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The ULTIMATE one-question Mary Sue Test
All right, well, here we go—A one-question Mary Sue Test. No 100 questions, 1,000 interpretations, very little math. Pretty cool, neh? Well, if you're taking a Mary Sue Test, there's only one question to be asked.

Here it is, the only question you need when wanting to figure out if you're writing a Mary Sue, and how to fix it (probably):

1. Why are you taking something called the Mary Sue Test in the first place?

Here, let me elaborate on that. Why are you here? Let's think about that. If you're just taking this for fun, you guys can either hang out or head out; this is meant in particular to those who were earnestly seeking a test to help make their character better (not that taking something in fun isn't something wrong, just giving you guys a heads up). And if you landed here by random chance, well, hey, you're as welcome as anyone else to stay and read, too.

First things first: Don't worry. If you're in this second category, you haven't done anything bad. This is meant to help you out more than a test where you just answer "true/false" to everything, and it gives you a score at the end. And… Seriously, those aren't good for your character, to begin with. "Mary Sue Tests" that you take that are the multiple-choice or "standardized", let's call them, aren't good for a few reasons.

Here's why:

1. There is NO way that the test covers every rule in the universe you're working with. Let me elaborate on this a bit. All right, so rainbow hair is a "Mary Sue" trait, it says, for example. Well, if every character in the universe you're working in has rainbow hair, or this is normal (like Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony), then suddenly that question makes no sense, does it? And if you take that question out, or a few out, suddenly your scoring's all screwed up. Suddenly, with even one question thrown out, your test is faulty.

2. You don't know the authority of the person writing it. A lot of times you don't know who wrote the test you're taking. You don't know their experience in character development, or writing. You don't even know me that well, do you? Hrm. :\ Well, there's a rub there, isn't it? I could tell you I'm a certified English tutor, author, and English for writing major in college a semester away from graduating, but even then, I don't have proof, aside from a few stories posted. Well, hopefully I haven't shot myself in the foot enough where you go off running. Hopefully you'll stick around for the rest of this. Hopefully you'll take my willingness to admit this enough to have good faith in me. But… Honestly, you don't know who has written the test you're taking. If a teacher gives you a test for a subject, you know that they already have a background in the subject (I hope!). A lot of times, people who write tests only have "I know it when I see it" as their experience. Well, that's not really reliable, is it? Trust me (or don't), there have been a lot of incidents where a guy ends up with a tattoo in kanji that he thinks means "tiger" only to have it mean something a lot worse because the tattoo artist "totally knew kanji". You have to do your own research; you just can't automatically trust anything you find on the Internet.

3. Standardized testing is unreliable to begin with. And it's not just me saying this (you can look through Google to back me up on this). There have long been complaints that standardized testing is a really, REALLY unreliable measure of a person's knowledge or talents in an educational setting. There are issues with bias from the test taker's end, as well as the fact that tests cannot possibly conform to every taker's background, beliefs, comprehension, etc. This is good to think about in terms of a Mary Sue test that's multiple choice/pick one answer.

4. When's the last time you heard about any author formulating a character with a standardized quiz or test? Yup.  :/ The only way to really develop a good "Non-Mary Sue" character is a lot harder than it seems. It's definitely not for the meek. But it's not impossible. It just takes work, and time, like anything good.

So let's get back to the question I asked in the beginning, eh? So why are you here, exactly?

WORKOUT: Let's do an exercise. Grab a piece of paper or open a new file. Now, write down what character you had in mind to test before you found out I'd tricked you. Now, I want you to meditate on what characteristics you think in particular are the most "Sue Like".

Q: All right, back?

A: Yup!
Awesome.

A: Yeah… But I couldn't think of anything.
Okay, well, there's got to be a reason why you're worried, why you checked this test out. Think really hard. If you still can't think of anything, ask a few people who you know will be honest, more than anything. If it's someone who tells you that you don't need to improve your character at all, go to the next person. The first person doesn't necessarily mean ill-will toward you, and may be in fact wanting to help you, but there's always a little bit you can improve on a character. People who tell you your work are perfect might not be the best to give you construction criticism. Now, once you find a person to give you some feedback, write down those characteristics. You might not like what they say, but at least take their opinions into consideration. Let's at least play around with them, okay? Entertain this.

Either way, this is for both of you guys. This is for anyone who wants even a little bit of help with character development. Hopefully this will help you both, and even anyone out there reading this for fun.

Now, let's get started. Into the belly of the beast!

Top Complaints/Problems/Sue Claims and some exercises and tips on how to deal with them:
1. Pairing an OC with a Character in a fanfic.  This isn't necessarily a Sue trait; a lot of people really, really just don't like it happening. Some see it as disrespectful to the author, and this is their opinion. The most you can do is respect this and not get on their case for it. It's okay if they don't agree with you. A lot of the problem, though, actually, is how quick these relationships progress in a story. There doesn't have to be any rush to have a character fall in love with yours. Take your time with a relationship. That's how real, lasting relationships workout, after all. They're built up, brick-by brick. So pace it out. It's not a race you're in. It's a story. Writing's great in that you're not constrained by a timeframe like twenty-two minutes or two hours. You have the time to stretch it out. Show them as friends, first. Yes, some times love at first sight happens, some times people fall in love and marry after two weeks and live happily ever after, but this is the exception, not the norm. This is true in an original universe as well as a pre-made one.

Here are some more tips on dealing with this:
• Keep the canon's personality in mind. A person in love doesn't necessarily lose the rest of their characteristics. They don't suddenly lose all of their hobbies, or their motivation, or their relationship with others. The character they're in love with doesn't necessarily become all they talk about. They still have these going on, too, and this new character's just another facet in their life.
• Ask yourself if your OC can exist without the other character. What's their favorite hobby? What motivates them? If you want them to be more realistic, you need them to be able to stand as their own character. Don't make them just live for the person they love—Let the love be part of their life. If this character was on their own for the day, and they weren't in a relationship with the canon, how would they be spending it?
• If the canon isn't the type to fall in love right away, don't have them fall in love right away with your OC. Fairly self-explanatory. If that's on the in the canon's character, then don't do it, it'll just clash and take people out of the story.
• If the canon is in an established relationship with another character, just don't have them dump this character for the convenience of pairing them with your OC. Also don't immediately turn the canon's established partner into a monster for the convenience of it all. Again, if this is something you want to do, there's no rush needed to do this. But, know that you might pull this off very nicely, but you do still run the risk of receiving flack for this. Again, that just plays into peoples' different opinions on what to do and not do in a fanfiction, and if you can get away with it varies greatly on the reader.
• Don't make your character a carbon-copy of the established character. Some times people do this just to have the two characters get along. While it's true that relationships start off with people bonding over something, having them just alike is not only really, really, unlikely, no matter what universe you're working in (including an original one), it can be a little bit dull, to top it off. They both like soccer? Okay. And cooking? And watching Law and Order on a rainy day while eating a gallon of bubblegum-flavored ice cream? All right, not even EHarmony could get that many similarities, and they got rich off of matching peoples' interests. Think about the likelihood of this for a minute.

