Advice on making a good inspiring character

[NinjaGirlGamer]

I’m not new to role playing but I’m still working on obtaining my writing skills. Over the years I made some OCs here and there, you might have considered Mary Sues. My recent character is considered my fully functional OC with a compelling story. However, I just want advice on what I can do to prevent my character from becoming a “Mary Sue”

Below is the basics of my character
1. Her whole family died except her sister. She’s thrown into a harsh world by herself. There’s no overnight power gain and the challenges don’t disappear for her
2. The OC is related to a canon character, the sister
3. She’s a human and immortal (cannot age, she can still die)
4. She has a power which enhances her abilities but when activated she has to constantly be active with her body. Standing still depletes her energy. When not activated, the power limits her to be active all the time. Being nonactive or being idle, she can only go 24 hours idle before the power consumes her and kills her.
5. She doesn’t become peak human overnight. She trains every day
6. She’s a traveler, and the townsfolk either fear her, think she’s a monster, are inspired.
7. Ok yes she has beauty
8. While she does have the power. Going against someone with magic, she will instantly lose.
9. She is a master martial artist. Has a large sword. Good with most weapons.

You get the gist. The point of my character is not to show off or make it so you feel sorry for her. However I’m only asking here for feedback on what I can change. Again, I’m trying to improve my character and my role play skills in general

 

[rae2nerdy]

I think the biggest thing to prevent your character from becoming a Mary Sue is

1. Follow the rules of the roleplay. If the GM says characters can't be XYZ, than if you have those elements in your character sheet you have to take them out.
2. Let other people hate your character. It's okay for other characters/players to think your character is boring, annoying, superficial, etc.
3. There are consequences for your characters actions. And you stick to to them. If you say your character has XYZ weakness than you have to bring that up in the roleplay.
4. For characters that have tragic backstories research things like childhood traumas, ptsd, etc. Like realistically look at the kind of mental and emotional tolls that backstory would have.
*Edited 5* - For martial arts or fight based abilities you need to come up with an impartial way to determine if your character is going to land a punch, win a fight, etc. I used to simply use an RNG. I would random generate a number between 1-3. One meant the attack hit, Two meant the attack was blocked, Three meant the attack missed.
6. Beauty...is not a very good description as it will vary from person to person what they think is attractive. This ties into number 2 some people aren't going to think your character is attractive even if the CS says "beauty".

And the number one on rule for a well-rounded character Have a sense of humor and let your character fail.

 

[NinjaGirlGamer]

I think the biggest thing to prevent your character from becoming a Mary Sue is

1. Follow the rules of the roleplay. If the GM says characters can't be XYZ, than if you have those elements in your character sheet you have to take them out.
2. Let other people hate your character. It's okay for other characters/players to think your character is boring, annoying, superficial, etc.
3. There are consequences for your characters actions. And you stick to to them. If you say your character has XYZ weakness than you have to bring that up in the roleplay.
4. For characters that have tragic backstories research things like childhood traumas, ptsd, etc. Like realistically look at the kind of mental and emotional tolls that backstory would have.
*Edited 5* - For martial arts or fight based abilities you need to come up with an impartial way to determine if your character is going to land a punch, win a fight, etc. I used to simply use an RNG. I would random generate a number between 1-3. One meant the attack hit, Two meant the attack was blocked, Three meant the attack missed.
6. Beauty...is not a very good description as it will vary from person to person what they think is attractive. This ties into number 2 some people aren't going to think your character is attractive even if the CS says "beauty".

And the number one on rule for a well-rounded character Have a sense of humor and let your character fail.

For when I said “beauty”, it was just to state the fact most Mary Sues have amazing beauty. I do have a detailed description of what my character looks like and a picture. I appreciate the advice for a role play setting, but what about if I do a story cause I’m thinking of going more in depth in her story. Adding characters, etc etc

 

[rae2nerdy]

For when I said “beauty”, it was just to state the fact most Mary Sues have amazing beauty. I do have a detailed description of what my character looks like and a picture. I appreciate the advice for a role play setting, but what about if I do a story cause I’m thinking of going more in depth in her story. Adding characters, etc etc

Well I think something a lot of people don't realize is that original writing and roleplay writing aren't really that similar. When your writing for yourself the work only has to be readable and something you personally are happy with. I'd think you'd be better off looking for a beta reader in that case. Someone who can read through your stuff and ask you questions, point out any grammatical issues, etc.

