HOW NOT TO WRITE A MARY SUE - Terrible Writing Advice 

"So naturally, the best way to avoid writing a Mary Sue is to make every single thing in the story go wrong for them" Oh how I do love fiction that reads like a case study of Murphy's Law.

The most handsomest and successful author has once again blessed us with a fraction of his cosmic knowledge

I desperately want to write an entire story incorporating all of TWA’s “advice” and make a truly horrible and cliche story and call it “The Greatest Story Ever!” Edit: I will comit every single writing sin imaginable. Poorly written characters, lifeless worlds, broken plots, terrible pacing, and of course the worst sin of all; forced love triangle subplots! Oh the humanity! It could be an amazing critique on modern hollywood writing.

Mary Sue as a villain would be truly horrifying. Imaging slowly discovering that you are practically a slave to this extremely powerful person, everyone and everything seems to revolve around her, nobody can talk about anything without it inevitably coming back to her. I don't even know what you could do about it because she also has plot armor! edit: I can't believe it took me this long to realize this, but I basically described The Count of Monte Cristo, I will never live this down it's basically half my personality at this point! (I've even made a video about adaptations of it and plan on making more videos. Yes this is a shameless plug I learned from the best, Subscribe to Technoblade!) But yeah, the universe loves this guy it takes four guys with their own reasons to dislike him in order to bring him down and then he comes back richer and more powerful than all of them put together. and when he does come back he is all they can talk about and the world still revolves around him. It's not even a supernatural story!

The Internet has me believe a Mary Sue is just a character I don’t like, but don’t want to just go out and say it.

“It’s okay to be a bad writer” 12:11 Best writing advice ever. Must have been a mistake. Catch you at the next Nanowrimo my fellow bad writers.

Y'know NotSue seems like she should get a handheld camera with an unrealistically long battery life and just refuse to turn it off.

How to not write a Mary Sue : don't write at all

Remember kids : Your character is automatically not a Mary Sue if they're slightly clumsy, that's how you know they have flaws! Sure it's a single one but hey, it's a flaw, meaning that you can deflect any criticism about them having none.

The idea of a story where literally EVERY character is a mary sue does genuinely intrigue me

I love the natural evolution of this channel from parodying the writing of people who don't know better to parodying the writing of people who are obsessed with *seeming* like they know better. Can't stand how genuinely helpful critique concepts get hijacked by both critics and writers until the writers are overcompensating at the expense of their story.

Isekai authors sweating right now.

Thinking about it, everyone being Mary Sues partially addresses the issues normally caused by having a Mary Sue. A character being one is strongly determined by how their character relates to and interacts with the setting, situations, and other characters. So making everyone overblown, while silly, might actually be less frustrating as it makes the character less of a Mary Sue.

Now i want to see an episode on Tropeboarding, AKA "criticizing" a story by the PRESENCE of tropes, rather than their EXECUTION

The best advice on character writing I've ever gotten is _"Don't worry about if you're writing a Mary Sue or not, just write a character"_ Take a character, give them some quirks, and you'll probably be fine. Don't fuss over arbitrary definitions. There are no rules when it comes to writing. Except grammar and spelling. Those are rules you have to follow.

Tbh, you should do a video on how to write characters with disabilities, mental illnesses, etc. That would definitely be an interesting one.

"A writer can't just go ahead and write indulgent crap to get it out of their system. Never should a writer accept that it's okay to be bad." The essential step that every writing advice channel loves to just gloss over for some reason.

"Then a bunch of flaws are even better! Just keep lumping on all kinds of character flaws until the character collapses under the weight of them!!" I see JP has watched Velma

Kinda wanna write a story where the main character does nothing but still gets involved in all of the action, then it's later revealed that she has reality warping abilities and that she's causing these things to happen around her Edit: apparently this comment blew up and I just realized now. Thank you all for the recommendations!

Do “How to write a morally grey character” next.

The humbling "It's okay to be bad, you can write better later" is something that might need to be posted on my wall.

9:07 I'm not entirely sure why, but the image of Tolkien beating JC senseless with his pipe is both utterly hilarious and strangely cathartic somehow.

The battle between Mary Sue and Marie Seu’s gonna be legendary

It's such a shame Mary Sue doesn't have the bite it should anymore. A loud minority of writers have seemingly just started to make pointlessly rude and obnoxious protagonists whilst still trying to pass them off as likeable.