2. The character is good at too many things. All right, there are some issues with gender here, believe it, or not. So watch me walk in eggshells as I hold my breath. A lot of people say that well, it's because Mary Sues are mainly women—That Superman and others are good at too many things, too, but they aren't called out— due to their being male characters and that female characters are singled out unfairly. Well, think about this, too: Another thing those characters like Superman have in common that get pointed out a lot that isn't addressed is that they are the main character in the universe. They set the standard for what the norm is in their own universe. That isn't to say that gender bias doesn't work into the claims of a Sue, too—They certainly do, but that's another argument all together, and "Mary Sues", or perfect female characters, have also existed for a long while in culture, but the idea of a "perfect female character" has changed so much over the years recently that the old perfection has become dated (Mary Poppins, anyone?). Here, if you're working in someone's own pre-established universe, your characters aren't the main characters. Even if they're the center of the story you're writing about, there is still another main character in the set story. If you're working in a pre-established universe no matter what you do your character will always be a supporting one in the readers' minds. There is already a pre-established standard for exactly how powerful a creature or individual is in a universe that's not your own. Making a character much more powerful just throws the preset balance off. There isn't really as much of an issue as having a powerful villain as there is with a powerful character, because that villain will be defeated, somehow, proving he or she wasn't that powerful to begin with. But having a character that's suddenly being better at everything than every character already there only looks like upstaging the established characters, especially if it's more than one character that they're upstaging.

A few more tips:
• Realize that any skill a character has takes time, with the exception of prodigies and savants. Even then, prodigies and savants are not good at everything they touch. Learning a foreign language, fully and perfectly, for instance, takes ten years, on the average. If your character knows eight languages, and is only twelve, then there is the possibility that they are a prodigy, but if they are also an Olympic medalist, a scientific genius, a piano virtuoso, and the duke of a small European country on top of this, thing about this is that it's just logistically impossible, no matter how smart they are (unless this has been established as a norm in the universe you're working in).
• It all comes down to balance, in the end. A little can go a long way in terms of skills. Think about it like accessorizing. One hat with an outfit? Cool. Two? Little strange, but maybe you're eccentric. Ten? Not only silly-looking, but hard to balance. It's all about learning not to overdo it, in the end. Yes, you can have a character with a really great skill, but know that even established, arguably "sue-ish" characters have weaknesses. Every Superman has a kryptonite.
• Stories RUN on conflict This is the gasoline to the fire that is your plot. Nearly every story has some kind of conflict in it. If you have a character that can magically fix everything, what's left in the way of conflict? This is why it's good to have character balance, and have it so they can't magically fix everything. You remember how we mentioned Superman? Well, a lot of comic book writers nowadays actually HATE having to write for Superman. Why? Well, with all of the powers he has, it's just difficult to think of conflicts week after week. Yeah, there's the kryptonite, but still, how many times can you think of conflicts where THAT would come up?
• Going on from the balance… Usually for every skill a character's mastered, there's another they're lacking in. If they spend a lot of time playing football, surfing, skiing, and studying, they probably won't also have time to be an expert cook. Even in an age where kids are doing a million different activities, people aren't always masters at everything they do. It's okay to have them just be okay at some things, or even bad!
• If a character is suddenly one-upping others, burning, fiery jealousy isn't always the first emotion every single character runs to. It just depends on the character, really. "You're so good/perfect/well-liked I hate you" isn't a standard with people and can even seem a little psychotic.
• Don't list off everything they're good at right off. We don't need to know everything about the character right away—That they fish, play the viola, and like French poetry. Actions speak louder than words, so instead of passively listing off these facts, take the time your writing allots you to show these in action.

3. Out-of-place traits/references. Simply put, you wouldn't have someone listening to My Chemical Romance or wearing a Bob Marley hoodie in Naruto. It just stands out like a sore thumb. What you've got going on here is a clash. It's like putting bright green plaids and brown polka pots together; it just doesn't work. A lot of people focus so much on trying to make their character individual that they don't spend enough time allowing them to blend in. Blending into your universe is important and can help make your character more believable to the audience. Blending in can help the reader to think "they would fit in here" or even "yeah, this new character belongs here".

A few other pointers:
• Japanese names for characters/American names for Japanese characters/other. You wouldn't have a "Tiffany" in a Bleach universe (at least… I don't think? Author's edit: Yes, you can, in some instances, do this in the Bleach universe, I have been informed). It would be just as likely as having an Austrian exchange student in an American classroom named Kenji. That's not to say it doesn't happen, though; in my own personal experience, I went to school with a girl who was named Mei Ling who was 100% Puerto Rican; her mom just really liked the name. The key to having a character seem more well-rounded in a universe is to have them be able to fit into it. Again, as I said, it's more important to have them fit into your universe than stand out; they're already a new character, they already stand out. Naming is a common faltering point with authors. They want a cool character to have an equally cool name. Well… That's not always the case. Stick with a name that will fit well into your own universe more than something that's super-cool or badass, unless of course, that's the norm in your universe.
• If it's a real-life band, movie, etc, and it doesn't exist in your universe, and there is no way it could exist in your universe, then it probably shouldn't be introduced. That isn't to say you can't make that universe's own counterpart, but having something like the Rolling Stones brought up in a Pokemon fic would just read awkwardly.

4. Overly tragic pasts. Another really common one. You don't want your character to be plain or dull; you want them to have a back story. This is admirable. But remember how we keep going back to balance? This is another one of those instances. People have bad things happen in their lives, and that's a fact. Some times, there's even a lot of bad. A lot of canon characters even have tragic pasts. But a lot of times it's easy to overdo it with the tragedy.
Here's a few tips:
• Don't let the tragedy define the character. We get it that bad things happened, but that isn't everything that makes up a character. Again, this goes to them having personalities outside of this event. They should still have things they like and dislike, people they like and dislike, friends, enemies, jobs, etc. A tragic past can be A defining part of a character, but don't make it THE defining characteristic. It's good not to have this tragic past brought up at every turn. People don't do that in real life. You don't have someone talking about grocery shopping and then in the next sentence they're talking about how they weren't loved by their father enough. This is just jarring to the reader.
• Make the tragedy proportional to what they would have in canon. If you're working with a PG-rated series, movie, etc, chances are your character shouldn't be a recovering meth addict. That isn't something that wouldn't be shown in the series normally, so it can stand out, and not in a good way. That's not to say that it can't be done, but there's the concept of "suspension of disbelief". Oftentimes, this disproportional tragedy can stretch that beyond readers' limits, or what they're willing to believe can happen in the universe you're working with, so you have to use balance and caution here. It's not to say you can't make a usually lighter series darker, but this takes a lot of practice to pull off effectively.
• Research is good here. See how other characters and even people in real cases react to these sorts of events. Go outside of your fiction-in-question, if necessary. Take the time to invest in how a character would really react in a situation realistically, the better-developed a character you will walk away with. While tragedy shouldn't necessarily run your character's life, it's still important to see how characters and real cases people have reacted afterwards.
• Every character doesn't have to be mean to your character. Even the worst person you can think of had friends or a guy who was civil to him, or, hell, a pet dog who adored him. It's just overkill, really. Unless your character's a pariah or some sort, and there's a special circumstance (see what I mean about how not everyone can cover every universe? I can't even do it!), it really wouldn't be believable. If they don't like your character because they're just too awesome, well… When's the last time you can think of this happening? Yeah, maybe one person might not like them for this, but it's really unlikely the entire town would. Everyone has at least one friend, or at least one person who doesn't hate their guts. Even Skeletor had Beast Man, and Beast Man probably tolerated him, at best.