I would google how to write XXX story, that might be slightly more helpful.

 

[NinjaGirlGamer]

Well I think something a lot of people don't realize is that original writing and roleplay writing aren't really that similar. When your writing for yourself the work only has to be readable and something you personally are happy with. I'd think you'd be better off looking for a beta reader in that case. Someone who can read through your stuff and ask you questions, point out any grammatical issues, etc.

I would google how to write XXX story, that might be slightly more helpful.

Ok thanks for taking the time to comment

 

[Idea]

Edit Note: After writing this whole thing, i realized I ended up sounding way more aggressive than I intended. Do keep in mind that I will say a lot of things that may seem a bit too hostile, but I assure you that was not my intention, and I just didn't phrase it as well as I'd like and I don't have the time to rewrite the whole thing...

First of all, let's put the subject at hand in clean plates. "Mary Sue" is a term of unclear definition. To some "Mary Sue" will simply mean any character that is too good or has too much attention, to others it regards the character's personality being flawless and to some even it's just a shorthand term for a poorly written character in general. So nomatter what advise I can give you, there's little anyone can really do to outright prevent a character from being a mary sue in any and all definitions of the term. The best you can approach that is to not make a shitty character and to understand that the character's place in the narrative is narrative first, character second.

So rather than help the character not be a Mary Sue, I'll give you general feedback on the character. Of course, making such corrections and taking in feedback will help the character not being a Mary Sue, but it's hardly a guarantee.

My overall thoughts on the character, the impression I get from it are that of an edgy overdramatic character. To be frank with you, the character seems like the staple example of what someone thinks a fanfic character is, when complaining about fanfics. The entire family dying when they are young, the over the top price of the ability (which is so high that it difuses narrative tension by way of it not being believable that it would actually come into play), the immediate connection to a cannon character, descriptions of the character as beautiful, and so on.

That said, the character isn't a lost case. At the very least I don't have the information to access that. So I recommend you give special attention to:
--> The internal justification for why events happen (why do people treat her like a monster or admire her, why did her family get killed etc... Unless your character's whole theme is chance and nihilism, everything should follow an internal logic of cause and consequence)

-->The effect events have on your character (AKA seeing your whole family murdered before you should leave some impact on your personality, fears, etc... and it should be significant. Same with living for a long amount of time due to the "immortality")

--->Narrative significance (at no point add drama just for the sake of drama. Doing so means removing at the very least drama from potential points in the narrative (doing something bad twice isn't quite as effective as doing it for the first time) and in some cases rids you of immense potential (killing the character's family means you effectively just lost a bunch of important characters in terms of potential interactions, showing different sides of the character and people that know them from certain unique angles etc...))

This is the essential. If you have this you can turn what you have into a good character. If not, you will turn it into a bad one. As it stands, there isn't anything interesting about the character. There is nothing unique about it nor any real reason to care other than those jammed down, and that is a pretty sure fire way to get a character to be hated by other people. In short, I recommend that you focus on really carefully constructing the context and purpose of each element of the character.




Now, for this particular case I decided to leave two small extras that are a bit apart from my main point, but which nonetheless may help further show my insight into the matter. Feel free to read or disregard them as you wish.

Spoiler: My Own Thoughts On Whether the Character Is a Mary Sue and How to Avoid Being One

While I adressed previously how it's near impossible to avoid every definition of a mary sue, and thus gave general feedback, in here I will talk about my own definition and it's criteria (and by extention, how you can avoid making a character I would call a Mary Sue).

