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I know the feeling, my humour has two settings: "Snark" and "Dead Babies". Neither of which are that good for lighthearted fun-poking.
Most of what I read being serious Sci-fi or Fantasty doesn't help too much either.

Same as that whole "essay thing" a few months back.

Some of us are using "Mary Sue" to mean exclusively a fanfic character that is shallow, poorly written and distorts canon. By that definition, there is no such thing as a Canon Sue or a Historical Sue. It might be poor characterisation, but it's not a Sue.

Another way of looking at it is that "Sue" is a descriptor for an archetype of character - some of which occur in canon works, but the vast majority of which are in fanfic.

I like the definition that someone linked to around the time of that essay thing: the "Stranger in the Living Room". In fanfic, the Sue is just that: someone disrupting a place that's not theirs by right, bending it to their will, as opposed to a canon-compliant OC, who would be a "Guest".

For canonical characters, it's their own "living room" and therefore they can't be a stranger in it. Many "Historical Sues" work within their own living room canon, but would be jarringly out-of-place if put into another canon. (Beth from Little Women, I'm looking at you - but she works within her own canon even if she isn't a very realistic character).

Elcalion, who, extending the analogy, would love to trash Eragon's living room, but won't cause he's canonical, dammit.

But that "See badfic..." phrase kinda makes me want to write a PPC-style picture book. "See Sue. See Sue run (away from Agents)."

Maybe it's a sign I've been playing with my one-year-old nephew a little too much!

Elcalion

Do you hear the loonies sing?
Singing the songs of cuckoo-land.
It is the music of a people
Who will not be sane again?

When the beeping of consoles
Sets off the pixies in your head
It is the life about to start in a padded cell!


And so on...

Elcalion, wondering why he always ends up writing a Les Mis parody whenever something like this comes up on the Board. Oh yeah, because he is a LOON!

Have a gun. With those nasty Sues around, soon you'll want to kill one.

A fellow Who fan, I presume?
Anyway, have a pet cat. You may name him whatever you wish.

As I said before, many of them were (and still are) well written and well liked. And giving them a pass does not make them not Sues.

Also, a different standard of writing back then does not mean bad. A Tolkien character is on that list and I don't believe for a moment that anyone here would say that Tolkien's writing is sub-par by today's standards.

I cannot for the life of me tell if this is sincere or sarcastic.

I do hope you enjoy your stay in our esteemed community. To help keep you company, here's a venomous arthropod! (I'll let you pick what kind.)

...only because of the Grandfather clause. Many of these stories would be eye-rollers if we read them by modern standards, but we allow them their effectively bad writing because they were cornerstones of literature.

And darn proud of it ;)

But perhaps I'm just impatient ;) I'll look again tomorrow.

*fist-pumps*

The sane people are just boring. :)

'Are you trying to imply that the unhinged, unstable lunatics that are agents are realistic in any way, shape or form?'

My feelings!

My poor poor feelings! They're hurt! Alas! I was stabbed! Right in the heart!

Because truly, my agent that was based off of me must mean I'm insane and unstable myself.

And I guess that goes the same for everyone else too.

I bet they're totally hurt to find out you must think they're unhinged and unstable and insane and practically worthless to society, or that they're freaks, and so on.

Maybe this is the reason you don't have friends, Max.

You end up insulting everyone in your bid to be superior and above it all.

The Non-Verbal Thesaurus by OokamiKasumi, whose entire gallery of writing tutorials is pretty sweet.

~Neshomeh

I've had them sitting around waiting to be put up for a while, I'm afraid. It was Tawaki who finally got it done.

As for dialogue, I don't know if I'm the best person to offer tips, because the only way I can describe how I do it is that I hear it in my head. (No, I have not been diagnosed with any serious psychiatric condition, why do you ask?) But really, when I write it's like I'm hearing it all and transcribing it. So, I guess the best advice is to think of someone who talks the way you want your character to talk, and imagine them saying it.

