If you goal is to entertain the reader, and you do that by writing the kind of story that they like to read, that is not "selling you soul" it is being a craftsman.

If you goal to to explore the depths of you own writing skills with little care to whether or not it is read, then you might be highly admired, but likely will be poor.

Having both is of course best.

But again, if you customers come to your store to buy cake, them you had better be making cake, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. You are providing a wanted service.

I understand both sides, but I think people (writers) view their craft as something a bit too lofty and spiritual... it is fodder for the masses, and the masses really like certain recipes.

I wouldn't mind being the "Mcdonalds" of the novel world. It's not selling out, it's identifying a market and provided a product that the market wants. Selling books is a business.

It's not the skill, it's the ideas. I happen to have enough positive feedback to know that my ideas aren't completely whacked out. Money would be nice, and perhaps I can learn to write what others want. But no matter what I do, I will never give up my own dreams, and will also keep writing my own vision, even if no one wants to read it.

I've been taught a couple different versions of the Hero's Journey in school and I'm not sure which is more accurate, but they all seemed to me vague enough that you could hit every point and still have an original story. For example, one point I remember was along the lines of "the call to action." This does NOT mean "a mysterious stranger shows up and tells the protagonist he must go on a quest to save the world." It can be anything from a conversation to an enemy attack to an internal realization that convinces the protagonist he must change something. In my opinion, the problem of cliched characters arises not when authors follow the Hero's Cycle, but when they follow an existing story, which in fantasy will most likely fit the Hero's Cycle itself, intentionally or unintentionally.

I feel exactly the same way.

I just don't think it's fair to say you have "sold your soul" if you provide the type of stories that are currently popular in the market.

We'd like to think we are better than that, but we really need to remember who we are writing for to begin with. Do we do it for ourselves? Or for the readers?

The ONLY reason I write is with the hope that I can touch and entertain a reader... I don't write to entertain or impress myself. So, identify what the reader wants, and give it to them in the most skillful way you can.

But believe it or not, we are agreeing here.

FIFTHWIND wrote:

But believe it or not, we are agreeing here.

yea... in some twisted way

You're right of course FW, we have to think more about who we are writing for.

I'm sure I've seen your say that before!

Thank You, if I could give just one belief system in all writers, it would be to never lose sight of your audience. I've said it before many times... they could care less if you can diagram a sentence or do an analytical breakdown of the theory behind your writing... they just want to be told a damn good story.

Too many writers (IMHO) are trying to prove something either to themselves or to fellow writers, and forget that there are eager fans waiting to be entertained.

I don't mean to say that all authors who follow the Hero's cycle are selling their souls, I just think that it could be a good thing to have other forms seen in writing.

That being said, I've had problems in the past with my radical ideas. I've been asked to design and construct worlds, or cowrite a story, and in the end, had to back out because my ideas were seen as too unusual. The very reason they wanted to work with me in the beginning ending up making the project not work.

But I am leagues off of the topic of Mary Sue!

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Don't make your characters "plain" just for the sake of avoiding cliche... cliches come into being because of one undeniable fact: Someone once found something that worked phenomenally well, and too many others copied it. It doesn't mean that the original idea was not brilliant. It was Just over used.

very well spoken. I was going to point this out earlier, but it seems you beat me to it.
I also think the point of not being afraid of clichés is one to keep close to heart, especially for experienced fantasy writers. This does not solely regard characters, but setting, plot, dialogue... tcheh, the hole lot of it really.
I find that many fantasy writers nowadays are edging so far away from tradition, their writing starts to lack childish charm and retrospective warmth.

I tested one of my sideplot characters;

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she's got little to do with the actual storyline, but she's still one of my favourites. I suspect most people notice her eyes first and then think "she prolly scored high", and yep she did ^^ 43!
and proud I'm of it!

It's unfortunate that I have so many characters in my story, it'll take a while to test them all...
-sandragon13

Like I said: The tests mean jack all. You can't measure your characters like that.

That's right. They are measured by how well people like them. You can create a character who's as anti MS as you can get, but if the readers don't like it, it's a bad character.

True enough, but when nobody gives you feedback on your characters, one must resort to whatever resources are available to him...
-sandragon13

There is a LOT to read around.

Study. Practice. Analyze texts. Then apply what you've learned to your own writing.

Nearing 3 years of that practice, there is only so much that one can do by oneself.
-sandragon13

Everything I know is self taught. I am very protective of my work, and for my WIPs, I won't let more than one or two people read it. Drives my friends nuts, because I'll say I've written 2000 more words, and they want to read it. But I feel that I keep focus better when I write my own.

Read published authors, study their work. Find less well known writers who are known for the quality of their work. And believe in yourself. I had to keep my work to myself for 7 years, because the family and community I grew up in would have crucified me. While I wasn't writing seriously, wasn't even considering ever being published, I still was in love with the craft. So I turned my focus into making myself good. At the time I wrote historical fantasy, with a fous on English and Nordic mythology and characters. I did lots of worldbuilding, and that slowly developed into my hundreds of current files.