It's why I've settled on, "A character who the author favors to the point it's detrimental to the story" as the only concise and clear-cut definition of a "Mary Sue." It'd be better if there were a concise and snappy term for this that is common enough that people get it but Mary Sue is the one that has gained the most traction and it's good enough.

This feels like the mindset of someone who wrote a marry sue and then overcorrected not knowing the fundamentals. Great video.

I remember caring far too much about the status of a character being somehow a mary sue. Now I'm just like "lol, I'm going to have a story beat where she rips and tears a mech to pieces with little more than a crowbar and anime martial arts." as it was meant to be.

To any writers who might read this: The demographic of media consumers that debate eternally about whether characters are Mary Sues or not is a very small minority that can be safely ignored. So long as you design a character that isn’t overwhelmingly Mr/Mrs perfect or a 0 in every special stat, then most people won’t have an issue with them

"Its okay to be bad" is quite honestly such good advice (with context)

The difference between an interesting character and a boring one is not the amount of assets you tack onto the character model, but how you pose them. While every other character was being placed and posed in this video, both Mary Sue and Not Mary Sue retained the same posture: idleness and indifference.

I remember the story with what I felt was the biggest Mary Sue I'd ever read was an Villainess Isekai, a genre that's admittedly oversaturated with OP protags, but it had absolutely nothing to do with her powers. It was entirely her role in the narrative that made me consider her a Mary Sue. Because she was the most passive fucking protagonist I've ever seen in my goddamm life. She would just stand there like a piece of soggy toast and the narrative would twist itself into a pretzel trying to dump gifts on her lap and justify her as the most special person in existence for doing nothing. Like, in the first few chapters, she's trying to shake her coachman so she can leave the country, but she just stands there and makes excuses until a handsome stranger appears and pretends to be her servant so she can get to the train station. This handsome stranger just happens to be the prince of a neighbouring country, who apparently butted in... just because. Like she wasn't even in trouble with thugs or anything. Her coachman was literally too worried about her to let her leave alone. Anyways, princey immediately decides to take her to all his closest knights and aides, and of course THEY all decide she's the best thing since sliced bread and immediately treat her like a longtime friend and confidante just because. No reason. They just do. So of course they decide to bring her along with them on their road trip, to a place that is coincidentally her mother's homeland, and when she randomly dips her feet in some water she unlocks her super-special rainbow magic powers. To reiterate: she just happens to accompany a person who iust happens to be the prince of a neighbouring country who just happens to take her to the place she needed to go to unlock her powers, while the "protag" herself takes absolutely no actions that would justify having these things happens to her, and just stands around and lets other people lead her along to wherever she needs to go to be rewarded as the most specialest person to have ever been born by the narrative. I consider her a Mary Sue because she does NOTHING. I would literally have no problem with any of the things that happen to her if SHE was the one who made them happen. If going to her mother's homeland to unlock her real powers had been her goal from the start, instead of something she stumbles into. If she had grabbed a random man by the arm to pretend he's her servant for the coachman, and he turned out to be a prince, it would be contrived, but this genre is full of contrivances anyways and at least this way she's playing an active part instead of being a narrarive tungsten cube that just fucking sits there. If maybe the prince didn't immediately decide she's the best thing since sliced bread and only accompanied her out of curiosity, and then take more of an interest when he sees her super special awesomesauce rainbow sprinkle with a cherry on top magic. The events would be the same, the protagonist's powers would be the same, but it would feel more satisfying because she would have been an active participant in her own fate. And I think that's the difference between a Sue and a character.

"throw more crap at them and the audience will sympathise harder, not start laughing at how ridiculous this is" Ah, someone's been watching Magical girl Site

2:50, “Ebony isn’t a Mary Sue, she’s a Satanist”. If you understand that reference, then you have my deepest sympathies for having read that

I've been incubating a book for nine years now, and I think you make a good point about taking too long, but the thing is, I came up with the idea when I was just 14, and I've been developing it since then with research, inspiration, and school assignments. My plan isn't to just procrastinate-I just think that being an author isn't something that most people should consider doing as a career and I'm preparing to take a different, more stable path. Right now, I'm more focused on becoming an adult than writing a novel. Once I'm independent and financially secure, then the real work will begin. The plan is to do it as a project, not a job that I'm reliant on the unlikely success of. If I succeed-and I still think I can-then great! But if I fail, then that's okay because I'll still have a career to live off of. I'm sure that your statement was probably aimed at full-time employed middle-aged adults who have been planning on writing a novel for too long and never actually done anything, but I just felt like I should give my two cents.