So, to me a mary sue is a character that is too perfect to coexist. My metric for this is threefold: accomplishments, talent and personality.
If a character is too accomplished in life, everything seems to coincidentally fall on their lap or anything like that, and this ISN'T an intentional aspect of the character (as opposed to the character being someone who has everything dropped on them because their exact conflict is that everything falls in their lap and thus they become spoiled etc...), then that character is someone I would call a Mary Sue.
Likewise, if a character is too talented in too many fields, rather than just being specialized for a certain field or subpar in all of them, then that character is a Mary Sue.
Lastly, if a character doesn't have serious flaws in their personality, then I would consider them a Mary Sue. This is the most common type of Mary Sue that I encounter, and one I quite vigilant about in my RPs. Serious flaws are a concept describing a negative tendency of the character's behavior (AKA a flaw) that is universally constant for the character regardless of justification and likely to cause them to fail at important moments. Things that are not serious flaws include:
*Exagerations of qualities (AKA being "too kind" or "too friendly") where the problem is not the character but another exploiting their goodwill
*A flaw to minor to impact major events (the character is being generally bored)
*A flaw that only exists sometimes (Sometimes they may be...) or only exist when justified on some level (they become murderous, but only those that kill and torture)
*Anything that isn't a flaw like handicaps (the character being weak or being viewed in a certain way by others) or which are nonsense that somehow gets mistaken for a flaw (being "sarcastic")

So, the way to make a character that isn't a Mary Sue is basically to have consideration for your fellow player's needs, to give your character some serious flaws to have them fail and give them something to work out of, and not to not magically make them the most important person in the world for no reason.

Spoiler: Other Nitpicks About Your Character

1. Her whole family died except her sister. She’s thrown into a harsh world by herself. There’s no overnight power gain and the challenges don’t disappear for her

And how exactly did she survive? I don't mean survive the killings, I mean the one I presume is a young child, how did the sudden deprivation of her family allow her to do anything other than search for edible food all day? In fact, how did she get out of extreme poverty?

Stuff like this, thinking it well through, will be kind of important for who the character grows up to be.

2. The OC is related to a canon character, the sister
3. She’s a human and immortal (cannot age, she can still die)

These are both on a very personal level, but I just don't like messing with cannon in general, plus this calling it immortality but still having them be, you know, mortal...it irks me a little. Again, just very personal stuff there.

4. She has a power which enhances her abilities but when activated she has to constantly be active with her body. Standing still depletes her energy. When not activated, the power limits her to be active all the time. Being nonactive or being idle, she can only go 24 hours idle before the power consumes her and kills her.

Why does it kill her? It doesn't seem to do anything so extraordinary that it would warrant such a cost... In fact the cost is so over the top it's hard to take seriously.

5. She doesn’t become peak human overnight. She trains every day

What do you mean "peak human"?

6. She’s a traveler, and the townsfolk either fear her, think she’s a monster, are inspired.

Why? Is this lost orphan that famous? It seems...a little cheesy to be honest, that she would get that kind of reaction on every village, especially considering this is probably nothing related to their culture even.

7. Ok yes she has beauty

Sure, as long as you don't describe her as beautiful. But Geek already touched on that.

9. She is a master martial artist. Has a large sword. Good with most weapons.

So this oprhan has time to
-> Find food, drink and I assume shelter
->Get the money to afford not one but several types of different weapons
->Train on mastering all those weapons (considering most people would have trouble mastering one or two over the majority of their active careers)
->Train in martial arts
->Maybe travel to places where she can find all that

And even then to use certain weapons she'd basically have to magically know how to. It sounds a tad implausible.

I hope you found this post helpful. Good luck and happy RPing!

 

[NinjaGirlGamer]

Edit Note: After writing this whole thing, i realized I ended up sounding way more aggressive than I intended. Do keep in mind that I will say a lot of things that may seem a bit too hostile, but I assure you that was not my intention, and I just didn't phrase it as well as I'd like and I don't have the time to rewrite the whole thing...

First of all, let's put the subject at hand in clean plates. "Mary Sue" is a term of unclear definition. To some "Mary Sue" will simply mean any character that is too good or has too much attention, to others it regards the character's personality being flawless and to some even it's just a shorthand term for a poorly written character in general. So nomatter what advise I can give you, there's little anyone can really do to outright prevent a character from being a mary sue in any and all definitions of the term. The best you can approach that is to not make a shitty character and to understand that the character's place in the narrative is narrative first, character second.

