JigokuDayu

I wish a certain famous author would get this through that incredibly thick skull of hers. I won't name names. I'm sure everyone can guess.

Totally! And it just really drives me nuts when it's my all-time favourite, oh-my-god-I'm-so-in-love-with-him character. I can just picture him sneering at the lousy portrayals he's had.

I must agree with both you guys. I was recently reading a fic that was really good, except in this area. The OC protagonist was well developed and I liked her for the most part. Yet in every other chapter or so, she would do or say something that didn't make any sense. Usually it was something extremely contrary to her established nature. It's very jarring to have a smart, hard-working person flaking out a quarter of the time and acting like a complete ditz. What really bothered me was the lack of development of the canon character she was paired with. How can someone take such a complex character and make him so one-dimensional? He had great dialogue and actions, but his emotional responses were so fake and tacked on. It was like cardboard. His big moment of pathos in the fic was little more than him making lame excuses for something terrible he'd done. A lot of it amounts to authors "telling-not-showing." It's not enough to have a character say he feels really bad about something. You have to describe how it affect him in a realistic way. Like, is his stomach knotted up? Are his eyes welling with tears? Are his knuckles clenched? Is his throat tight? Etc, etc. It has to be believable. I think that's the most important factor in not writing Sue's.

I don't think you got too off topic, Clover. And thanks, Karategirl. Of course, it's not just main characters that can be Sue's. Sometimes it can even be the main character's mother. Ahem, Miss I-can-fly-at-will-as-a-kid-who-doesn't-even-know-she's-a-witch-even-though-flying-unaided-has-previously-been-established-as-beyond-wizarding-ability-in-canon! Sorry, a certain someone here in the dungeons told me to say that! He's really upset about how he was portrayed in a particular tome that shall remain nameless.

I wouldn't get too down about that. A good writer knows there is always room for improvement. We progressively get better all the time. The scary writers are the ones who think they're absolutely perfect as is and explode if you say anything to contradict that.

Thank you! I wrote it back when I was an RP mod. Some of the applications the game got were just so bad, I still crack up about them. But it's definitely not restricted to OC's. Just as many canon characters can become one-dimensional. Writing characters, for fics or games, requires development of their personalities. I'd rather read a page of backstory than a page of going on about how so-and-so's good at everything they do. I wouldn't say I'm completely innocent in creating Sues, but I don't think I've actually written any. Mainly because I'm more of a reader than a writer when it comes to fics. I sort of had years to learn, so hopefully I know the basics now.

Hello, I'm Jezebel, aka JigokuDayu. Call me whichever. I'm thirty-one and American, if you couldn't tell from my goofy Britspeak. I do try to use the best English I can, but I'm by no means perfect. I've been here for a few weeks, though laziness has delayed my introductions. My apologies. I've been somewhat involved with various fandoms for years, but never bothered to finish writing any fics until last year. These days, I'm primarily focused on Harry Potter and Naruto, with some Death Note (LightxMisa or Rapist!L/Misa), Utena (ShiorixJuri or SaionjixWakaba), Rayearth (ZagatoxEmeraude or maybe ZagatoxAlcyone), Street Fighter (Vega/Balrog or Rose centric), and Sailormoon (UranusxNeptune) added to the mix. That said, I don't read a great deal of HP fic. Being an anal rententive Snape fangirl, few Snape fics meet my exacting standards. Most of it's Snarry, anyway, which I detest. (To me, pairing charaters who hate each other serves little purpose aside from shock value.) I'm also a Trelawney fangirl, but she doesn't get much love in the fandom. Plus, fics tend to be Movie!Snape or Movie!Tre, both of which annoy the hell out of me. As for Naruto, I love Orochimaru and Anko. I'll read just about any OroxAnko fic! I'll take OroxTsunade or OroxOC, but I only like Anko to be paired with him. I also like Gaara and Neji, but I've never read any fics about either of them. ZabazaxHaku is so sweet, but way too sad for me. Maybe there are lemons of them that aren't too depressing, but I'm not too interested in reading that. I'm not into yaoi, but I certainly don't object to it. It's just not my kink. I'm all about het and yuri (which makes perfect sense to me, seeing as I swing both ways), with a particular love of BDSM. (Say it with me, "Lesbian Spank Inferno!") Befitting my subbiness, I like it Male Dom/fem sub or Fem Dom/fem sub. If there's anything I do object to, it's incest. Makes my stomach turn. And I think that's written mostly for shock value as well, anyway.