It is interesting how modern parlance has moved Mary Sue from the very ‘this OC in a fanfic is taking up too much of the story and is blocking out the characters I care about’ to ‘this character in the story is objectively bad because they take up too much of the plot’. That’s not to say Mary Sue’s can’t exist in non-fanfic media, I just feel like the part where the Mary Sue is a post-hoc addition to an original cast is an important point of the definition that’s often forgotten. Without that unique qualifier the term ‘Mary Sue’ can cover the scope of literally any female character you find annoying.

8:00 I just had Vietnam flashbacks to Princess Changeling Rainbow Magic Pants, aka P-CRaMPs from MLP:FIM fanfiction. She had the heart of a dragon... and the spleen of a griffon. She's literally the offspring of all of the major powers in the show... at the same time. She was considered a nightmarish abomination by all in-universe with characters saying they should kill her as early as chapter one. It's the only acceptable way to have a Mary Sue.

Unironic Advice: To be a Mary Sue, a character must have at least 2 out of 3 attributes: ✅️: They never fail at anything, and no obstacle is not beaten through minimal effort. ✅️: Almoat all of the narrative focuses on him or her ✅️: Every good character always agrees with and likes him or her

I love how J.P has single-handedly solved ship wars through his writing abilities at 1:51. Truly a magnificent feat. (And to think Harry potter simply had to marry Aang for it to happen.)

A long time ago I used to write a lot of fan fiction and would write entire "extra seasons" of existing series. I wrote two major OCs that were close to main characters. One I could write lots of stories with, but the other led me to eventually quit because I was unable to write a conflict for an OC, but now I'm realizing they were a Mary Sue. Non-Mary Sue OC: Cirrus Storm (MLP FiM) Rainbow Dash's cousin who was close friends with Rainbow as fillies and frequently raced, but Cirrus always lost. Eventually Cirrus got so desperate to win that she experimented with ways to cheat, and found out how to harness kinetic/electric energy from storm clouds by stuffing them into cannisters and calling them "Storm Battieres". She finally beat Rainbow Dash in a race by strapping Storm Battery powered Rockets under her wings, but then got a cutiemark of a Storm Battery. Afterwards Cirrus became deeply depressed over this, believing her cutiemark was for "cheating" and saw it as a symbol of shame. She disconnected from all her friends and family and moved to live in isolation from everyother pony, causing her to become unempathetic, introverted, and insecure. To earn a living, she sold storm battery technology to Cloudsdale. Character wise, she genuinely wants to help other ponies, but has trouble knowing whats socially acceptable which causes problems. Several stories were written about her surrounding her flaws: -The cutiemark crusaders help Cirrus see her cutiemark as a good thing as the tech she invented benefited Cloudsdale immensely, and move on from seeing it as a negative status symbol for cheating. They also restore her friendship with Rainbow. -Twilight wants to meet Cirrus after hearing about her from the crusaders. Cirrus instead flees believing the only reason royalty would want to talk to her is if she commited a crime. -Cirrus gets mad at Rainbow for not liking one of her inventions, so the Mane 6 teach Cirrus that being friends with someone doesn't mean instant approval. -Cirrus Storm creates prosethic wing extensions for Scootaloo so she can fly like other Pegasi, but Scootaloo finds shes no where near as good at flying as other Pegasi so she becomes embarrassed to see Rainbow Dash again. Cirrus Storm tells Scootaloo about her own insecurities of losing to Rainbow Dash but thanks to the crusaders gained the courage to see her again, so Scootaloo shows her prosethic wings to Rainbow anyways -Cirrus backwards engineers Changeling abilities and invents a device that lets the user to shapeshift into other things, then loans it out to others in hopes of approval but others just end up abusing it for personal gain. Chaos ensues and she has to be taught a lesson in self-restraint. -A Pegasus stallion dog walker develops a crush on Fluttershy. Cirrus tries to help the stallion get a date with Fluttershy but doesn't take into account how uncomfortable this makes Fluttershy. The stallion eventually calls Cirrus out on this. -In the "extra season" finale, the antagonist is an incredibly dangerous Necromancer Wolf who was defeated by Celestia 500 year ago by sealing their power inside a gemstone, but the gemstone couldn't be destroyed so it was buried. In the present, the Necromancer Wolf revives with a fraction of his power, but can sense where the gemstone is and if they obtain it they get restored to full power allowing him to take over Equestria in an instant. While Celestia admits she couldn't destroy the gemstone 500 years ago, she suspects there's probably a way in the present to get rid of the Necromancer for good and tasks the Mane 6 in consulting various magic prodigies, meanwhile Rainbow Dash is given the gemstone and is required to fly as fast as possible to escape the Necromancer Wolf's shadow clones that he sent to retrieve the gemstone until a means of destroying it is found. Rainbow Dash becomes increasingly exhausted but she has to keep going as she's the only one fast enough to outmaneuver the shadow clones. In the final stretch, Sunburst and other unicorns invent a spell that can invert the gemstones contained power and cause it to self-destruct so they request Rainbow Dash bring the gemstone to them, but the Mane 6 find out Rainbow Dash became exhausted and had the gemstone taken from her so its being delivered to the Necromancer. She tells the Mane 6 that only somepony who can fly as fast as her could reach the shadow clones in time. Fortunately Cirrus Storm steps up and takes out the "Storm Battery Powered Rockets" she originally used to cheat in the race against Rainbow Dash and rockets her way to the shadow clones and retrieves the gemstone right before the Necromancer Wolf gets it back, allowing Sunburst to perform the spell to destroy it along with the wolf. Every pony celebrates Cirrus Storm, but Rainbow Dash cries in the corner as she failed in the end. Cirrus Storm asks everypony to acknowledge Rainbow Dashes efforts to keep the gemstone away as long as she did which cheers her up. Mary Sue OC: Kiyee (Legend of Korra) A Waterbender who invented "Vapor Bending" who could bend literally anything as long as its wet, including air in moist areas. He ends up cooperating with the main cast simply out of competence and desire to help. They practically rivalled Korra in terms of strength. The fan fic series just consisted of Kiyee defeating a threat of unknown origin repeatedly, but I didnt decide on what the threat was in advance. Just that Id write what it was in a later entry. However after 8 entries of him defeating random enemies I still couldn't come up with a convincing villain or threat as there's nothing that could defeat Kiyee with what's established about him, so I just abandoned writing fan fics of that series entirely with no finale.

