[ SECRET POST #5993 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5993 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #857.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Writing Vent

[(Anonymous)]

It sounds like that person was probably being unfair. Though I could see how they may be influenced by your first, admittedly 'Sue-ish description, and take that into account when reading the second summary that emphasized her nagative points.

On that note, while I agree that a lot of people throw around 'Sue accusations far too freely, it is entirely possible for a character to be 'Sue-ish based on supposedly negative traits. I'm talking about characters who are soooo clumsy/quirky/alternative/have such a sad backstory and they just don't fit in because they're sooooo different from the other girls or sooo much smarter than everyone else - and yet have multiple male characters fall in love with them immediately and other characters be obsessed with them.

On the topic of summaries themselves, I recommend you look at summaries for fics or books you like, and think about them critically. How much focus is on character, and how much is on plot? How much is left to the imagination? What does the author say explicitly and what do they tease?

There'a a big difference between something like:

"John Smith is a former army veteran. He is smart and strategic with a warm side. He is really good with computers. His flaw is that he gets angry easily because of trauma from war. He still loves his vetinerarian ex-wife deeply. One day, he gets caught up in a deadly goverment conspiracy that is related to his past work in the army."

As compared to:

"Ex-soldier turned civilian computer specialist John Smith is trying to forget his past life in the army. But when his former CO shows up dead on his doorstep with only an encrypted USB drive in his pocket, John realises there are some things he can no longer run from."

(Not saying the latter is *good*, just that something like that shows rather than tells, provides only the info about John and the plot that is necessary for someone to know roughly what they're going to read, and leaves stuff that isn't necessary to get into the story (John's personality, his relationship with his ex wife) to the text.

Re: Writing Vent

[(Anonymous)]

On that note, while I agree that a lot of people throw around 'Sue accusations far too freely, it is entirely possible for a character to be 'Sue-ish based on supposedly negative traits. I'm talking about characters who are soooo clumsy/quirky/alternative/have such a sad backstory and they just don't fit in because they're sooooo different from the other girls or sooo much smarter than everyone else - and yet have multiple male characters fall in love with them immediately and other characters be obsessed with them.

This. That can definitely be another kind of Sue. It reminds me of a fic I read that started off with only canon characters for 12 chapters, and then introduced an OC that immediately co-opted the fic away from the plot and other characters. She was exactly like a snarky, alternative, cool girl type of Mary Sue from the 2000s, but written in the early 2020s. Everything continued to basically revolve around her from her introduction on, and a commenter spoke out about it calling her a Mary Sue. The author replied “If you think she’s a Mary Sue, I’m doing my job right”. I was very confused by that, and wondered if she was actually supposed to be parody? Nope. Turns out, the author meant that she was supposed to seem super cool, talented, witty, and perfect. All so the twist to her character could be...that she has a sad backstory, has insecurities, and not every girl in class likes her. That was why the author thought they were doing her job right by making her like a Sue, because we’d totally never guess she had a tragic backstory, and it would definitely make us rethink everything about her.

I’m not at all saying OP wrote their character that way. The way they describe the character in the summary makes me honestly think that the character isn’t really a Sue. And I do think the people who said she was might have been judging too harshly. But I just wanted to give an example I had of why it is true that some Mary Sues are still Mary Sues even with sad pasts and flaws.