5. "Busy-looking" characters. I won't claim to have a degree in ascetic principles, but I'll try my best, here. A lot of times a character can look a little too busy, and, yet again, this goes back to the balance.
As you guessed it, some more thought and tips on this subject:
• The reason people don't like rainbows is it's hard to balance with other colors. That, and if you look at other characters in a series or whatnot, there's at least one main anchor color to them, whether they be human, animal, or something-in between. That's not to say that there aren't different shades on a character, but when you have too much going on at once, it just clashes imagining other characters' looks. That isn't to say that a rainbow scheme can't be pulled off nicely—Rainbow Dash, from My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic, for better or worse, pulls off the scheme well. But even then, she has a blue "anchor color". That's a main color you can associate with the character. It's not just limited to brightly-colored characters, either. The outfits people wear have this, and even the makeup people wear.
• Look at how the other characters in the series accessorize; how does your character stack up? Do they look like they can fit in with other characters in the series, while standing out on their own? Remember that the key here is blending in, first, standing out, second. If you're in a steampunk universe, your character should display some like characteristics without wearing every single kind of steampunk knickknack. If it's a scifi character, same deal. And so on and so forth. If it's Victorian England, they don't need a lip ring. Keep it believable to your own universe.
• Characters don't have to be overly-exotic to be interesting. They don't have to be living in Japan and be a quarter Fijian, a quart Nepalese, a quarter Finnish, and a quarter bloodelf. A character with an overly exotic background does not necessarily an interesting character make. And, again, you want believable, right? Half-American half-French or whatnot works. Halving a nationality seems to be the best balance, although, again, this shouldn't be their only character trait. It's okay if they follow some of the customs if they come from a different country, but they don't need to follow every one to a T. Not every Canadian automatically likes hockey and tolerates Bryan Adams. Think about it this way: Jersey Shore's an American thing, other people know America for it, but how many people, if you're an American, do you know actually like it? Yeah. Also keep the exoticism believable. If your character speaks Spanish, for instance, it's awkward to have them know complex words in English and grammar without any problem—But they can't remember "si" is "yes". Yet again, this plays into suspension of disbelief within your own universe.
• On the flip side of things, your character doesn't have to have all of the same beliefs/traits as you. Is your character Latvian, just like you? Well, okay, you might have some insights to the culture, so that could be interesting. But does your character also follow the same religion, have the same hobbies, the same job or job you want, and have the same favorite character? This is now crossing the line into self-insert territory, which is another barrel of monkeys all-together that I'm not going to get into because I'm sure I'll already have enough bricks thrown through my window for making this.

6. Lack of personality. Again this goes back to building your character up. Below is the best and fastest exercise I know for personality building.

Workout: Describe your character. Don't describe any of their physical characteristics.

Well, how'd you do? Not that many characteristics? Too many? Think about how many the real people in your life have. How many do you have? How many are negative? How many are positive?
Here are some more tips:
• Don't necessarily feel compelled to make them a bad-ass on top of everything else in order to compete with other characters and earn their place. They don't need to be the toughest person in the room, much less show this right out of the gate. Again, both balance and pacing things out play well into this. They can be tough, but they don't have to be the toughest one, there. You want them to blend, first, remember? It seems like there's a push, especially in female characters, to make them "super tough" to compete with the boys. Well, who said there was a competition, really, to begin with? Not every male character is a chauvinist who believes women can't do the same work as men, aren't as tough, need to be proven wrong, etc—Especially when they wouldn't be a character to think something like this. And not every chauvinist has to be proven wrong right away, either. You don't have to go for tough, here, you have to go for human.
• Feminine characteristics aren't weak, oppressive, or of the devil. There's a big push of "well, I don't like girly things, so that makes me stronger" for female characters. Well, not necessarily. Annie Oakley wore a dress and shot better than most men. There's absolutely nothing wrong with liking makeup or dresses. It doesn't make your character weaker; it's ridiculous to think that it would, when you think about it. Yeah, gender constraints are a reality, a sad one, but totally ditching anything that's stereotypically "feminine", or discounting it as something lesser, really isn't just turning around and making more gender constraints in the end, isn't it? Truth is you don't have to sacrifice one for the other, and you're going for a human character, not a "feminine" or "masculine" one. Human before anything.
• Don't just focus on one personality trait. Even cartoons don't do this, but it has a character coming off as a cartoon. Even a jerk of a character isn't always a jerk. Don't go overboard always having your character cheerful, or depressed, or jealous. Real people don't work like this. Instead, focus on how they react to different situations; everyone reacts differently. If my car breaks down, my brother usually calls for a ride and a tow truck. If I'm driving it and it breaks down, I spend a little time yelling at it, first. I have to be brought back down to reality in order to function. Don't focus on personality traits—Focus on personality reactions. Having a "nice" character is nice and all, but how are they nice? What are some instances where they would be nice? What are some instances where they WOULDN'T be nice.

Workout: Name an instance where…
• Your character would do something kind
• Your character would completely lose their temper
• Your character would find amusing
• Your character would come into a conflict with their morals. How would they respond to this?
Now think of some more situations that could reveal characters' personality traits. I'll leave this part up to you:

All right, small Q&A time:

Q: What do you suggest to do in order to learn to write better characters?
A:Read. Read. Read. Read. And not just fanfiction. Not just your friends' writing. Read anything. Be voracious. Read newspapers. Read books, novels, articles, manuals, anything and absolutely everything. Fiction and nonfiction. Read all of it. Don't just pigeonhole yourself into novels or comics. Read everything. And watch. Listen. Watch shows and listen to how the characters talk to one another. Go out of your comfort zone, out of your source material. Just don't stick to the good stuff, either. Read terrible books. Watch terrible, poorly-produced movies. It'll teach you what you want to avoid. Knowing what NOT to do is half the battle, too. You can emulate another author all you want, but knowing how to not be reviled is also important.

Q: But… But if I don't learn how to tell if I have a Mary Sue or not, then I'll never grow as a writer, right?
A: You will. Relax. It'll just take a lot of time, is all. If you're worrying about this, it's a good sign, believe it or not. Any art form isn't something you pick up overnight and perfect, if takes time. You're going to screw up a lot. You're going to get better over time. It'll take lots of practice, but you'll get better, even if you don't notice it.  And seriously, Mary Sues aren't the worst out there, no matter what the popular opinion might be. Character development is important, without a doubt, but it's also important you practice and get a sense of story structure, pacing, dialogue, and set-up. There are a lot of different facets to writing, don't focus JUST on character development, although that's also important.

Q: How long will it take me?
A: No way to tell, depends on the person, honestly. Sorry I can't give you a more solid answer, there, but there isn't one to give.

Misconceptions

Q: Mary Sues/Gary Stus are the worst thing EVER.
A: Not necessarily. In the end, they're harmless, no matter how many claims of "them ruining something". Yes, they can be a little bothersome or annoying, but they're harmless. And they're often a tool for a writer, or a wish fulfillment. Writers usually grow out of these on their own, over time. Just give it time, and a person will manage to grow out of it on their own, for the mostpart.