How Isekai fans talk about Isekai: "Oh, another trash Isekai." "Man this episode is so bad." "Absolutely disgusting." "The Worst." "That makes no sense." The same people five seconds later: "Well see you guys next week to watch the new episode." "See you then." "Bye." "Man, I can't wait."

The sponsor segment is so painfully accurate to real life that it makes me want to both laugh and cry. Amazing video as always!

One of my favorite characters is a (former) Mary Sue. She was created when I was very young and did not know how to write a good character, who I then brought back to write into a more interesting story where the other characters in her world slowly discovered was, in fact, a Sue. Before they figured it out, she was basically a deity. Everyone loved and supported her, she made friends with everyone she possibly could, and anyone who threatened anyone she liked either got convinced to knock it off after a threat from her, or got killed. After they discovered what she was, the other characters began to fear her. She reacted to the rejection by becoming progressively more unstable, and her clinginess and violent tendencies became an actual problem. This all snowballed until she LOST her Mary Sue status by no longer being the center of attention, no longer being liked or agreed with by everybody, and suddenly having all of her dormant personality flaws dredged up and shown for what they were. She's still got every single power anyone could ever want, but what makes her interesting now is how she handles relationships and her own self (and others) destructive tendencies.

You joke, but this is basically what happened to fanfiction and some art communities in the early 2010's. A lot of people (especially kids) saw stuff about Mary Sues are basically the devil, so they course corrected so far backwards that they made charatcers that were souless husks.

JP, you have the greatest timing when it comes to uploading these TWA videos. The first major incident is you uploaded less than a day after I had intensive spinal surgery. And now I've had a terrible day with a math test. I don't know what logic your following, but keep it up, and thank you.

Funnily enough, this video seems like what Marvel Comics have done to the character of Spider-Man (Peter Parker) all these years. Making him suffer for the sake of making him suffer, not for character development.

The irony of anti mary sues is that they are still mary sues.

It seems like the term ironically got watered down after people realized that you can write an entertaining OP main character (usually when they're charismatic or funny out of universe too).

