Subject: Oh, well said.
Author:
Posted on: 2011-12-17 13:57:00 UTC

Maybe part of writing a Sue is just giving the character too many traits, period. You give her a beautiful face even though her beauty isn't driving the story; you give her powers she never really uses; you make people love her even though it wouldn't matter to the plot whether they did. The character gets cluttered with traits that she doesn't need to have and that don't need to be mentioned.

Everything you write about a character should drive the story. For the Sue, that's the other way around--the story is just there to show off the Sue.


That's pretty much the definition of a Sue/Stu, as far as I'm concerned. I might save this thingie-- it also has the benefit of touching on Mark Twain's rules of writing.

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