So rather than help the character not be a Mary Sue, I'll give you general feedback on the character. Of course, making such corrections and taking in feedback will help the character not being a Mary Sue, but it's hardly a guarantee.

My overall thoughts on the character, the impression I get from it are that of an edgy overdramatic character. To be frank with you, the character seems like the staple example of what someone thinks a fanfic character is, when complaining about fanfics. The entire family dying when they are young, the over the top price of the ability (which is so high that it difuses narrative tension by way of it not being believable that it would actually come into play), the immediate connection to a cannon character, descriptions of the character as beautiful, and so on.

That said, the character isn't a lost case. At the very least I don't have the information to access that. So I recommend you give special attention to:
--> The internal justification for why events happen (why do people treat her like a monster or admire her, why did her family get killed etc... Unless your character's whole theme is chance and nihilism, everything should follow an internal logic of cause and consequence)

-->The effect events have on your character (AKA seeing your whole family murdered before you should leave some impact on your personality, fears, etc... and it should be significant. Same with living for a long amount of time due to the "immortality")

--->Narrative significance (at no point add drama just for the sake of drama. Doing so means removing at the very least drama from potential points in the narrative (doing something bad twice isn't quite as effective as doing it for the first time) and in some cases rids you of immense potential (killing the character's family means you effectively just lost a bunch of important characters in terms of potential interactions, showing different sides of the character and people that know them from certain unique angles etc...))

This is the essential. If you have this you can turn what you have into a good character. If not, you will turn it into a bad one. As it stands, there isn't anything interesting about the character. There is nothing unique about it nor any real reason to care other than those jammed down, and that is a pretty sure fire way to get a character to be hated by other people. In short, I recommend that you focus on really carefully constructing the context and purpose of each element of the character.




Now, for this particular case I decided to leave two small extras that are a bit apart from my main point, but which nonetheless may help further show my insight into the matter. Feel free to read or disregard them as you wish.

Spoiler: My Own Thoughts On Whether the Character Is a Mary Sue and How to Avoid Being One

While I adressed previously how it's near impossible to avoid every definition of a mary sue, and thus gave general feedback, in here I will talk about my own definition and it's criteria (and by extention, how you can avoid making a character I would call a Mary Sue).

So, to me a mary sue is a character that is too perfect to coexist. My metric for this is threefold: accomplishments, talent and personality.
If a character is too accomplished in life, everything seems to coincidentally fall on their lap or anything like that, and this ISN'T an intentional aspect of the character (as opposed to the character being someone who has everything dropped on them because their exact conflict is that everything falls in their lap and thus they become spoiled etc...), then that character is someone I would call a Mary Sue.
Likewise, if a character is too talented in too many fields, rather than just being specialized for a certain field or subpar in all of them, then that character is a Mary Sue.
Lastly, if a character doesn't have serious flaws in their personality, then I would consider them a Mary Sue. This is the most common type of Mary Sue that I encounter, and one I quite vigilant about in my RPs. Serious flaws are a concept describing a negative tendency of the character's behavior (AKA a flaw) that is universally constant for the character regardless of justification and likely to cause them to fail at important moments. Things that are not serious flaws include:
*Exagerations of qualities (AKA being "too kind" or "too friendly") where the problem is not the character but another exploiting their goodwill
*A flaw to minor to impact major events (the character is being generally bored)
*A flaw that only exists sometimes (Sometimes they may be...) or only exist when justified on some level (they become murderous, but only those that kill and torture)
*Anything that isn't a flaw like handicaps (the character being weak or being viewed in a certain way by others) or which are nonsense that somehow gets mistaken for a flaw (being "sarcastic")

So, the way to make a character that isn't a Mary Sue is basically to have consideration for your fellow player's needs, to give your character some serious flaws to have them fail and give them something to work out of, and not to not magically make them the most important person in the world for no reason.