3:56, this one seems to be a common pitfall for Spider-Man comic writers. Can’t he just find happiness without his character development being regressed?

If theres one thing I never understood in most OCs that try to be "cool" or "edgy" its the whole shoehorning of trauma after trauma. Its not realistic in the slightest, just, happens with no explanation and somehow people expect that to make their character better than others

While Mary Sue is it's own problem, complaining about it is also overplayed. It kinda is just "female I don't like" but more than likely has traits with author's pet or overpowered within universe and may have nothing to do with the lead writer. Focus on making a realized character rather than perfect girl BUT has a superfluous flaw or dilemma tacked on. Part of why Rey in Star Wars is so divisive is she's not really an author's self insert just kind of bland and seated in the protagonist role. Everything going wrong for a character is just as bad as everything being picture perfect and can come off as the author just ranting, still falling into the flaw of inserting yourself rather than someone who grew organically in universe. Fan fiction is fan fiction so you can get away with a lot just to brush it off as creative writing, but when it's an original work with fresh characters I agree half the problems with an inserted Mary Sue just apply to any protagonist to a lesser degree, therefore any female protagonist is going to have some traits of "girl I don't like". Okay bad writing makes those traits worse but MS is still a blanket statement.

I think Mindy Kaling used this video to write her version of Velma.

One of the those terms that started out valid and then became as weak and overused as the very thing it called out, joining the Sue instead of destroying it. Reactionary overcompensation in the other direction isn't as prevalent but I'm sure it can happen, especially the blandness thing where we're afraid to give a character any meaningful traits due to associated connotations and stereotypes ('character likes fashionable clothes so they must be a vapid airhead obsessed with looks!') so they just end up vacant.

I want to write an antagonist based on the Mary Sue. Imagine, an alluring, insanely powerful witch who uses her eldritch abilities to bend reality around her. She laces her voice and appearance with dark, hypnotic magic that causes those around her to obsess over her, even beyond the point of self-preservation, like a siren song luring hapless sailors to their doom. Her goal is to use her magic to become queen-goddess over all the universe and have even the most powerful among mankind at her beck and call. The only way to defeat her is to kill her, but how can one do that when her face, her voice, even her scent, weaves a spell that can ensnare even the most powerful of wills? Beware the elder witch Mary Sue. Do not come too close, lest you join her throng of worshippers for all eternity…

You should make a Terrible Writing Advice about Multiverses or Time Travel

I absolutely love this. Mary Sue was the first video, so it's beautiful to see it all come full circle with terrible writing advice on how not to write a sue

Now I'm desperate to write a Mary Sue. Reverse psychology absolutely nailed me this time. As long as the rest of the characters stay in character mostly and the plot is interesting it'll be fine.

Thank you for making this. I used to sweat all the time about how people would interpret characters I write. Obsessing over what people think about your work isn't super helpful and I only got my big projects done when I decided that it only mattered that I liked and believed the characters. Internet discourse can be terrible and its great to have a video to point people to.

I cannot thank you enough for this perfect summary of all my insecurities when it comes to storytelling. It's so nice and important to see how many people were going through similar things. I hope you know how much your silly little videos have helped me and probably many other viewers to overcome their overly perfectionist creative self-restriction.

If I ever took a college course about writing with J.P as my professor, and he did all this for the lessons, I would love the class.

Wouldn't a truly perfect writer not even have to worry about writing a Mary Sue, because the writer is just that perfect in every way that everyone will always love what the writer does? (great vid, btw)

4:08 I like that chain of bad things happening to the NMS, because, if your coffee catches fire, there is probably a crapload of alcohol in it. ... Which recontextualizes why the car wasn't paid off, why the dog wasn't let in, and -- rather disturbingly -- why Gram-Gram fell down those stairs.

Advice so nice we needed it twice.

"I mean, the story bends over backwards to make sure all her _monumental_ screwups don't matter while all the characters just.. forgive her for some reason" Wandavision summarized in a single sentence, I think.

I hope to get a "J. P. Contradictions Compilation" at some point. Just all the times JP said something that contradicted something else he said. Considering the Whole Premise of the show I'd not be shocked if J. P. himself released it. I wonder how many different thing character and/or story are beholden to.

Seriously, could you please put the "It's okay to be a bad writer. Keep writing and make an honest effort to improve. Eventually you wont be a bad anymore." on a shirt. I would wear it for my class. Or would that be too off brand for you to put in your shop.