Q: I can push someone hard enough and they'll develop better characters.
A: ….Pull up a chair. Let's have a talk.

Okay.

A lot of times, people who write Mary Sue characters, or whatever interpretation a person is using to define a Mary Sue, are young. They don't have the skills to take criticism, necessarily. This is not to say that no young person knows how to take criticism, but pushing them is NOT the way to go here. Especially if you don't know them. Pushing the person can come off as bullying, even if you don't mean to be. It can also come off as negative reinforcement, which, in turn, can lead to only negative responses from the author. You could have all of the good intention in the world, but if you're chanting "Sue, Sue, Change it, Sue", you're not helping. This only leads to defensiveness and fights. You can't lead a horse to water. Remember this. That's not to say that it might not work for someone—Everyone's different! But a person won't change overnight. You can't improve overnight and know story structure and character construction when you wake up. If this was true, we'd have a lot more Shakespeares walking around, or at least a few more Vonneguts.

Q: That wasn't a question, now was it?
A: Oh, come on….

Q: All right, so what do I do, then?
A: A nice critique doesn't hurt, but be sure to keep it civil. Public shaming or screaming "sue" isn't the way to go, here. That doesn't really offer any advice to help someone; that just ends up embarrassing a person… And in the end, it causes too much drama to be worth it. And really, let's be honest, there are better things you could be doing than that. Everyone's different; how people react to your critique may vary. Use your own judgment on how to approach a person if you want to critique and lend them a hand (and that's awful nice of you if you're willing to do a nice critique, and I tip my hat to you. Thank you). There's no sure-fire, one-hit kill of an answer here. You just have to get to know the author in order to learn how to approach this. Everyone's different, there's no one-hit, end-all, perfect way to approach a person, but going in not being aggressive, but not overly-flattering, either, is a good neutral. Use your own judgment here.

Q: I was really nice in telling someone they had a Sue and they still chewed me out. ._. Suggestions?
A: Well, every person's different. There's no one way to give sure-fire critique and have someone always take it well. Some times people won't like what you have to say, even if they asked for a critique, even if you were nice about it. Some times, it's better to just back away and leave them be. It'll save you a lot of heartache. They'll hopefully grow as an artist in time, and learn what they did wrong. If they don't grow, if years pass and they're still combative towards anyone who gives them criticism, if they still battle about everything, well… As a wise man I can't remember the name of said, "Look to the person to the left of you, and to the right of you. If you solved all of their problems, that would take up all of your time, right there". Well, they said that, more or less. Know that there is only so much you can do as a person giving a critique. There's a point where, if they are abusive, and so adverse to change that they're bullying in response, that it's better just to walk away and leave them to their own devices. You just can't win with some folks.

Q: Female Mary Sues never really work, right?
A: Well… This is tricky. Mary Sues don't work, most times, but "perfect characters" can. Remember how I mentioned Mary Poppins, before? She was a success, and she was literally "practically perfect in every way". And… She was. But she was a success of a character. The truth is… There have been successful female "perfect" characters, just like there are still successful "perfect" female characters. These characters can both tend to represent an ideal for a person, allowing for a person to express a level of wish-fulfillment. These characters have something the reader wants. Characters like James Bond, who lives a fairly perfect life, lives a stereotypical machismo fantasy. That isn't to say that that's every man's fantasy or women couldn't be interested in the series, still—I'm a huge Bond fan, myself, and if there was a polar opposite to macho, it's me. But he reflects something that either the author wants or the reader wants, or he is supposed to in theory. The truth is, it works differently for different people and different cultures (see: standardization failure). There have been characters, historically, who have been "perfect", female, and successful. The thing is that women's gender roles have changed drastically over the past century. Mary Poppins (I'm ever so sorry for going back to you, Miss Poppins, and I mean no offense—You're perfectly perfect, though, for this example) was a ladylike character, magical, and beloved by the children. She was a magical, matronly caretaker who could sing and dance and was beautiful doing it.  She was a perfect woman and mother-like figure—For the time the character was developed. Long story short, perfect female characters have always existed, but the role of women has changed enough over the past century to where they aren't as relatable. So, yes, "perfect" characters CAN work in theory, just not that often.

Q: Are "perfect" characters and "Mary Sues" the same thing?
A: No. Perfect characters are just that = perfect. Mary Sues tend to be a bit amatuerishly written and the writing as a whole is shaky, oftentimes. Perfect characters are sometimes an idealized fantasy character, portraying an ideal, whether it's for the viewer or the reader. These tend to have more polished writing. A lot of Mary Sues are just ALSO written as perfect, so this mistake's understandable.

Q: All self-inserts are sues, all sues are self-inserts.
A: No. A Sue's a Sue, a self-insert's a self-insert. Can a Sue have enough qualities to be a borderline-self-insert? Yes. Can a self-insert be made to have Sue-like qualities? Also yes. These are two entirely different entities that co-exist and at times overlap one another. They can share characteristics, but in reality, they're two different animals completely.

Q: So why don't perfect characters or Mary Sues work most of the time?
A: Because in fanfiction you're working with established characters, and oftentimes when you introduce a "perfect" and/or "Mary Sue" character, the characteristics of all of the other characters change for whatever reason that might be. Now, this doesn't always happen, but in my personal experience, this is what I've seen. And it goes back to the upstaging—People read a fanfic because they like a book/show/movie, and watching an established character suddenly get upstaged can be a very unpleasant and perhaps even cringe-worthy experience. And a third factor is a lot of times the people who work with Mary Sues aren't that experienced in writing, yet, either.

Q: Someone who has a Sue should just get rid of the character.
A:  Mary Sues are a stepping stone in most (but not all, I'll admit) instances. Again, the writing's amateurish a lot of times with these authors, so they're in the midst of a learning process. You can't just say, as a critique, to stop. Then how does natural growth commence if they're doing nothing? It makes no sense for someone to "outright get rid of" a character—It's better to work and work on a character in order to improve.

Q: Okay, wise guy… (insert author and PLEASE don't give me names, I really don't want to know isn't an amateur, has a "Sue", and isn't that nice about it. What then?
A: Honestly? It's best to let it be, really. Even if it's annoying. Just. Let. It. Be. Calling someone out, especially someone who is combative or incredibly defensive over the subject, only leads to fights. And no one wins a fight on the Internet. So… No matter how much you want to or are tempted to, please don't approach someone who has a history of combativeness. This will cause more damage than good.

Wrapping things up now….In the end, character development's a balancing act in believability. Listen, if you have a Mary Sue, or think you do, it's not the end of the world. If you're looking to improve, which I think you're doing (and that's why you bothered to read this!) you're on the right track.

You're gonna do all right, kid. Just keep at it.

….This has been the overly long, perhaps overly-wordy, and mostly likely quite-boring one-question Mary Sue Ultimate Test. Hope it's helped.

Special thanks to Rien~ko and Lealah Lupin—For your time and talks with me on this and character development over the years. I appreciate you both for it, very, very much, and I couldn't do it without you guys.

