Mary Sue, You're A Hero Too?

I don't know where the art came from, if you do
let me know so I can give credit, however the quote
is from the movie Flight of Dragons (1982).

Did you ever want to be a hero?  Sword toting or gun roaring or mystical princess or even a space smuggler with a tall hairy friend.

Of course you did.

When I was back in grade school, middle school and even well into high school...yeah okay even in college sometimes, I always wanted to be the hero of some grandiose fight for justice.  The sort of battle that would keep the bards singing for ages.

I truly believed that women swooned at the sight of heroic deeds and that I could win over any young lass that I wanted simply through my courageous deeds and mysterious ways.

Yeah, I was never that lucky with the ladies.  Just for you literary nuts out there, my favorite and role model for how to treat a woman was Edmund Rostand's depiction of Cyrano de Bergerac.  I wholly, and to a large extent still do, believe in chivalry.  There are somethings that should never have died.

However, like Cyrano, and somewhat due to my affinity for swords at the time, I was awaiting the day a villain would storm my castle (and oddly my high school was nick named "The Castle") and I would have to defend all the fair maidens of my imagination.  To those who knew me best, and to a very select few of my friends, also knew a journal I had poetry, short stories, speeches, poorly constructed French sentences (ZUT!) of the things I would say to the girl who was most important to me during that four year period (my first date, kiss, scores of love letters, and heart break).

Okay, yeah, so my high school years could probably be turned into young adult novel, but that's not why I'm writing this chapter.

I want to bring your attention to a very specific breed of character called the Mary Sue Hero. The Mary Sue hero is not necessarily a heroine (a female hero for those who are unsure, and yes, there are always some).  What Mary Sue is, is a character based on you as a person.  Based on who you want to be.  Based on what you would be like if you were a hero.  And though Mary Sue isn't bad, per-say, Mary Sue  has a tendency to be overly dramaticized, overly described, overly perfect.  So much so that many slush readers are basically standing on guard towers with rifles and searchlights trying to keep these types of characters away from their gatekeepers (another industry term that is wise to know, especially since the slush reader only determines if a piece is worth of progressing and the gatekeeper determines if it is worth distributing).

There are even Mary Sue Litmus Tests: Example 1  - Example 2

Now that I have made my cautionary little note.  Mary Sue characters are not bad things.  In fact they are great at helping you accomplish some pretty important aspects of your writing.  Ever had writer's block?  Create a Mary Sue and drop it into the middle of your novel.  What would you as a hero do?  Would your main character do that?  Oh....look the dam is beginning to leak.   What if your Mary Sue suddenly discovered that it was adopted?  What if the perfection that is Mary Sue were exact opposite values of a new society it has discovered?

What kind of archetypal hero would you be?  I already know mine.  What's yours?