Anti-Sue

Thanks to jasminebell's magnificent story that documents the real life experience of a Mary-sue, I have been inspired! (story link here)

Why don't we compile of list of anti-sue-and-stus! We all know the faults of a Mary-sue or Gary-stu, so how can we combat that, and make our story seem more believeable, more relateable? I'll keep a little compiled list up here for anyone's reference! But until then, we need some fellow writer's to help create that list!

Be it you have an suggestions, comments, ideas, or arguments, post 'em here! Maybe we can help rid this world of Gary-stus and Mary-sues and live a happy, normal, fictional life, free of Sues and Stus!

A common phenomena among those with just enough writing savvy to be dangerous is the Anti-Sue. In the grand effort to avoid the birth of yet another abomination known by the colloquial as the Mary Sue, these writers go forth and do all in their power to make their characters avoid any and all Sue-associated traits.

While they do succeed in avoiding Sue-dom, Anti-Sues are not much better and can in fact be the greater of the two evils.

The most common mistake involved in the creation of the dread Anti-Sue is the belief that characters must be visibly and obviously Flawed, and in varied ways. While flaws are good things in moderation, Anti-Sues tend to be so bogged down by Flaws that they sink into the Mires of Implausibility and Unlikeability, never to rise again except through careful and precise rescuing later on in the writer's life.

They do not realize that the best way of ensuring the abortion of the vile Mary Sue is by justifying their character's traits and actions, and building upon their characters accordingly throughout the story. Simply by exploring the consequences of each character's actions and allowing those consequences to persist, one can slay the Sue before she is even conceived without having to resort to Anti-Sue-dom.

In short, the traits alone do not a character make; rather it is a combination of traits, action, and reaction that make a character Sue-ish or not.

Translation

Don't set out to make a character an Anti-Sue. You'll probably wind up with something far worse than a Mary Sue.

Having a character with a ton of flaws is not necessarily a good thing.

What makes characters believable are their experiences and the consequences of their actions. If you can establish that a character is skilled/knowledgeable in certain reasonable areas, and if the consequences of their actions are present, lasting, and make sense, then you need not worry about Sue-dom.

Characters are more than just a bundle of traits. They act and react to situations, and so long as they do so believably, then you don't have to worry about them being Sues or Generic Character 3809347.

In short, so long as there is reasonable justification for you character being as awesome as they are, they probably won't ever register as a Sue except in one of those Mary Sue detection tests (which should never be taken as absolute).

AWWWWWWWW. I FEELS TOUCHED.