Mary Sue - the thread.
POSTED BY: AgentRouka
UPDATED: Monday, April 2, 2007 19:42
VIEWED: 24098
PAGE 5 of 9
Thanks AR! That makes me happy to hear!
So... this probably should be obvious, but what's OOC?
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
So... this probably should be obvious, but what's OOC?
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Out of character. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by PonyXpressInc:
Hello Embers,Quote:
...only good Mary Sue ever written IMO was Dorothy L. Sayer's creating the character Harriet Vane so she could marry her fictional hero: Lord Peter Whimsey.
Also, my favourite 'Mary Sue', tickles me even more that she realised that Harriet Vane couldn't marry Lord Peter at the end of Strong Poison without loosing her self respect, (leading to more novels).
yes it was a classic Mary-Sue problem, she couldn't just be a VICTIM, she couldn't allow him to rescue her!
No no she had to make him grovel, for years, so that they could marry as equals....
I liked Harriet too, except that my dearly beloved Lord Peter wanted her...and in MY novel I was going to knock her out of the way and get him to realize I was his true soulmate!
River Tam Sessions on YouTube
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Quote:
my dearly beloved Lord Peter wanted her...
I was completely besotted with him myself at one time. Still am come to think of it whenever I re-read the books. There’s something about very, very, very intelligent men.
Which is a bit odd considering that for me, when it comes to Firefly characters it’s Jayne every day and twice on Sundays.
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Drat, computer got confused, double post, sorry.
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score! I only got 22, which for my first OC isnt too bad I guess...
I'm trying hard to make sure my OC is in no way marySueish.
I would like to justify myself though, it does annoy me when people describe their character's features in minute detail, I only mentioned my OCs said features in the prologue as a hint as to who she might be.
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The whole minute-detail-description thing is a matter of author's style as much as anything. I posted part of my novel on my writing group for the feedback, and everyone pointed out how I just describe a few of each character's features (hair, skin tone etc.) and they protested I wasn't thorough enough. In Minette Walters' first book she didn't describe any of the three leading women characters except to state their hair colour and that one of them wore glasses. Other authors go into minute detail (Mercedes Lackey, for instance). It's taste.
The interesting effect is upon the readers. Susan Cooper never says what colour her character Jane's hair is. A friend asked a whole load of female readers of the Dark Is Rising sequence their opinion. A bit later he asked what their own hair colour was. It tallied. The less you say the more people have to use their imagination, and the more they seem to relate in some way to the characters.
I second AgentRouka on the canon-OOCness. However, I've never been 100% certain whether to attribute it to the Mary Sue itself or to the author's inexperience. The two often sit together - when an author's developed a little more s/he often has more depth in OCs along with ability to keep characters IC.
(And I feel the same way about Harriet Vane, BTW.)
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I just tried out Auraya from the "Age of the Five" trilogy by trudy canavan and she scored 94! and I've only read the first book, there could be more points in the others.
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Never do anything you wouldn't want to explain to the paramedics.
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94 - yikes! I've never heard of the book, but now I'm curious.
New things I've learned - OOC and IC. Check!
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I detest MS's. They were highly prolific in my old fandom The Sentinel. Usually a female sentinel who tries to steal Blair from Jim. Yuck.
Now I come to Firefly and the BSR. Its crawling with MS's, and most don't even knows they are MS's. If you want to create an OC then write an original story not fanfiction. Unless the OC is the bad guy or some lowly henchman, the OC tends toward MS leanings. And in this fandom where Joss gives us a strong fighter female type who was experimented on by the government(River) then the biggest MS's tend to be characters who are either River's old classmates, or government trained assassins or experiments themselves. And as a recent series in the BSR shows the MS with the experimental body or trained government assassin gone wrong doesn't have to be female.
In fanfiction any OC is more than likely to have MS tendencies. If you want to create MS like original characters, stick to original stories is what I say. There are nine really good well developed characters to play with in this universe, don't need any MS's to come along to have sex with their author's favorite char.
"I was aiming for his head" -Jayne
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