History Literature / HelpMyStoryHasTheMarySueDisease

->''"Mary-Sue Disease is like Chicken Pox: Every author’s work comes down with it at least once and it’s not hard to cure ...if you know how."''

''Help! My Story Has the Mary-Sue Disease'' is a comedic book of writing advice. It was published in 2017 by L.C. Morgenstern, who, according to their About the Author, is [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial not a cat]]. The book aims to both teach new writers to avoid and cure their stories of MarySue Disease as well as to convince the world that not every cool female character is a MarySue.

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!! This book provides examples of:
* AliceAndBob: Averted. There are 'four' sets of explanation characters ([[Franchise/HarryPotter Harry]] and [[PossessionSue Larry]], [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Princess]] [[ShoutOut Dani]] and [[CanonSue Zani]], [[SelfDeprecation Lewis and Clark, and Lilia and Celeste]]. No A-names and no B-names appear in examples.
* AntiSue: A rotten egg with a plain shell is still just as much a rotten egg as one that has a decorated shell.[[invoked]]
* BlackHoleSue: The closest match for the definition of MarySue as given by Morgenstern.[[invoked]]
* BooksOnTrope: It's writing advice for amateur original and {{fanfic}} authors. It's also general characterization advice. It's also all about how to make tropes work because the point the book is making is that Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad it's just how you handle them.
* BrainBleach: What readers are advised to take at the end of Part Three. Justified, given that it comes right after a graphic and [[TooMuchInformation anatomically correct explanation]] of the problems with InterspeciesRomance and MaleToFemaleUniversalAdaptor.
* CanonSue: Although it regularly mentions that both exist, for the most part the book does not differentiate between Creator created Sues and Fan created Sues.[[invoked]]
* CommonMarySueTraits: Argues that it is not how many of these traits a character has, but whether they are well written which makes or Sues a character.
* HazmatSuit: What you need to dispose of bad eggs, after they've [[ItMakesSenseInContext grown tentacles]].
* InsistentTerminology: Good Eggs and Bad Eggs. Also "Mary-Sue Disease" itself.
* JerkSue: Given an in-depth discussion in the section on friends.[[invoked]]
* MartyStu: Although the book takes the more common female name, these are also the point of the book.[[invoked]]
* MarySue: Fixing and identifying these is the whole premise of the book.[[invoked]]
* {{Metaphorgotten}}: Most of the humor of the book runs on this trope. When advising writers not to overuse physical descriptions it says:
-->''"Trust that your readers aren’t goldfish. (If they were goldfish, you’d already be world famous for teaching fish how to read and the problems with your writing wouldn’t actually matter anymore, because, holy shit, you taught fish how to read.)"''
* MixedMetaphor: By the end of the introduction architecture, eggs and medicine have gone from being separate metaphors to one very disturbing one. The rest of the humor runs on this trope.
* ShoutOut: A lot of works get referenced in this book. Some are blatant, like [[Franchise/HarryPotter Harry]] and his [[PossessionSue fan counterpart Larry]] trying to deal with Professor Squirrel, while others are more subtle ...like the adventurer who has to retrieve the Holy Moon of Tapioca with only his [[Franchise/IndianaJones hat and whip]].
* {{Squick}}: The possibility that the medical metaphors that make up much of the book can be Squicky is acknowledged in the book. Readers are sometimes apologised to and sometimes advised to take BrainBleach.[[invoked]]
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: In the About the Author, of all places!
* {{Troperiffic}}: If you were to count every trope mentioned or referred to you'd probably have about three tropes a paragraph in almost every paragraph.
* WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief: The Great Glass Suspension Bridge of Disbelief. The variety of ways to break this is a running gag.
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* BooksOnTrope: It's writing advice for amateur original and {{fanfic}} authors. It's also general characterization advice. It's also all about how to make tropes work because the point the book is making is that TropesAreNotBad it's just how you handle them.

* WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief: The Great Glass Suspension Bridge of Disbelief. The variety of ways to break this is a running gag.

* AntiSue: A rotten egg with a plain shell is still just as much a rotten egg as one that has a decorated shell.
* BlackHoleSue: The closest match for the definition of MarySue as given by Morgenstern.

* CanonSue: Although it regularly mentions that both exist, for the most part the book does not differentiate between Creator created Sues and Fan created Sues.

* JerkSue: Given an in-depth discussion in the section on friends.
* MartyStu: Although the book takes the more common female name, these are also the point of the book.
* MarySue: Fixing and identifying these is the whole premise of the book.

* {{Squick}}: The possibility that the medical metaphors that make up much of the book can be Squicky is acknowledged in the book. Readers are sometimes apologised to and sometimes advised to take BrainBleach.

* AliceAndBob: Averted. There are 'four' sets of explanation characters ([[HarryPotter Harry]] and [[PossessionSue Larry]], [[ASongOfIceAndFire Princess]] [[ShoutOut Dani]] and [[CanonSue Zani]], [[SelfDeprecation Lewis and Clark, and Lilia and Celeste]]. No A-names and no B-names appear in examples.