Sweating a little... — Description
The ULTIMATE one-question Mary Sue Test
All right, well, here we go—A one-question Mary Sue Test. No 100 questions, 1,000 interpretations, very little math. Pretty cool, neh? Well, if you're taking a Mary Sue Test, there's only one question to be asked.

Here it is, the only question you need when wanting to figure out if you're writing a Mary Sue, and how to fix it (probably):

1. Why are you taking something called the Mary Sue Test in the first place?

Here, let me elaborate on that. Why are you here? Let's think about that. If you're just taking this for fun, you guys can either hang out or head out; this is meant in particular to those who were earnestly seeking a test to help make their character better (not that taking something in fun isn't something wrong, just giving you guys a heads up). And if you landed here by random chance, well, hey, you're as welcome as anyone else to stay and read, too.

First things first: Don't worry. If you're in this second category, you haven't done anything bad. This is meant to help you out more than a test where you just answer "true/false" to everything, and it gives you a score at the end. And… Seriously, those aren't good for your character, to begin with. "Mary Sue Tests" that you take that are the multiple-choice or "standardized", let's call them, aren't good for a few reasons.

Here's why:

1. There is NO way that the test covers every rule in the universe you're working with. Let me elaborate on this a bit. All right, so rainbow hair is a "Mary Sue" trait, it says, for example. Well, if every character in the universe you're working in has rainbow hair, or this is normal (like Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony), then suddenly that question makes no sense, does it? And if you take that question out, or a few out, suddenly your scoring's all screwed up. Suddenly, with even one question thrown out, your test is faulty.

2. You don't know the authority of the person writing it. A lot of times you don't know who wrote the test you're taking. You don't know their experience in character development, or writing. You don't even know me that well, do you? Hrm. :\ Well, there's a rub there, isn't it? I could tell you I'm a certified English tutor, author, and English for writing major in college a semester away from graduating, but even then, I don't have proof, aside from a few stories posted. Well, hopefully I haven't shot myself in the foot enough where you go off running. Hopefully you'll stick around for the rest of this. Hopefully you'll take my willingness to admit this enough to have good faith in me. But… Honestly, you don't know who has written the test you're taking. If a teacher gives you a test for a subject, you know that they already have a background in the subject (I hope!). A lot of times, people who write tests only have "I know it when I see it" as their experience. Well, that's not really reliable, is it? Trust me (or don't), there have been a lot of incidents where a guy ends up with a tattoo in kanji that he thinks means "tiger" only to have it mean something a lot worse because the tattoo artist "totally knew kanji". You have to do your own research; you just can't automatically trust anything you find on the Internet.

3. Standardized testing is unreliable to begin with. And it's not just me saying this (you can look through Google to back me up on this). There have long been complaints that standardized testing is a really, REALLY unreliable measure of a person's knowledge or talents in an educational setting. There are issues with bias from the test taker's end, as well as the fact that tests cannot possibly conform to every taker's background, beliefs, comprehension, etc. This is good to think about in terms of a Mary Sue test that's multiple choice/pick one answer.

4. When's the last time you heard about any author formulating a character with a standardized quiz or test? Yup.  :/ The only way to really develop a good "Non-Mary Sue" character is a lot harder than it seems. It's definitely not for the meek. But it's not impossible. It just takes work, and time, like anything good.

So let's get back to the question I asked in the beginning, eh? So why are you here, exactly?

WORKOUT: Let's do an exercise. Grab a piece of paper or open a new file. Now, write down what character you had in mind to test before you found out I'd tricked you. Now, I want you to meditate on what characteristics you think in particular are the most "Sue Like".

Q: All right, back?

A: Yup!
Awesome.

A: Yeah… But I couldn't think of anything.
Okay, well, there's got to be a reason why you're worried, why you checked this test out. Think really hard. If you still can't think of anything, ask a few people who you know will be honest, more than anything. If it's someone who tells you that you don't need to improve your character at all, go to the next person. The first person doesn't necessarily mean ill-will toward you, and may be in fact wanting to help you, but there's always a little bit you can improve on a character. People who tell you your work are perfect might not be the best to give you construction criticism. Now, once you find a person to give you some feedback, write down those characteristics. You might not like what they say, but at least take their opinions into consideration. Let's at least play around with them, okay? Entertain this.

Either way, this is for both of you guys. This is for anyone who wants even a little bit of help with character development. Hopefully this will help you both, and even anyone out there reading this for fun.

Now, let's get started. Into the belly of the beast!

Top Complaints/Problems/Sue Claims and some exercises and tips on how to deal with them:
1. Pairing an OC with a Character in a fanfic.  This isn't necessarily a Sue trait; a lot of people really, really just don't like it happening. Some see it as disrespectful to the author, and this is their opinion. The most you can do is respect this and not get on their case for it. It's okay if they don't agree with you. A lot of the problem, though, actually, is how quick these relationships progress in a story. There doesn't have to be any rush to have a character fall in love with yours. Take your time with a relationship. That's how real, lasting relationships workout, after all. They're built up, brick-by brick. So pace it out. It's not a race you're in. It's a story. Writing's great in that you're not constrained by a timeframe like twenty-two minutes or two hours. You have the time to stretch it out. Show them as friends, first. Yes, some times love at first sight happens, some times people fall in love and marry after two weeks and live happily ever after, but this is the exception, not the norm. This is true in an original universe as well as a pre-made one.

Here are some more tips on dealing with this:
• Keep the canon's personality in mind. A person in love doesn't necessarily lose the rest of their characteristics. They don't suddenly lose all of their hobbies, or their motivation, or their relationship with others. The character they're in love with doesn't necessarily become all they talk about. They still have these going on, too, and this new character's just another facet in their life.
• Ask yourself if your OC can exist without the other character. What's their favorite hobby? What motivates them? If you want them to be more realistic, you need them to be able to stand as their own character. Don't make them just live for the person they love—Let the love be part of their life. If this character was on their own for the day, and they weren't in a relationship with the canon, how would they be spending it?
• If the canon isn't the type to fall in love right away, don't have them fall in love right away with your OC. Fairly self-explanatory. If that's on the in the canon's character, then don't do it, it'll just clash and take people out of the story.
• If the canon is in an established relationship with another character, just don't have them dump this character for the convenience of pairing them with your OC. Also don't immediately turn the canon's established partner into a monster for the convenience of it all. Again, if this is something you want to do, there's no rush needed to do this. But, know that you might pull this off very nicely, but you do still run the risk of receiving flack for this. Again, that just plays into peoples' different opinions on what to do and not do in a fanfiction, and if you can get away with it varies greatly on the reader.
• Don't make your character a carbon-copy of the established character. Some times people do this just to have the two characters get along. While it's true that relationships start off with people bonding over something, having them just alike is not only really, really, unlikely, no matter what universe you're working in (including an original one), it can be a little bit dull, to top it off. They both like soccer? Okay. And cooking? And watching Law and Order on a rainy day while eating a gallon of bubblegum-flavored ice cream? All right, not even EHarmony could get that many similarities, and they got rich off of matching peoples' interests. Think about the likelihood of this for a minute.

