"Is my character a Mary Sue" thread

They fail to take into account Justified Tropes.

What if your works are Trope Overdosed, somewhat parodic or deliberately sorta cheesy?

edited 7th Apr '11 2:09:45 PM by SavageHeathen

Those are only some of the reasons why these tests suck for serious use, rather than amusement.

I tried my hand at a sue test that got down to the bare facts of what a sue is World warping,lack of flaws that affect the characters, character derailing and outshining/blackholing.

http://hoodiegurl.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3a5m8k

I might need to adjust the scoring.

"Uh no. I'm going to choose something that sounds right for them. Putting a lot of care into your character's creation does not make the character a Sue. To be honest if a person only took fifteen minutes to choose a major character's name it would worry me. Names are important"

No, no, no! Meaningful names are stupid. Unless there's some way whoever was naming them would know the traits you're basing your naming choices on, don't let them affect your naming. Whenever I find out a character's name was deliberately chosen to reflect who they were in a way their namer wouldn't have known, I lose respect for the author.

Real people don't have names magically fit their personalities. And if you have any imagination, you can make the name fit the character, no matter what you call them. I could name a villain after my beloved cat and still find them scary (and not in a catlike way, either).

I don't name characters names I don't like the sound of (such as things starting with H), and give characters in the same setting similar naming styles, but otherwise, I pay no attention to naming. I have actually asked my Dad (without him knowing the story) to 'give me a random male name', and grabbed names off of the nearest book. Never done the phone book thing, but only because I've never happened to have a phone book handy when naming characters.

Rather than trying to find a name that 'fits' your character, pay attention to making a believable, well-written character.

I wouldn't say meaningful names are stupid, but they're not necessary. If you want to do it, do it, but really it's just a little writer's in-joke, a little easter egg for the educated or fannish to discover.

No need to strawman the Test makers. When it comes down to making super special names, and generic phone book names, they do have a point. Obviously names are still important, but when your range of name-making capabilities is limited, it's not a bad idea.

Whenever I choose names for my characters, I look around Behind the Name and just locate names from the appropriate location that I happen to like the sound of, whether if I like the character or not. So I guess according to some of the tests, every last one of my characters would get Sue points for having names I like.

I hate intentionally Meaningful Names with a passion. I, however, have no problem with names that unintentionally turn meaningful as you write and develop the character, though.

I have a three-question Mary Sue test.

1) Do you write extended, banal apocrypha to your story describing the clothing, appearance, or artistic tastes of your character? Yes and you have a Mary Sue. No question about it.

2) Is your character simultaneously a major focus of the story and a thin veneer over yourself? Yes and you have a Mary Sue or an Author Avatar. Which one depends on whether you're using it as a character or a plot device to get the other characters somewhere.

3) Are you unable to point out a place in the story where you would do something different from your character? The more places your character appears in the story, the more likely that a "yes" to this question means that the answer to question 2 was really yes.

I don't mean that kind of meaningful just yanno, something that suits the character and feels right for them. Naming them something I like hardly means my ego is showing.

edited 7th Apr '11 4:54:35 PM by JewelyJ

Yes, but now you are getting offended by something not even directed towards you.

I don't really feel that it's dumb to put some thought into your character's name that goes beyond picking something at random from a phone book. Some parents do name their kids something deliberately meaningful, hoping that they'll grow into the name. That fact could be important, depending on the sort of story it is. (... I kinda want to read a story about a kid named "Chainsaw Deathblood" now. "Mom, you can't make me be a ninja assassin!")

There's the possibility that the name isn't your character's birth name, they changed it or go by an alias.

Oh, and period pieces. I dunno, but were there many 19th century Nebraskans named Brittany or Samantha?

I usually match character's names to my mental image of them, if that makes sense. I accidentally assigned a meaningful surname to a character when I was looking through a list of German ones.

I find that the most effective litmus tests are compiling a thorough description of the character, including backstory and role on the plot, and letting real people take a look at it.

^^one character of mine was originally named Blade , as I thought it fit him. But I made it a nickname instead.