It wasn't until about 2 years ago that I "came out" with my decision to be a writer. Most of my family and old friends don't know what I write even now!

Irkan is right, there are thousands of excellent stories out there. Every writer on this site is talented. Just keep working, and take the frustration out in making characters so good, so memorable, that people can't stop reading. And no Mary Sue test can do that for you.

w00t. my topic is totally on the 3rd page.
The borderline between a mary-sue and a non-mary-sue is purely opinion. Im sure it differs from person to person. What one character may seem to be a mary sue to one person may not be to somebody else.
I think the worst kind of mary-sue is when people copy and paste another character and change minute aspects about them. Its even worse when they use the character they copied off of for a comparison.
Example: My character is sorta like Harry Potter, except he has green-spikey hair, he is dating Hermione, and he is about 100 times more powerful than Harry Potter. He is also half angel/demon/vampire/fox.

*wretch!!!*

Keep it subtle, and nobody gets sick.

i have a question as to my main character. He was an elite soldier in the army, until there was a great cataclismic battle, where he was wounded. i might want to trash him around a bit more just to stress the point.

Then, since the alien army knows where they are, they start to bring in convoys to destroy the human populace. the base itself has a place where they can genetically enhance people, but it severely saps energy. They do that to the MC, and he is healed and is currently in the process of being sent into battle. he is supposed to delay them enough to allow the main group to leave.

Problem: shrouded past that isn't all the fanciful. His enhancement and equipment give him extreme speed and agility, along with good marksmanship and good hand to hand combat (still no where close to alien hand to hand). Is he a mary sue? He scored a 38 on the test.

@ Astri Veredus:

Again, don't focus on the "Score".

As for your character, I was rolling my eyes through most of the description, until you pointed out that even with the enhancements he was still inferior to the enemy (the aliens). That actually changed my mind and balanced things nicely.

He does seem to have a lot going for him, you might want to impose some consequences that come with the enhancements. Pain would be good... even better would be a genetic flaw that is ultimately terminal.

At an emotional level, it would be nice if the character hates some of the enhancements and just wants to be "normal" again.

But, keeping him inferior to the enemy is a HUGE redeeming quality to your story and character.

I forgot to add something extremely important that i know find myself kicking myself in the butt for. He has access to something called "dead energy" where he takes the energy from dead sentient beings and transforms that into one of the 4 traditional elements.

However, as a result, he is terrorized by memories of dead comrades and faces that distract him in battle. He eventually finds other people that have the same freakish disorder, and comminucates to them. But, he learns that the enemy also has access to the same channels, and stalks him throughout the story, eventually leading to his capture.

Imprisoned, he falls in love with one of the slaves at the camp that he was initially sent to destroy. He makes his escape, trying to take her with her, but she does not make it. a while later, he tries to break in and save her, but is killed in the process, right after he sees her dead body crucified.

For my whole cast they fell into the 10-15 range. Except Zelfire who scored a flat out 20. That was on a trail of 8 characters. ^-^ Samba, the leopard druidical companion of Draeval got a big fat 0. She's a good cat.

Draeveal- 12
Verin- 10
Barra- 14
Samba- 0
Lucifer- 15
Zelfire - 20
Alkel- 13
Aleston- 15

Okay, weird...

See, my lead character, Skye, shows up in two stories of mine, and a lot happens in-between them.

For the first story, which happens around our current timeframe, she got a 19. In the other one, she got a whopping 33!

The only thing I can think that would cause this is that the stories take place hundreds of years apart, and in that time, Skye, becomes a deity for all intents and purposes.

Of course, in the second story she doesn't play as big a role in the main one, so I don't think I should be too worried about it.

Overly terrorized characters are Mary-Sues as well. Too angsty, Astri Veredus.

I'm sorry, the results are in, and... You character is a huge Mary Sue.

joy.... rewrite time

Why should you, if it's an interesting character?

im still keeping the story in reserve, but im also gonna add a few things, and cut a few things. I'm cutting the girl but sticking the jail in the very beginning. I'm going to dismemebr the story, and re assemble it, adding a different twist.... like hacking a part a chicken, and putting new seasoning on it. I'ts all good any way .

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Overly terrorized characters are Mary-Sues as well. Too angsty, Astri Veredus.

IIRC, the 'fanfic' term for that is 'wangst', a combination of 'whine' and 'angst', referring to characters who just never let go of their tragic past or somesuch. It's not just fanfic, either - apparently Drizz't, the drow from some TSR-based book, lost a lot of fans because he spent literally 3 books whining about how the woman he loved was mortal and would die eventually.

I actually have a character who I've done the opposite with, my joker character. The rule is "Steve does not suffer - Steve is the cause of suffering in others." And you've never suffered until you've lived with someone who has a very short attention span, a creative yet twisted sense of humor, and access to super-glue...

Mokele

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phantasmagorical eye color

I'm using that phrase somewhere. Still working on the details...