I wrote this several years ago on LJ. *amuses herself way too much* I thought it might be helpful for people worried about writing a Sue or anyone who just wants a little chuckle. How to be a Mary Sue by Jezebel Haddo Have you always wanted to write a Mary Sue character but weren't sure how? Now you can with these 15 easy steps! 1. Prattle endlessly about their hair - Hair is the most important aspect of a person. How can we understand a character if we don't know every minute detail about their hairstyle? 2. Give your character at least two nicknames. It makes them seem more interesting that way. 3. They should be drop-dead sexy. Even if they have traits that are not commonly thought of as sexy, they should have multiple people falling in love with them for no good reason. Only evil and/ or stupid characters should be ugly and/ or fat. Cool characters should be gorgeous or at least ruggedly handsome. 4. Don't waste time developing their personality. All you need to write is that they're a cute, smart, sassy, fun-loving, badass rebel who's good at everything and is popular with the in-crowd. That makes it true to life. 5. Don't give them discernible flaws. Your character will be much cooler if they come across as more god than human. 6. Put an emphasis on music, sports, and dating. The best characters are always listening to hip rock bands, are their team's MVP, and have lots of people falling for them (though they only date equally cool people). That's what life is all about! 7. The rules of any established universe should bend for your character's awesomeness. If anyone complains, they're jealous. Laws and consequences are for losers. 8. Why not make your character a twin? Twins are really common! Every twin has at least one twin. 9. Your character has the right to treat everyone else like scum and still have said scum love and worship them. Hey, how can anyone not love their coolness? 10. If it's a girl, make her super-skinny, yet super-buxom. What's the point of having a nice rack and an incredible arse if she isn't thirty pounds underweight? And we all know that's how most girls are built. If it's a boy, he must be ripped, with a six-pack stomach and bulging biceps, but he's not too muscular, of course. 11. Employ a deus ex machina whenever possible. It's the fun way to solve problems. 12. Make blanket statements with nothing to back them up. If you say your character is friendly, I'll take your word for it, even if they never do anything to show that they're friendly. 13. Oxymorons, stereotypes, and anachronisms are your friends. Just because your character goes to Hogwarts doesn't mean they can't be immersed in Muggle pop culture. A Chinese character doesn't have to be at all Chinese as long as they're named Lee or Wong and they like egg rolls. And just because grunge rock came about in the 90's, doesn't mean someone in the 70's couldn't be listening to it. 14. It's okay to give your character rare abilities, famous relatives/friends/lovers, and a high profile job. While you're at it, why not several of each? 15. Make sure they've experienced lots of trauma, but don't bother showing them actually being affected by it. You don't want the character's coolness being watered down by things like human psychology. Emotions are only good for eliciting sympathy. As long as the character whines about the bad stuff, it will seem authentic.

That's the Author Insertion Sue. Not all author insertion qualifies as Suewage, but that usually requires it to be an OC or a canon character who doesn't get devolped much in canon. Of course, Canon Sue is as common as OC Sue, but there is the common misconception that a canon character can't possibly be a Sue and that all OC's are Sues. Disclaimers for Sues would be mandatory in a perfect world, but alas, no! In the real world, most Sue creators will become furious at the slightest implication of Suewage. I dealt with this a lot as an RP mod. And the worse the Sue, the bigger the tantrum they threw. I will say that the worst ones were quite hilarious.

That's quite different from freaking out about it. When I used to hang out in various chatrooms or on the boards of an archive that shall remain nameless, there were loads of teeny-bopper girls who would get offended at any non-yaoi pairing. And the slightest mention of yuri would start them on these homophobic ravings. "I think this girl at school is a lesbian and she's stalking me..." Yeah, right. Don't flatter yourself, toots! Girls used to say that about me before I ever even considered being with a woman (and I mean women, not girls), simply because I liked Rocky Horror. Make them confront their own sexuality and they lose all sense of reason. Of course, I can relate to what you said, albeit with the genders flipped. All these images of men with perfect smiles and rippling muscles make me want to retch. Give me an ugly, scrawny man with pasty skin! As to why I wouldn't want to double that up, I just like having someone I can imagine myself as in smut. I can't picture myself as someone who has a penis, save the kind one keeps in a drawer.

Oh, I forgot one thing, I'm not into incest at all. It disturbs me. It also strikes me as vain to want to sleep with one's relation.

If I have an OTP in any fandom, it's OrochimaruxAnko! I enjoy OrochimaruxTsunade now and then, but him and Anko are my all-time favourite. As for the whole yaoi vs. yuri debate, I personally have no interest in yaoi. I'm a one-penis-per-fantasy kind of girl. However, I love yuri and it really irks me when girls freak out about it (and often times het as well), but profess a love for yaoi. It makes me think they're afraid to sexualise themselves. That said, I do think ZabuzaxHaku is the sweetest pairing and they always make me cry. I'm just not that interested in reading it, though. It doesn't get me hot. I can see OrochimaruxKimimaro as quite plausible, though again, I'm not that interested in it. I don't really read any Naruto yuri, but I suppose I might go for KurenaixTsunade, just for the sheer hotness. They are both quite yummy! Now I should probably mention that I am bi. And I don't mean posuer-bi like some drunk slag from that "Girls Gone Wild" rubbish or internet trolls who claim to be bi for attention. My life partner is female. My sex life with her is far more pleasurable than any of my relationships with men have been. Also, I love tits. A lot. The pairing I really can't stand is KakashixAnko. They do not seem at all compatible to me. And frankly, if she's not being involved with Orochimaru in some way, Anko can get on my nerves. She seems under-developed on her own.

Sorry if this isn't the correct place to ask this, but I need some advice. I'm working on a fic for my favourite pairing, Orochimaru / Anko. He's going to summon snakes to do the typical things you'd see in the Tentacle Rape genre. Should this be under the story code for Tentacle Rape, Beastiality, or both? My inclination is both, just to be on the safe side, but I thought I'd go ahead and ask. Thanks for your help!