8:25 = I encountered this so many times when I discovered fanfiction in the early 2000s. All I wanted was to read more stuff outside of the movies about my favorite characters; but half to two-thirds of the stories I found, would self-insert a character/OC then mess up the whole dynamic.

1:21 "When everyone is myself insert, noone is." - Not a Mary Sue, OC pls don't steal

Just remember that it doesn't matter how hard you try, someone will call your character a Mary Sue. It's inevitable no matter the writer or work.

Something that was said on a site complaining about bad roleplayers has stuck with me, and this video reminded me of it: The fear of the Mary Sue is often worse than any Mary Sue.

7:44 I like how Beaubien points out that being overpowered and a very idealized, focused individual isn't what makes a Mary Sue, just by bringing up Superman. And he has a point. If that's the case, then all these deity-like characters would be Mary Sues. The traits Beaubien brings up work with Superman because those traits add to Superman's character, as Superman is meant to be an inspiring paragon.

I like how the General has just gradually drifted towards being the protagonist because everyone else is on Greed's side

Ngl, a story where literally every character is a mary sue is too hilarious of a premise, now that you've mentioned it

J.P. is growing in both method and madness! Seriously though,, having followed this channel since its inception, I can tell how refined J.P.'s knowledge of the craft has grown. Editing, scripting, visuals, content, my you have come a long way. This could be the best writing advice channel on RU-vid. Sir, I salute you.

i find it amazing how there's a story out there for virtually every individual mary sue trait but done correctly. almost like when you make a story with believable characters that interact with their world it actually can turn out well. even the anti-traits JP mentioned. magicless character in a setting of the best magic users? black clover and mashle. they even have opposite atmospheres on the matter, as mashle is basically a comedy where mash being overpowered despite no magic is the entire point, while black clover is a story about working hard to achieve your goals and figuring out how to do it with your specific hand. "being different" is also a sueish trait in that regard, but they both make it work for the world the characters live in. black clover even has what would basically be a textbook mary sue on the surface in yuno, but despite all of his abilities and overwhelming strength, he still has to earn respect from many of his colleagues due to his peasant origins, and never looks down at asta despite asta usually lagging behind him, instead working even harder to make sure asta doesnt catch up.

Oh I remember when internet writing communities were obsessed with not making Mary Sues to the point that nowadays I struggle with given a character more than _two_ strong skills. These days I think it does more harm than good? Personally my struggle isn't so much being a bad writer, though it is definitely that, but also not doing the story in my head justice.

Great video. It's becoming increasingly rare to encounter independent thinkers these days who challenge the parroting inside of echo chambers. The term 'Mary Sue' is thrown around so much anymore it has blurred the line between a well written character and what a Mary Sue actually is. A writer can't just make a female protagonist unattractive, excessively flawed, and hit by every branch from the misfortune tree from one page to the next to escape the label. Then you just have an anti-Mary Sue instead of a good, well-written character. I like the bit about it's ok to be a bad writer. Being a bad writer doesn't mean you don't have a good story to tell. It's ok to make a female character attractive, liked, and powerful. But there has to be context and contrast. A reader is more likely to empathize with your MC if she tries and fails. When there are true consequences for her failure. And having to grow as a character in order to finally reach her goal. IOW. In order for the character to grow (not be a MS), they must persevere past the consequences that has resulted from their failures.

5:44 Reminds me of Chivalry of a failed Knight, where the protagonist has a magical power that seems so situational and weak, so he's honed his body and mind to MAKE it work and become a swordsman that's able to duel with master magic users.

I think the issue with bad things constantly happening to the Not Mary Sue is that ultimately, luck is just an extension of one's willingness to come prepared. It's hard to sympathize with a Not Mary Sue when bandits kidnap her mid-route as she makes her way to another town when she could have hired bodyguards to protect her, avoided going along that route knowing bandits patrol there, or at the very least have acknowledged that this was a risk that she'd have to take because of the urgency of the plot.

I’ve more or less come to tune out discussions where the term “Mary Sue” is used. Once upon a time, the term served a purpose, but now it’s been hijacked by all the worst people who have decided it means “There’s a female lead character who doesn’t exist primarily as fetish material in mah movie.” The label seems to be thrown a disproportionate amount at female characters. Because while it’s okay for men to have endless power fantasies marketed to them, for some reason, women aren’t allowed to have anything. Men can have their John Wicks and James Bonds, but whenever there’s a female lead, suddenly they’re deeply concerned about the realism of their movies, start combing through scenes to make sure it’s “realistic” for the female character to be able to do this.