Also I can't really explain why my character's name's just fit. Or I name a character something I like initially and then the character grows into that name.

Also what bothers me about the springhole test is that the author just seems to be against putting much heart into the character. I mean the answer to "Too much" is not "none at all" . If you don't put enough into the story it will show or it will be really hard to write. It's good to be a little invested in your story and characters. Just not in a way that makes you try to force them on the reader.

edited 7th Apr '11 6:08:48 PM by JewelyJ

About naming, I personally don't think a character's name in itself means much in whether or not they count as a Mary Sue, then again, I'm more inclined to agree with Jewely J that a Mary Sue has more to do with the character's effect on the story than things like name or hair and eye color (unless those are used to make an already overly perfect character even more glorified).

That said, I only rarely use the Meaningful Name trope, I often make a list of names I'm going to use in the story and then assign them to characters by random number generation. I think one of the few times I ever gave a character a truly Meaningful Name was to invert the Names to Run Away from Really Fast trope by giving an obvious good guy an "evil" name.

edited 7th Apr '11 7:08:22 PM by Rainbow

@Ettina

That's fine for you and all, but some people (like myself) simply have trouble coming up with names. I don't find anything wrong with a meaningful name as long as the character in question is good.

That being said, most of my characters who have meaningful names usually chose it for themselves. Either because they view their original names as some sort of shame, or to represent the fact that they will no longer be controlled by any authority figure.

Overly cool names tend to be indications that a character is the author's pet. Author's pets tend to be Sues.

Certain genres you can get away with that more than others. Superheros, for instance.

All these things can come out right if you're good. Heck, Stephenson got away with naming a character "Hiro Protagonist". And made him a pizza-delivering ninja.

Such things are risks, though; do them, and you're consciously risking Narm or Sue.

Was my test any good?

@ P Down: Yes, somewhat.

disregard

edited 7th Apr '11 10:54:06 PM by snowfoxofdeath

I hate Meaningful Names. *Nicknames* are meaningful. Names ain't.

edited 8th Apr '11 1:11:45 AM by SavageHeathen

But if you have a meaningful name, then the people around you will strech the facts to make it fit you, and you will sometimes act in a way because of your name, so I don't think it's that improbable for a person to have one.

If the name is the character's given name, if it's meaningful and appropriate, it's probably best not to have that acknowledged in-story, unless it's too damn obvious to ignore. Such things should be a little Easter Egg for the astute reader.

The problem with them, to my eye, is that they make the story seem less serious; they're a fourth-wall breaking wink by the writer to the audience, saying "this isn't real, this is a story." It can ruin suspension of disbelief. If the connection isn't super obvious, this doesn't tend to apply. In some genres this kind of thing is expected and not a problem, of course.

Cool names, however, are explainable because snappy names can in fact cause success in real life, and real-world parents do in fact give their kids attractive names. Plus, we're used to such names from e.g. movie stars — even if in many cases those names are in fact adopted names, not birth names.

Name choice is incredibly important, but that doesn't mean the names need to be that special.

Harry Potter, for instance, is a name that is simple, easy to remember, and snappy to say. This makes it a GREAT name. It's also an incredibly common name.

I might just be a JKR fan-boy, but I like her philosophy the best when it comes to these things. Keep all the names interesting. All the names quirky. You don't have to make up a name to make something distinctive. You don't need to call your character Claws to make them sound badass.

edited 8th Apr '11 3:19:49 AM by MrAHR

A Meaningful Name is not necessarily bad or indicative of a Mary Sue ,but one that exists for the sake of being a Meaningful Name often is.

I think the thing with character names is that the weirdness is lessened if there are other, equally important characters in the story with similar names, like in the show Strawberry Shortcake, or even a big group of fan-made characters with weird names who are all treated equally within the story. Not to mention it's just one factor, and it's certainly possible to have a Mary Sue with an ordinary name, Edward Cullen from Twilight would be a commonly mentioned example of a typical Marty Stu character but his name isn't that weird.

edited 8th Apr '11 8:52:39 AM by Rainbow