HOW NOT TO WRITE A MARY SUE - Terrible Writing Advice

Mary Sue, bane of writers everywhere. TWA shows writers how to avoid falling into the dark pit of writing a Mary Sue by plunging them headfirst into this other pit right next to it. You’re welcome!

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Introduction
02:33 Flaws, Mary Sue, and YOU!
03:56 Sympathy and Mary Sue
04:37 Likeability
05:02 Useless characters that the plot still hinges on
05:44 No power or abilities
06:28 Still the center of the universe
07:02 Making mistakes
07:30 Focusing on Mary Sue traits too much
07:59 Understanding why audiences hate Mary Sue
08:42 Mary Sue tests are not very useful
08:58 Letting authorial anxiety consume you
09:20 New writer expectations
09:52 Can’t please everyone
10:17 Bland can be worse than bad
10:39 Character traits serve the story or character
11:55 Go ahead and make mistakes as that's how you learn
12:16 Seeking validation rather than improvement
12:41 BECOME MARY SUE!
13:04 Sponsorship Wars – Orientation Day
17:05 Outro


SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

CREDITS

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[purplehaze]

"So naturally, the best way to avoid writing a Mary Sue is to make every single thing in the story go wrong for them"
Oh how I do love fiction that reads like a case study of Murphy's Law.

[emilianorios]

The most handsomest and successful author has once again blessed us with a fraction of his cosmic knowledge

[leodouskyron]

“It’s okay to be a bad writer” 12:11

Best writing advice ever. Must have been a mistake. Catch you at the next Nanowrimo my fellow bad writers.

[maybelore]

Mary Sue as a villain would be truly horrifying. Imaging slowly discovering that you are practically a slave to this extremely powerful person, everyone and everything seems to revolve around her, nobody can talk about anything without it inevitably coming back to her. I don't even know what you could do about it because she also has plot armor!

edit: I can't believe it took me this long to realize this, but I basically described The Count of Monte Cristo, I will never live this down it's basically half my personality at this point! (I've even made a video about adaptations of it and plan on making more videos. Yes this is a shameless plug I learned from the best, Subscribe to Technoblade!)
But yeah, the universe loves this guy it takes four guys with their own reasons to dislike him in order to bring him down and then he comes back richer and more powerful than all of them put together. and when he does come back he is all they can talk about and the world still revolves around him. It's not even a supernatural story!

[Just_Some_Guy_with_a_Mustache]

The Internet has me believe a Mary Sue is just a character I don’t like, but don’t want to just go out and say it.

[youtubeuniversity]

Y'know NotSue seems like she should get a handheld camera with an unrealistically long battery life and just refuse to turn it off.

[charlesm]

Remember kids : Your character is automatically not a Mary Sue if they're slightly clumsy, that's how you know they have flaws! Sure it's a single one but hey, it's a flaw, meaning that you can deflect any criticism about them having none.

[oliverpearce]

The idea of a story where literally EVERY character is a mary sue does genuinely intrigue me

[fatcat]

I love the natural evolution of this channel from parodying the writing of people who don't know better to parodying the writing of people who are obsessed with *seeming* like they know better. Can't stand how genuinely helpful critique concepts get hijacked by both critics and writers until the writers are overcompensating at the expense of their story.

[javonyounger]

Thinking about it, everyone being Mary Sues partially addresses the issues normally caused by having a Mary Sue. A character being one is strongly determined by how their character relates to and interacts with the setting, situations, and other characters. So making everyone overblown, while silly, might actually be less frustrating as it makes the character less of a Mary Sue.

[GinHindew]

Now i want to see an episode on Tropeboarding, AKA "criticizing" a story by the PRESENCE of tropes, rather than their EXECUTION

[Galimeer]

The best advice on character writing I've ever gotten is
_"Don't worry about if you're writing a Mary Sue or not, just write a character"_

Take a character, give them some quirks, and you'll probably be fine. Don't fuss over arbitrary definitions. There are no rules when it comes to writing.
Except grammar and spelling. Those are rules you have to follow.

[RevanR]

How to not write a Mary Sue : don't write at all

[Thejellopersonssomthing]

Tbh, you should do a video on how to write characters with disabilities, mental illnesses, etc. That would definitely be an interesting one.

[abbierose]

"A writer can't just go ahead and write indulgent crap to get it out of their system. Never should a writer accept that it's okay to be bad." The essential step that every writing advice channel loves to just gloss over for some reason.

[willowzed]

Kinda wanna write a story where the main character does nothing but still gets involved in all of the action, then it's later revealed that she has reality warping abilities and that she's causing these things to happen around her

Edit: apparently this comment blew up and I just realized now. Thank you all for the recommendations!

[titangirl]

"Then a bunch of flaws are even better! Just keep lumping on all kinds of character flaws until the character collapses under the weight of them!!"
I see JP has watched Velma

[williamstark]

The humbling "It's okay to be bad, you can write better later" is something that might need to be posted on my wall.

[namelastnamefirst]

Do “How to write a morally grey character” next.

[tathemrelag]

9:07 I'm not entirely sure why, but the image of Tolkien beating JC senseless with his pipe is both utterly hilarious and strangely cathartic somehow.