2. The character is good at too many things. All right, there are some issues with gender here, believe it, or not. So watch me walk in eggshells as I hold my breath. A lot of people say that well, it's because Mary Sues are mainly women—That Superman and others are good at too many things, too, but they aren't called out— due to their being male characters and that female characters are singled out unfairly. Well, think about this, too: Another thing those characters like Superman have in common that get pointed out a lot that isn't addressed is that they are the main character in the universe. They set the standard for what the norm is in their own universe. That isn't to say that gender bias doesn't work into the claims of a Sue, too—They certainly do, but that's another argument all together, and "Mary Sues", or perfect female characters, have also existed for a long while in culture, but the idea of a "perfect female character" has changed so much over the years recently that the old perfection has become dated (Mary Poppins, anyone?). Here, if you're working in someone's own pre-established universe, your characters aren't the main characters. Even if they're the center of the story you're writing about, there is still another main character in the set story. If you're working in a pre-established universe no matter what you do your character will always be a supporting one in the readers' minds. There is already a pre-established standard for exactly how powerful a creature or individual is in a universe that's not your own. Making a character much more powerful just throws the preset balance off. There isn't really as much of an issue as having a powerful villain as there is with a powerful character, because that villain will be defeated, somehow, proving he or she wasn't that powerful to begin with. But having a character that's suddenly being better at everything than every character already there only looks like upstaging the established characters, especially if it's more than one character that they're upstaging.

A few more tips:
• Realize that any skill a character has takes time, with the exception of prodigies and savants. Even then, prodigies and savants are not good at everything they touch. Learning a foreign language, fully and perfectly, for instance, takes ten years, on the average. If your character knows eight languages, and is only twelve, then there is the possibility that they are a prodigy, but if they are also an Olympic medalist, a scientific genius, a piano virtuoso, and the duke of a small European country on top of this, thing about this is that it's just logistically impossible, no matter how smart they are (unless this has been established as a norm in the universe you're working in).
• It all comes down to balance, in the end. A little can go a long way in terms of skills. Think about it like accessorizing. One hat with an outfit? Cool. Two? Little strange, but maybe you're eccentric. Ten? Not only silly-looking, but hard to balance. It's all about learning not to overdo it, in the end. Yes, you can have a character with a really great skill, but know that even established, arguably "sue-ish" characters have weaknesses. Every Superman has a kryptonite.
• Stories RUN on conflict This is the gasoline to the fire that is your plot. Nearly every story has some kind of conflict in it. If you have a character that can magically fix everything, what's left in the way of conflict? This is why it's good to have character balance, and have it so they can't magically fix everything. You remember how we mentioned Superman? Well, a lot of comic book writers nowadays actually HATE having to write for Superman. Why? Well, with all of the powers he has, it's just difficult to think of conflicts week after week. Yeah, there's the kryptonite, but still, how many times can you think of conflicts where THAT would come up?
• Going on from the balance… Usually for every skill a character's mastered, there's another they're lacking in. If they spend a lot of time playing football, surfing, skiing, and studying, they probably won't also have time to be an expert cook. Even in an age where kids are doing a million different activities, people aren't always masters at everything they do. It's okay to have them just be okay at some things, or even bad!
• If a character is suddenly one-upping others, burning, fiery jealousy isn't always the first emotion every single character runs to. It just depends on the character, really. "You're so good/perfect/well-liked I hate you" isn't a standard with people and can even seem a little psychotic.
• Don't list off everything they're good at right off. We don't need to know everything about the character right away—That they fish, play the viola, and like French poetry. Actions speak louder than words, so instead of passively listing off these facts, take the time your writing allots you to show these in action.

3. Out-of-place traits/references. Simply put, you wouldn't have someone listening to My Chemical Romance or wearing a Bob Marley hoodie in Naruto. It just stands out like a sore thumb. What you've got going on here is a clash. It's like putting bright green plaids and brown polka pots together; it just doesn't work. A lot of people focus so much on trying to make their character individual that they don't spend enough time allowing them to blend in. Blending into your universe is important and can help make your character more believable to the audience. Blending in can help the reader to think "they would fit in here" or even "yeah, this new character belongs here".

A few other pointers:
• Japanese names for characters/American names for Japanese characters/other. You wouldn't have a "Tiffany" in a Bleach universe (at least… I don't think? Author's edit: Yes, you can, in some instances, do this in the Bleach universe, I have been informed). It would be just as likely as having an Austrian exchange student in an American classroom named Kenji. That's not to say it doesn't happen, though; in my own personal experience, I went to school with a girl who was named Mei Ling who was 100% Puerto Rican; her mom just really liked the name. The key to having a character seem more well-rounded in a universe is to have them be able to fit into it. Again, as I said, it's more important to have them fit into your universe than stand out; they're already a new character, they already stand out. Naming is a common faltering point with authors. They want a cool character to have an equally cool name. Well… That's not always the case. Stick with a name that will fit well into your own universe more than something that's super-cool or badass, unless of course, that's the norm in your universe.
• If it's a real-life band, movie, etc, and it doesn't exist in your universe, and there is no way it could exist in your universe, then it probably shouldn't be introduced. That isn't to say you can't make that universe's own counterpart, but having something like the Rolling Stones brought up in a Pokemon fic would just read awkwardly.

4. Overly tragic pasts. Another really common one. You don't want your character to be plain or dull; you want them to have a back story. This is admirable. But remember how we keep going back to balance? This is another one of those instances. People have bad things happen in their lives, and that's a fact. Some times, there's even a lot of bad. A lot of canon characters even have tragic pasts. But a lot of times it's easy to overdo it with the tragedy.
Here's a few tips:
• Don't let the tragedy define the character. We get it that bad things happened, but that isn't everything that makes up a character. Again, this goes to them having personalities outside of this event. They should still have things they like and dislike, people they like and dislike, friends, enemies, jobs, etc. A tragic past can be A defining part of a character, but don't make it THE defining characteristic. It's good not to have this tragic past brought up at every turn. People don't do that in real life. You don't have someone talking about grocery shopping and then in the next sentence they're talking about how they weren't loved by their father enough. This is just jarring to the reader.
• Make the tragedy proportional to what they would have in canon. If you're working with a PG-rated series, movie, etc, chances are your character shouldn't be a recovering meth addict. That isn't something that wouldn't be shown in the series normally, so it can stand out, and not in a good way. That's not to say that it can't be done, but there's the concept of "suspension of disbelief". Oftentimes, this disproportional tragedy can stretch that beyond readers' limits, or what they're willing to believe can happen in the universe you're working with, so you have to use balance and caution here. It's not to say you can't make a usually lighter series darker, but this takes a lot of practice to pull off effectively.
• Research is good here. See how other characters and even people in real cases react to these sorts of events. Go outside of your fiction-in-question, if necessary. Take the time to invest in how a character would really react in a situation realistically, the better-developed a character you will walk away with. While tragedy shouldn't necessarily run your character's life, it's still important to see how characters and real cases people have reacted afterwards.
• Every character doesn't have to be mean to your character. Even the worst person you can think of had friends or a guy who was civil to him, or, hell, a pet dog who adored him. It's just overkill, really. Unless your character's a pariah or some sort, and there's a special circumstance (see what I mean about how not everyone can cover every universe? I can't even do it!), it really wouldn't be believable. If they don't like your character because they're just too awesome, well… When's the last time you can think of this happening? Yeah, maybe one person might not like them for this, but it's really unlikely the entire town would. Everyone has at least one friend, or at least one person who doesn't hate their guts. Even Skeletor had Beast Man, and Beast Man probably tolerated him, at best.