Funnily enough, I am currently working on a grimdark/ dark fantasy novel at the moment, which features a female anti heroine, so this video is very well timed My protagonist is essentially a female Cloud Strife but who's young child self looks like young Jill Warrick from the recent Final Fantasy XVI Tne narrative is a failed redemption arc which results in a negative character arc where she goes from an innocent young girl to a ruthless self serving anti heroine to a villain protagonist (caused by her crossing the despair event horizon) by the end of the novel

Why does this way of teaching work so well

I jumped right into publishing knowing my first few books would be terrible and yet people still read them. In 4 years I published 32 books and my first terrible one is still my most read.

I really appreciate the message at the end. I don't feel like i suffer from either end of the marry sue extreme, but I'll get ideas that i put my heart and soul into and worry myself so much i drop it out of stress rather than put out something that may be imperfect but will help me grow

"It's okay to be bad. You can always write something better later." Thanks.. I needed to hear that.

9:43 it’s been two years since I’ve started my journey, you’re right. Thanks for keeping it real brother. As someone who’s doing school full time and work 30 hours a week though, I gotta be easy on myself though.

The high quality animation during the sponsorship war is unsettling.

How not to write a Mary Sue? Easy peasy, just write... and hear me out here... a male character. Everything characteristic that would make a female character a Mary Sue makes a superhero out of a male character.

Best way to avoid a Mary Sue (in my opinion at least): Establish actual consequences for their actions

Wow. This is almost eerily convenient because I am curranty writing a chapter of a story of mine and looking at this video, i was DEFINITLY too focused on not making him a Mary Sue rather than simply focusing on simply having fun with it. You, sir, are the man. And thank you.

Hey Terrible Writing Advice I don’t know if you’re reading this but I want to say thank you. You’re super sarcastic way of teaching how to write is super entertaining and this video for sure helped me realize what I really want to do with writing. Instead of writing for making a story, I just wanted self-validation. Thank you for helping me realize that (even though that’s probably super obvious). So now, instead of writing for that, I think I’ll stick to writing but never posting it. Again, thank you so much! You’re the best!

I feel like people are forgetting that a Mary Sue is just ONE bad way to write a character and is not an umbrella term for everything that can be wrong with a character. To throw some additional comments on top of this: -Character flaws are good WHEN you remember to have redeeming characteristics that juxtopose them in a way that ADDS to the character. For example, how you might be decent at math or science in school and maybe you've been typecasted as an "idiot", but you are actually very talented when it comes to english and history and most people just don't know that about you. You now have LAYERS to you that show just because you aren't extremely talented on one thing doesn't mean you're not talented at another. You have your place in the world. Compare that to a Mary Sue who just excel at all subjects WITHOUT having a crippled social life, sleep schedule, and time for hobbies; all the virtues of being the straight A student with none of the downsides. If we're talking Disney's recent string of super-genius teenage girls, notice how they're all uppedity go-getters instead of, say, a quiet and misunderstood shut-in that isn't good at expressing themselves but have an endearing trait like a lack of confidence or is just naturally quiet until someone prompts them with conversation, something to play with that makes them feel like an actual human being who had to sacrifice certain things for their academics. -Characters who are perfect all of the time aren't very engaging. Usually, the most compelling characters, no matter how simple, are fun and interesting BECAUSE of their simplicity and/or acknowledgment of their limited world view. Take a character like Doomguy who only really cares about killing demons. That is his one thing; he isn't out to sage the universe, to prove the badguy wrong or win some deep philosophical conversation on the meaning of life, he just REALLY hates demons to such an extent that he massacred the underworld, TWICE, all because they killed his rabbit, a rabbit which sharply undercuts any initial misconceptions one might have about him being an edgelord and adds a humorous tongue-in-cheek flavor to his character. Or take Lae'zel from Baldur's Gate 3. Personality wise she has all of the traits of a Mary Sue; abrasive, masculine, cold, devoid of humor, hero complex. It's all there... Except she's vulnerable, and as the game goes on it becomes clear she's just a headstrong acolyte to her cause and as it goes on she outright tells you past a certain point that her Githyanki code and ethics were once her whole world, but the adventure has shown her how ignorant she was and how much she likes the world outside of the war cult she has been trapped in. She was never a Mary Sue, just an naive albeit aggressively loyal soldier. -The typical traits of a Mary Sue CAN work... As a villain. This is why Superman (sometimes) works as a villain, where you get to aee both the peak of his humanity before it becomes twisted and confused during the Injustice comics/movies in which the koss of Louise and his unborn child turns him into a genuine monster so hellbent on controlling the world just so he doesn't have to fear it any longer. This is a generally good skeleton for a villain story; have them be an icon amongst their own before having a "kick-off" point where their good traits get turned inwards on themselves and their capacity for evil is shown. Or maybe not evil at all, maybe they are only an antagonist through circumstance and it is a tragic turn of events where no one is necessarily doing the wrong thing but people are trapped in their current path, like a man with a family who will be killed if he does not let a bomb go off killing a bunch of OTHER innocent people. -If "Every character is a Mary Sue", none of them are. "Mary Sue" is a term used to describe an outlier, if every character is uber powerful and given loads of attention and importance to the plot, that character isn't a Mary Sue. Rey Skywalker, for example, is a Mary Sue because she simultaneously has the least experience, training and relevance to ANYTHING going on at any given moment in the newer movies, yet at the same time she somehow fights better, knows other people's trades better and can resolve issues better than anyone else all while not having to go on any actual character journey or path to self improvement typical and expected of any hero. The Justice League, however, does not have any real Mary Sue and that is because not only does each character have their own unique super powers, but if one turns on the other members for any given reason, the plot becomes about stopping them and leveraging either power flaws or personality flaws to the hero's advantage.

