HOLY CrAP! That's exactly what I'm going for.
     
  9. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    A cheque in the mail is fine :)
     
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