* BooksOnTrope: It's writing advice for amateur original and {{fanfic}} authors. It's also general characterisation advice. It's also all about how to make tropes work because the point the book is making is that TropesAreNotBad it's just how you handle them.

* ShoutOut: A lot of works get referenced in this book. Some are blatant, like [[HarryPotter Harry]] and his [[PossessionSue fan counrterpart Larry]] trying to deal with Professor Squirrrel, while others are more sublte ...like the adventurer who has to retrieve the Holy Moon of Tapioca with only his [[IndianaJones hat and whip]].

* WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief: The Great Glass Suspension Bridge of Disbelief. The varity of ways to break this is a running gag.

* RealityEnsues: Applying reality is one of the most common medicines given. Unsurprising, given that reality failing to ensue for one specific character is considered a symptom. Most of the explanations and examples have a funny take on this, but the explanation of beaurocratic problems which Sueish names can cause in reality is tinged with both SelfDeprecation and bitterness.

The book has five part, each with chapters and sub-sections, and numerous writing exercises, on topics from how to make [[KaleidoscopeEyes multi-colored eyes]] work to how to tactfully write about [[RapeAsBackstory rape]], but it mostly consists of humor, {{Snark}}, and eggs.

* {{Metaphorgotten}}: When advising writers not to overuse physical descriptions it says: "Trust that your readers aren’t goldfish. (If they were goldfish, you’d already be world famous for teaching fish how to read and the problems with your writing wouldn’t actually matter anymore, because, holy shit, you taught fish how to read.)" ...Most of the humor of the book runs on this trope.

* ShoutOut: A lot of works get referenced in this book. Some are blatant, like [[HarryPotter Harry]] and his [[PosessionSue fan counrterpart Larry]] trying to deal with Professor Squirrrel, while others are more sublte ...like the adventurer who has to retrieve the Holy Moon of Tapioca with only his [[IndianaJones hat and whip]].

* AliceAndBob: Subverted. There are 'four' sets of explanation characters ([[HarryPotter Harry]] and [[PossessionSue Larry]], [[ASongOfIceAndFire Princess]] [[ShoutOut Dani]] and [[CanonSue Zani]], [[SelfDeprecation Lewis and Clark, and Lilia and Celeste]]. No A-names and no B-names appear in examples.

* MartyStu: Although the book takes the more common female name, these are also the point of the book.

* WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief: The Great Glass Suspension Bridge of Disbelief. The varity of ways to break this is a running gag.

* {{Squick}}: The premise of the book is that [[MarySue Mary-Sues]] are a sort of disease of fiction which can be cured like a cold. Many of the metaphors and examples therefore extrapolate the main medical metaphor. Sometimes this goes ...a bit far. Like the bit about Paradoxical Diarrhoea.

* RealityEnsues: Applying reality is one of the most common medicines given. Unsurprising, given that reality failing to ensue for one specific character is considered a symptom. Most of the explanations and examples have a funny take on this, but the explanation of beaurocratic problems which Sueish names can cause in reality is tinged with both SelfDeprecation and bitterness.
* MixedMetaphor: By the end of the introduction architecture, eggs and medicine have gone from being separate metaphors to one very disturbing one. The rest of the humor runs on this trope.
* CommonMarySueTraits: Argues that it is not how many of these traits a character has, but whether they are well written which makes or Sues a character.
* AntiSue: A rotten egg with a plain shell is still just as much a rotten egg as one that has a decorated shell.
* InsistentTerminology: Good Eggs and Bad Eggs. Also "Mary-Sue Disease" itself.
* BrainBleach: What readers are advised to take at the end of Part Three. Justified, given that it comes right after a [[Squick Squickily]] graphic and [[TooMuchInformation anatomically correct explanation]] of the problems with InterspeciesRomance and MaleToFemaleUniversalAdaptor.
* BlackHoleSue: The closest match for the definition of MarySue as given by Morgenstern.
* JerkSue: Given an in-depth discussion in the section on friends.
* WritersCannotDoMath:
** When discussed; it's not an excuse because calculators exist.
** Outside of discussion? Averted when Morgenstern talks about the math behind how many jobs a character can realistically hold, why writing doesn't pay, and why writers need to know what kind of spending budget their characters have.
* AliceAndBob: Subverted. There are 'four' sets of explanation characters ([[HarryPotter Harry]] and [[PosessionSue Larry]], [[ASongOfIceAndFire Princess]] [[ShoutOut Dani]] and [[CanonSue Zani]], [[SelfDeprecation Lewis and Clark, and Lilia and Celeste]]. No A-names and no B-names appear in examples.
* CanonSue: Although it regularly mentions that both exist, for the most part the book does not differentiate between Creator created Sues and Fan created Sues.
* HazmatSuit: What you need to dispose of bad eggs, after they've [[ItMakesSenseInContext grown tentacles]].
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: In the About the Author, of all places!
* OneOfUs: There's no way that many tropes got name dropped without Morgenstern being aware of TVTropes. Also, the fact that it's a book about [[MarySue MarySues]].