6:06 I did actually read a couple stories about non magical people in magical worlds. Can be very interesting to explore the struggles of the main character trying to prove his value. But that would require writing a smart, intelligent character, wich often requires the author to think. So not posible to actually achieve.

TWA has literally just described Mitchell from Hunt Down the Freeman to a tee. Good job!

Thank you for this. I tried to avoid writing a mary sue and my character ended up having the exact same description as the example in the video. Keep up the good work.

I once read an MLP fanfic where the author seemed to be trying to do this for his "Human in Equestria" OC. Throughout the story, he constantly takes the piss out of the "illogical" nature of beginning and end of season villain plots, becomes an insanely rich author by adapting Star Wars, marries Princess Luna, stops the changeling invasion (leading to a "better" outcome which opens negotiations with changelings), learns and instantly rejects dark magic (not for moral reasons, but because it apparently wasn't a significant upgrade), solves Equestria Girls in less than 5 minutes (leading to a "better" outcome where Sunset returns to Equestria), straight up KILLS Tirek, becomes a national hero, ascends to become an Alicorn prince, and generally solves most of the canon plots through pragmatic means without anything like "conflict" or "friendship". But it's okay! Because he doesn't WANT to be an alicorn or prince, and uses magic to hide his wings! And he's not all-powerful because his alicorn powers are only strong in the dream world! And he often loses petty competitions that have no actual bearing on anything important. And the other characters rib on him, occasionally. That should hopefully distract you from the fact that he essentially draws the entire plot around him like a black hole, is never really portrayed as being wrong or making any significant mistake, and is never called out for his cynical pragmatism in a story about friendship and understanding, nor do his actions have ANY negative consequences for deviating from canon. He once considered turning a baby to stone as, "an option".

Mary Sue's are better when the authors knows they're writing a Mary Sue. Meanwhile an anti-Sue is worse when the author deliberately goes out of their way to write one. An odd yet perfect symmetry.

This is the first big name youtuber I've seen address functions of flaws and their dynamic with character strenghts rather than go simply "character must have flaws to be good!!!". I swear a lot of "character analysis" nowadays is just a flaw checklist.

You know what kind of RU-vidr I hate the most? One that actively knows that I hate them and feeds off of that with a devious smirk on their face.

Real talk, these videos have done so much for me in terms of managing my own anxieties as a creator online. It helps to have them articulated and debunked in a really funny and engaging way. It makes me feel good to point out how ridiculous these worries are without making me feel personally bad for experiencing them. Just wanted to share that! I can’t wait to see more!!

0:58 I’m now liking the idea of a story where *every single character* is an overpowered, “perfect” Mary Sue. All the stereotypical traits associated with Mary Sues clashing with each other in a world where everyone has them sounds like an absolute clusterfuck and I’m all for it.