5. "Busy-looking" characters. I won't claim to have a degree in ascetic principles, but I'll try my best, here. A lot of times a character can look a little too busy, and, yet again, this goes back to the balance.
As you guessed it, some more thought and tips on this subject:
• The reason people don't like rainbows is it's hard to balance with other colors. That, and if you look at other characters in a series or whatnot, there's at least one main anchor color to them, whether they be human, animal, or something-in between. That's not to say that there aren't different shades on a character, but when you have too much going on at once, it just clashes imagining other characters' looks. That isn't to say that a rainbow scheme can't be pulled off nicely—Rainbow Dash, from My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic, for better or worse, pulls off the scheme well. But even then, she has a blue "anchor color". That's a main color you can associate with the character. It's not just limited to brightly-colored characters, either. The outfits people wear have this, and even the makeup people wear.
• Look at how the other characters in the series accessorize; how does your character stack up? Do they look like they can fit in with other characters in the series, while standing out on their own? Remember that the key here is blending in, first, standing out, second. If you're in a steampunk universe, your character should display some like characteristics without wearing every single kind of steampunk knickknack. If it's a scifi character, same deal. And so on and so forth. If it's Victorian England, they don't need a lip ring. Keep it believable to your own universe.
• Characters don't have to be overly-exotic to be interesting. They don't have to be living in Japan and be a quarter Fijian, a quart Nepalese, a quarter Finnish, and a quarter bloodelf. A character with an overly exotic background does not necessarily an interesting character make. And, again, you want believable, right? Half-American half-French or whatnot works. Halving a nationality seems to be the best balance, although, again, this shouldn't be their only character trait. It's okay if they follow some of the customs if they come from a different country, but they don't need to follow every one to a T. Not every Canadian automatically likes hockey and tolerates Bryan Adams. Think about it this way: Jersey Shore's an American thing, other people know America for it, but how many people, if you're an American, do you know actually like it? Yeah. Also keep the exoticism believable. If your character speaks Spanish, for instance, it's awkward to have them know complex words in English and grammar without any problem—But they can't remember "si" is "yes". Yet again, this plays into suspension of disbelief within your own universe.
• On the flip side of things, your character doesn't have to have all of the same beliefs/traits as you. Is your character Latvian, just like you? Well, okay, you might have some insights to the culture, so that could be interesting. But does your character also follow the same religion, have the same hobbies, the same job or job you want, and have the same favorite character? This is now crossing the line into self-insert territory, which is another barrel of monkeys all-together that I'm not going to get into because I'm sure I'll already have enough bricks thrown through my window for making this.

6. Lack of personality. Again this goes back to building your character up. Below is the best and fastest exercise I know for personality building.

Workout: Describe your character. Don't describe any of their physical characteristics.

Well, how'd you do? Not that many characteristics? Too many? Think about how many the real people in your life have. How many do you have? How many are negative? How many are positive?
Here are some more tips:
• Don't necessarily feel compelled to make them a bad-ass on top of everything else in order to compete with other characters and earn their place. They don't need to be the toughest person in the room, much less show this right out of the gate. Again, both balance and pacing things out play well into this. They can be tough, but they don't have to be the toughest one, there. You want them to blend, first, remember? It seems like there's a push, especially in female characters, to make them "super tough" to compete with the boys. Well, who said there was a competition, really, to begin with? Not every male character is a chauvinist who believes women can't do the same work as men, aren't as tough, need to be proven wrong, etc—Especially when they wouldn't be a character to think something like this. And not every chauvinist has to be proven wrong right away, either. You don't have to go for tough, here, you have to go for human.
• Feminine characteristics aren't weak, oppressive, or of the devil. There's a big push of "well, I don't like girly things, so that makes me stronger" for female characters. Well, not necessarily. Annie Oakley wore a dress and shot better than most men. There's absolutely nothing wrong with liking makeup or dresses. It doesn't make your character weaker; it's ridiculous to think that it would, when you think about it. Yeah, gender constraints are a reality, a sad one, but totally ditching anything that's stereotypically "feminine", or discounting it as something lesser, really isn't just turning around and making more gender constraints in the end, isn't it? Truth is you don't have to sacrifice one for the other, and you're going for a human character, not a "feminine" or "masculine" one. Human before anything.
• Don't just focus on one personality trait. Even cartoons don't do this, but it has a character coming off as a cartoon. Even a jerk of a character isn't always a jerk. Don't go overboard always having your character cheerful, or depressed, or jealous. Real people don't work like this. Instead, focus on how they react to different situations; everyone reacts differently. If my car breaks down, my brother usually calls for a ride and a tow truck. If I'm driving it and it breaks down, I spend a little time yelling at it, first. I have to be brought back down to reality in order to function. Don't focus on personality traits—Focus on personality reactions. Having a "nice" character is nice and all, but how are they nice? What are some instances where they would be nice? What are some instances where they WOULDN'T be nice.

Workout: Name an instance where…
• Your character would do something kind
• Your character would completely lose their temper
• Your character would find amusing
• Your character would come into a conflict with their morals. How would they respond to this?
Now think of some more situations that could reveal characters' personality traits. I'll leave this part up to you:

All right, small Q&A time:

Q: What do you suggest to do in order to learn to write better characters?
A:Read. Read. Read. Read. And not just fanfiction. Not just your friends' writing. Read anything. Be voracious. Read newspapers. Read books, novels, articles, manuals, anything and absolutely everything. Fiction and nonfiction. Read all of it. Don't just pigeonhole yourself into novels or comics. Read everything. And watch. Listen. Watch shows and listen to how the characters talk to one another. Go out of your comfort zone, out of your source material. Just don't stick to the good stuff, either. Read terrible books. Watch terrible, poorly-produced movies. It'll teach you what you want to avoid. Knowing what NOT to do is half the battle, too. You can emulate another author all you want, but knowing how to not be reviled is also important.

Q: But… But if I don't learn how to tell if I have a Mary Sue or not, then I'll never grow as a writer, right?
A: You will. Relax. It'll just take a lot of time, is all. If you're worrying about this, it's a good sign, believe it or not. Any art form isn't something you pick up overnight and perfect, if takes time. You're going to screw up a lot. You're going to get better over time. It'll take lots of practice, but you'll get better, even if you don't notice it.  And seriously, Mary Sues aren't the worst out there, no matter what the popular opinion might be. Character development is important, without a doubt, but it's also important you practice and get a sense of story structure, pacing, dialogue, and set-up. There are a lot of different facets to writing, don't focus JUST on character development, although that's also important.

Q: How long will it take me?
A: No way to tell, depends on the person, honestly. Sorry I can't give you a more solid answer, there, but there isn't one to give.

