Fanfiction: the definition of Mary-Sue

[Lily Bracegirdle]

Thanks, Kalimac! How could I forget the tortured past? It reminds me of the opening of "Romancing the Stone" where the chesty heroine says something like: "I finally kilt the man that murdered my father, raped me and my mother, shot my dog and stoled my Bible!"

Daisy, if you start with an OC and have her romantically involved with a canon character, all is not lost, but you're definitely in danger of being accused of writing a Mary-Sue and even of doing so. You have to be very careful to check that the canon character acts in a way consistent with his character in the book, and you cannot change *anything* that is written in the book. That means that Boromir must do everything that it says he did, including trying to take the Ring and dying. If the OC directly or indirectly prevents these things from happening, she is a Mary-Sue. If Boromir does something extremely out of character, for example offering to give up inheriting the Stewardship to run away with the OC, failing in his military duties because he rescued the OC instead, or defying his father over the OC, she is a Mary-Sue.

One way to avoid an OC becoming a Sue is to have everything she does happen "off stage" and not affect events in the book at all. (OCs that "join the Fellowship" are pretty much all Mary-Sues.) You can do this by slipping her into the gaps of time the book doesn't cover. We don't know what Boromir did in his youth before he left Minas Tirith, or on his journey to Rivendell via Rohan, so you have some freedom there to introduce an OC. However, in the end he must leave her to go to Rivendell and his fate. (He could also meet someone in Lorien, but his relationship with her would be very short!)

Good luck in your writing, and don't give up!

-Lily [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Disclaimer: The examples presented above were not taken from any specific fic. Anyone who feels insulted by them should have their fics read by an honest beta-reader. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]