Spoiler: Other Nitpicks About Your Character

And how exactly did she survive? I don't mean survive the killings, I mean the one I presume is a young child, how did the sudden deprivation of her family allow her to do anything other than search for edible food all day? In fact, how did she get out of extreme poverty?

Stuff like this, thinking it well through, will be kind of important for who the character grows up to be.


These are both on a very personal level, but I just don't like messing with cannon in general, plus this calling it immortality but still having them be, you know, mortal...it irks me a little. Again, just very personal stuff there.


Why does it kill her? It doesn't seem to do anything so extraordinary that it would warrant such a cost... In fact the cost is so over the top it's hard to take seriously.


What do you mean "peak human"?


Why? Is this lost orphan that famous? It seems...a little cheesy to be honest, that she would get that kind of reaction on every village, especially considering this is probably nothing related to their culture even.


Sure, as long as you don't describe her as beautiful. But Geek already touched on that.


So this oprhan has time to
-> Find food, drink and I assume shelter
->Get the money to afford not one but several types of different weapons
->Train on mastering all those weapons (considering most people would have trouble mastering one or two over the majority of their active careers)
->Train in martial arts
->Maybe travel to places where she can find all that

And even then to use certain weapons she'd basically have to magically know how to. It sounds a tad implausible.

I hope you found this post helpful. Good luck and happy RPing!

Thank you for writing all of this. I have already have the why her family died, basically a in depth childhood, not just stating her family died. My intent for the character isn’t suppose to be edgy or over dramatic. I’m really big on motivational stories, it’s cheesy I know. I might have to work out some personality traits as a result. I’m trying not to show off my character but also not make her a “grumpy all the time. My life sucks. Woo is me” type of character. If you want, I can give you the whole detail about my character cause this post just contains the generalized bit

 

[Idea]

My intent for the character isn’t suppose to be edgy or over dramatic.

Yeah, I get that, don't worry.

If you want, I can give you the whole detail about my character cause this post just contains the generalized bit

If you'd like feel free

 

[AdventuresofButtlet]

I'd started a quarter of my game design degree with Screen Writing, and Character Design was a part of that.

For Video Games, Movies, Novel, or any kind of design, every story revolves around three main points: A Character, what they need/want, and what's standing ultimately in their way.

Duh, I know. But the next thing I learned was pretty simple, too: You can do all this, make a character, but what personally made my character less Mary Sue, was Three things:

Make your character relatable. Give them favorites. Maybe even a likeable habit. Favorites of large variety is good. My favorite part was asking myself WHY they had these favorites: That's very helpful and you start thinking about why your character is the way they are.

Your character should be flawed. This is in some ways more important than giving them favorites, or making them super epic or pretty, or whatever else. HELL-- Take Naruto for instance: Dude's annoying, isn't good at everything, and is thick-headed. He loves Ramen, and as an extra treat-- he has ironically fox-like features, and, like the fox, has a mischievous nature. Now-- while the anime's full of redundancies and plot holes (far as I hear anyway. I try not to look too hard into the raw plot.), Naruto is a likeable, and sometimes inspiring character, overcoming challenges that make him and those around him suffer.

And that brings me to the third thing: Be a sadist. Fuck your character up, physically or emotionally. From what I've learned, and been taught-- people are damaged in various ways, and everyone's imperfect. Now, a character can be that way, but make sure it's well-known by the audience. With Naruto, again: He was shunned, forced to deal with the fox spirit in him, and ultimately: The author decided Naruto was a willful little shit who said, "Y'know whaty? To heck with this-- I'mma MAKE everyone like me!" And that is his own way to handle that situation. Some people think becoming Hokage was a stupid way to try and DO that, but some thought, "Hey, fuck yea man. Gotta catch 'em all or... y'know, whatever. You do you, my little irritating dude!" And that's what he did.

I dunno. Maybe I'm sleepy-rambling, and I'm sure I'm basically mumbling a dumbed-down version of what others're trying to say, but in short-- this was how I figured things out, and it's been working for me. Hopefully you'll glean something from my half-asleep ravings xD

Good luck with your character!! I like inspiring character arcs, too.