Misconceptions

Q: Mary Sues/Gary Stus are the worst thing EVER.
A: Not necessarily. In the end, they're harmless, no matter how many claims of "them ruining something". Yes, they can be a little bothersome or annoying, but they're harmless. And they're often a tool for a writer, or a wish fulfillment. Writers usually grow out of these on their own, over time. Just give it time, and a person will manage to grow out of it on their own, for the mostpart.

Q: I can push someone hard enough and they'll develop better characters.
A: ….Pull up a chair. Let's have a talk.

Okay.

A lot of times, people who write Mary Sue characters, or whatever interpretation a person is using to define a Mary Sue, are young. They don't have the skills to take criticism, necessarily. This is not to say that no young person knows how to take criticism, but pushing them is NOT the way to go here. Especially if you don't know them. Pushing the person can come off as bullying, even if you don't mean to be. It can also come off as negative reinforcement, which, in turn, can lead to only negative responses from the author. You could have all of the good intention in the world, but if you're chanting "Sue, Sue, Change it, Sue", you're not helping. This only leads to defensiveness and fights. You can't lead a horse to water. Remember this. That's not to say that it might not work for someone—Everyone's different! But a person won't change overnight. You can't improve overnight and know story structure and character construction when you wake up. If this was true, we'd have a lot more Shakespeares walking around, or at least a few more Vonneguts.

Q: That wasn't a question, now was it?
A: Oh, come on….

Q: All right, so what do I do, then?
A: A nice critique doesn't hurt, but be sure to keep it civil. Public shaming or screaming "sue" isn't the way to go, here. That doesn't really offer any advice to help someone; that just ends up embarrassing a person… And in the end, it causes too much drama to be worth it. And really, let's be honest, there are better things you could be doing than that. Everyone's different; how people react to your critique may vary. Use your own judgment on how to approach a person if you want to critique and lend them a hand (and that's awful nice of you if you're willing to do a nice critique, and I tip my hat to you. Thank you). There's no sure-fire, one-hit kill of an answer here. You just have to get to know the author in order to learn how to approach this. Everyone's different, there's no one-hit, end-all, perfect way to approach a person, but going in not being aggressive, but not overly-flattering, either, is a good neutral. Use your own judgment here.

Q: I was really nice in telling someone they had a Sue and they still chewed me out. ._. Suggestions?
A: Well, every person's different. There's no one way to give sure-fire critique and have someone always take it well. Some times people won't like what you have to say, even if they asked for a critique, even if you were nice about it. Some times, it's better to just back away and leave them be. It'll save you a lot of heartache. They'll hopefully grow as an artist in time, and learn what they did wrong. If they don't grow, if years pass and they're still combative towards anyone who gives them criticism, if they still battle about everything, well… As a wise man I can't remember the name of said, "Look to the person to the left of you, and to the right of you. If you solved all of their problems, that would take up all of your time, right there". Well, they said that, more or less. Know that there is only so much you can do as a person giving a critique. There's a point where, if they are abusive, and so adverse to change that they're bullying in response, that it's better just to walk away and leave them to their own devices. You just can't win with some folks.

Q: Female Mary Sues never really work, right?
A: Well… This is tricky. Mary Sues don't work, most times, but "perfect characters" can. Remember how I mentioned Mary Poppins, before? She was a success, and she was literally "practically perfect in every way". And… She was. But she was a success of a character. The truth is… There have been successful female "perfect" characters, just like there are still successful "perfect" female characters. These characters can both tend to represent an ideal for a person, allowing for a person to express a level of wish-fulfillment. These characters have something the reader wants. Characters like James Bond, who lives a fairly perfect life, lives a stereotypical machismo fantasy. That isn't to say that that's every man's fantasy or women couldn't be interested in the series, still—I'm a huge Bond fan, myself, and if there was a polar opposite to macho, it's me. But he reflects something that either the author wants or the reader wants, or he is supposed to in theory. The truth is, it works differently for different people and different cultures (see: standardization failure). There have been characters, historically, who have been "perfect", female, and successful. The thing is that women's gender roles have changed drastically over the past century. Mary Poppins (I'm ever so sorry for going back to you, Miss Poppins, and I mean no offense—You're perfectly perfect, though, for this example) was a ladylike character, magical, and beloved by the children. She was a magical, matronly caretaker who could sing and dance and was beautiful doing it.  She was a perfect woman and mother-like figure—For the time the character was developed. Long story short, perfect female characters have always existed, but the role of women has changed enough over the past century to where they aren't as relatable. So, yes, "perfect" characters CAN work in theory, just not that often.

Q: Are "perfect" characters and "Mary Sues" the same thing?
A: No. Perfect characters are just that = perfect. Mary Sues tend to be a bit amatuerishly written and the writing as a whole is shaky, oftentimes. Perfect characters are sometimes an idealized fantasy character, portraying an ideal, whether it's for the viewer or the reader. These tend to have more polished writing. A lot of Mary Sues are just ALSO written as perfect, so this mistake's understandable.

Q: All self-inserts are sues, all sues are self-inserts.
A: No. A Sue's a Sue, a self-insert's a self-insert. Can a Sue have enough qualities to be a borderline-self-insert? Yes. Can a self-insert be made to have Sue-like qualities? Also yes. These are two entirely different entities that co-exist and at times overlap one another. They can share characteristics, but in reality, they're two different animals completely.

Q: So why don't perfect characters or Mary Sues work most of the time?
A: Because in fanfiction you're working with established characters, and oftentimes when you introduce a "perfect" and/or "Mary Sue" character, the characteristics of all of the other characters change for whatever reason that might be. Now, this doesn't always happen, but in my personal experience, this is what I've seen. And it goes back to the upstaging—People read a fanfic because they like a book/show/movie, and watching an established character suddenly get upstaged can be a very unpleasant and perhaps even cringe-worthy experience. And a third factor is a lot of times the people who work with Mary Sues aren't that experienced in writing, yet, either.

Q: Someone who has a Sue should just get rid of the character.
A:  Mary Sues are a stepping stone in most (but not all, I'll admit) instances. Again, the writing's amateurish a lot of times with these authors, so they're in the midst of a learning process. You can't just say, as a critique, to stop. Then how does natural growth commence if they're doing nothing? It makes no sense for someone to "outright get rid of" a character—It's better to work and work on a character in order to improve.

Q: Okay, wise guy… (insert author and PLEASE don't give me names, I really don't want to know isn't an amateur, has a "Sue", and isn't that nice about it. What then?
A: Honestly? It's best to let it be, really. Even if it's annoying. Just. Let. It. Be. Calling someone out, especially someone who is combative or incredibly defensive over the subject, only leads to fights. And no one wins a fight on the Internet. So… No matter how much you want to or are tempted to, please don't approach someone who has a history of combativeness. This will cause more damage than good.

Wrapping things up now….In the end, character development's a balancing act in believability. Listen, if you have a Mary Sue, or think you do, it's not the end of the world. If you're looking to improve, which I think you're doing (and that's why you bothered to read this!) you're on the right track.

You're gonna do all right, kid. Just keep at it.

….This has been the overly long, perhaps overly-wordy, and mostly likely quite-boring one-question Mary Sue Ultimate Test. Hope it's helped.

Special thanks to Rien~ko and Lealah Lupin—For your time and talks with me on this and character development over the years. I appreciate you both for it, very, very much, and I couldn't do it without you guys.