Sin's Advice On FanFics

Mary Sues

Suggested by: AmySirenWriter606

This might be a long one, I have... a lot of things to say about this topic.

All of the things I talk about in here are not the only way to do these, what's written here are mainly suggestions/ how I would do it. If you see something that I did not put in, feel free to add it in the comments!

————————
Now when people think of Mary-Sues, they usually think of the perfect, has every power one could want, as well as all the affection one could want and just overall the best character ever in the whole universe.

While that's a category of what a Mary Sue is, that's not the only way one could make a Mary Sue. In this section, I'll go into all the sub-categories of a what is, and what makes a Mary Sue, and solutions to these problems.

Sub-category 1- The Overpowered Sue

The Overpowered Sue, also known as the OP sue, is one of the more well known sues. As most of you can guess, this sue is the one that has tons of superpowers/ superhuman abilities.

When people write fanfics, they want their character to be super cool, and how do you do that? Well, you give your character bad ass powers. While this can be cool to write, your readers will eventually get bored that your character seems to have a power to solve every problem.

Your character shouldn't be stronger than the strongest hero-unless there's a good reason.

Now, I'm going to give some examples on how to do powers right. (Or, how to make sure they're not too Mary-sue)

1) Try giving your character only one power. I know some might think is boring, but there's actually a lot you can do even if there's only one power.
Ex; In my fic, A Dream of Light, the main character has the ability to manipulate light. With this power, she can generate light beams for offensive attacks, manipulate fire to some degree, create illusions, and turn invisible. While these seem like three different things, they're all rooted from the same power. Light beams because well, she manipulates light, fire is a type of light/ light source (she is unable to generate it herself), and for both the illusions and turning invisible— humans/ creatures perceive things by the light bouncing off of them, not the actual object/ being. By manipulating the light, she is able to make others see— or not see— something that is there.
She might have one main ability, but she can do many things with it.

2) Explain why exactly they might have more than one power, if they do. Giving your character multiple powers Isn't that bad in a general sense. There are many shows that have the main character have multiple powers, but the main issue is when they have multiple powers for no reason. The main fix, e x p l a i n why.
    Ex; I don't have a fic for this example, but I can still think one up. A good example is something along the BnHA lines. Think Todoroki. His quirk is fire and ice. Now, without an explanation, that would seem overpowered in the slightest. But, it was explained that Todoroki's dad *cough*flamingtrashcan *cough* has a fire ability, and his mother *cough* purebean *cough* has an ice ability. This explains why Todoroki's quirk is as it is. Your character can have multiple powers. Just explain how they have those multiple powers.

3) Give their power a weakness. When someone has a power, it can't be completely invincible. It should have at least one or two weaknesses. A weakness is one of the main factors of making sure your character isn't a sue.
Ex: If a character has the ability to manipulate water, make them weak against ice. If they have ice, make them weak against fire. What normally helps me thing of weaknesses for powers is thinking about pokemon typings. Sure, It might be extremely nerdy, but it really does help with figuring that type of stuff out.