Mary-Sue: Who is She?

How to Review Character Sheets

Skills:  Does the character have any unusual talents? Alternatively, can do something that hardly anyone else in the world can do? This is where the magic and psychic stuff can come in, but it doesn't have to be that extreme. This is also, where the author can describe fighting style, strengths and the conditions under how their powers or skills wouldn't work—in other words, their weaknesses.

Goals: The character's own goals and you as the author's goals for the character. What lesson do you want this character to learn?  This shows that you do have some form of development in mind, but whether the character follows their own goals, or the authors, can only be told through the story.  It should look something like:

*For the character:  To get vengeance.

*For the author:  For him/her to learn how to trust others.

History: The basic and quick run through on the history of the character up to the start of the story. We don't need to know every place the character's been. If the character is immortal, what's one thing that changed the character's immortal life?  As I mentioned before, I write down anything, stopping at the beginning of the story, so you can write out the character’s life until that point where the story starts.  It can be several paragraphs long or just one paragraph—it’s up to the creator.

Additional Notes:  This is for anything else the author feels is important to add on to the character’s profile. Is there more information on the universe? Is there anything to add on the intended partner situation? What is the culture like?  What is considered “beautiful” or “healthy” in that culture?  Explain that you do have more information and thoughts, but didn’t want to reveal the story.  Anything.

What to Keep Note Of

The universe is one of the biggest things to keep in mind.  Some things may be acceptable in one world and be utterly impossible for the other.  Not everything is going to be 100 percent realistic, especially if the universe is going to be in the Complete Fiction where cats can talk, and people can float from their own will.  In the culture, maybe females that are more sought have a flat-chest than the bigger breasted.  Maybe they state a similar culture by name, and you don’t know what it’s like; in order for you to accurately critique the character sheet, you must look up whatever you don’t know.  They did enough naming the similar culture rather than describing all of it.

If you know me and my opinion of Mary-Sues well enough, you know that looks aren’t a big factor.  This includes the name, age, height, weight, skin, eyes, and clothes.  The main things you need to look at are if any of these doesn’t fit the culture or the universe.  If the character has expensive looking clothes, but is dirt poor, that should raise some red flags, but other than that it’s not a big deal really.  If it all fits, then check it off and move on.

The family, friends and intended partner are things that can only be described through story-telling, so it’s not a factor at all in Mary-Sueism, but it’s just good to know them.

Weapons, hobbies, and skills are also big aspects to look at.  Not every character will have a weapon, but all should have hobbies and skills.  If the weapon fits with the culture, or the character has a big interest in another culture’s weapons, then it fits, and it’s not a big deal.  Like I said in hobbies, it doesn’t necessarily have to be something the character is good at or is passionate about, but it still shows what the character likes doing when they have spare time.  Of the three, it’s skills that have to be looked at on a deeper level.  It shows both the talents/strengths and weaknesses.  If you’ve read “How Much Power is Too Much Power?” then you already know what to look for, but I’ll summarize it.