*suddenly a couch appears* Here you go. by
twistedwindowpane
on 2017-10-22 19:18:00 UTC
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Man, that's pretty Sueish. The ones from my fanfics don't seem so bad now... If you can get through the cringe enough, I'd love to see the illustrations. Huh, maybe I can help you learn to cope with the cringe. I currently can cope with every bad thing I've written (except for this one robot that I don't like to talk about.)
Of course, mine weren't that over the top but were still Sues nonetheless, because everything came so easy to them. They never had any real conflicts or consequences. It was stupid. I'm trying to think of any specific examples that were obvious Sues, but I can't really. Oh jeez.
...Wait, it seems that my Sues actually became more Sueish over time up until the point where I started actually trying to improve my writing. I had the idea for a story once about a friend and I getting stuck in a fandom and taken in by main characters. I still have a few guilty pleasures and personal tropes I indulge in in my current works that could be Sueish if taken too far, or at least very bad writing. (For one thing, I love being the center of attention, and lots of my stories are inspired by my own personal experiences, so in most of my stories, either the #1 protagonist or a prominent antagonist starts off being based on me. Not only does it open up a potential for wish fulfillment when I think of my creation as myself, but it's also generally very annoying to see a character based on the author play a major part in a story that isn't literally about the author and isn't a fanfiction with the author's 'sona. Especially if the author proudly calls the character not just an insert but an avatar, which is another way of saying "ATTENTION EVERYONE! THIS WHOLE STORY IS A WISH FULFILLMENT AND I SE NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!". I usually solve this issue by making the former insert much different from me in appearance and personality. I also tend to create another character that is meant to be literally me, and have her sort of hang around in the background or be an Easter egg. There are a few exceptions to this rule, although over time I might become sick of them and turn the inserts into regular non-insert characters. But anyway, enough of that rambling.) Every time I think about a piece of writing I'm working on, I think to myself: Do I need to remove my personal tropes from this work, or would it be okay to leave them in in this situation? If I need to take them out, how can I do it? That's helped me a lot with improving my stories, and as a result, I do believe I've stopped writing Sues... at least, they aren't Sues in the final drafts.
I proofread and revised that last paragraph like 25 times, wow.
-Twistey