Don't forget to include facial expressions and gestures, though. Those things are just as important as the words used, and they make a nice change from he-said, she-said dialogue tags. I saw an interesting guide to that stuff on deviantART recently... want the link?

~Neshomeh

Hello, all you fine people out there,

I’d like to announce that, after a brief hiatus (er, okay, after about six years), Agent Jeanlily and I have *finally* written another PPC, this time of a dear little story called The Fellowship’s Bliss (Bliss being the name of the ‘Sue). This is a PG or PG-13 if you're being generous.

The new story is here: http://www.freewebs.com/bookofnightmares/fellowshipsbliss.htm
And the general website here: http://bookofnightmares.webs.com/

Enjoy.

I haven't seen those missions; did you track them down?

Anyway, yeah, I have problems with humor, too. It's very frustrating; sometimes I seem to be inspired and capable of writing some laugh-worthy stuff; and other times it'll be trite or boring. And I can never predict when I'm going to be suddenly able to write humor. Needless to say, this annoys me.

I also tend to have issues with writing natural dialogue; any tips on that? It may not help that I have a tendency to interrupt or monologue IRL, and I have a hard time not having my characters monologue similarly. I've been trying to get the stiffness out for a long while and still haven't really succeeded.

This is an organization of people who kill other people for a living. They are not going to be the well-adjusted, normal people you see on the street.

Also, they are stories. Stop taking them so seriously. If you don't like it, then don't read it. Complaining on the internet doesn't help.

This is the reason there were four years between the time I joined and the time I wrote my first actual PPC story. {= p

I know what you mean about Discworld, too--I tend to mimic the style of things I've just read. Hence, there are times I can spot definite Pratchettian moments in my writing, and other spots are more Tolkien-esque. It's a little weird.

However, there are a few things I've noticed over the years, and maybe they'll help. The main thing is to get as specific as you can when describing things. Don't say "it was totally bizarre" when you can say "it was like a duck trying to tap-dance while bouncing on a trampoline." ... I have no idea what that description might apply to, but I'm pretty sure somebody somewhere will giggle when they read it, because it's ridiculous, and ridiculous is funny.

Another thing is timing, and that's hard to control in writing. You have to direct your readers' eye to see what you want when you want for maximum impact, like a comedian building up for the punchline. If you slip and reveal the punch during the setup, it's not funny anymore.

There is also exaggeration/hyperbole, either in the over-the-top sense or in vast understatement. Using these two things (with specific description) to create contrast can also work. We're pretty well wired to respond to contrast, so that's really a separate tip unto itself. That's why having "odd couple" agents works so well.

And that's all I can think of at the moment. For a study in the art of awesomely amusing PPCs, I recommend the works of Tungsten_Monk, now available here on the PPC Lost Tales archive.

~Neshomeh

Our agents are a little unhinged, but none of them that I have read would be "legally insane" except when they are actually being dragged (kicking, screaming, and possibly wielding a flamethrower) to FicPsych because they're no longer capable of acting as agents.

If they're in the field (and not currently in need of being dragged anywhere), then they are capable of understanding what they are doing, understanding right and wrong, and making decisions. That's not legally insane.

You've got to be a little nuts to go into badfic and set things right. It's a survival mechanism. And it's actually quite realistic. How do people cope with tough things in real life? That's right: We go a little nuts. We escape to fantasy worlds by playing games or reading books. We get sarcastic and cynical and joke about things that no sane person would joke about. We pretend things haven't changed, even though we know they have. We get hypervigilant; we get addicted; we get obsessive.

That's what everyday humans do. Under stress, we get just a little crazy. Now take that, satirize it, use it for humor. Apply it to people with a tough, extremely risky job. And you get the PPC.

Too much stress, and you get somebody with a diagnosable mental illness; and their functioning level starts to go down. Real-life people can snap, too; and while we don't get out flamethrowers (are, in fact, no more likely to be violent than the most sane guy on the planet), we do end up unable to do our jobs. But that isn't the everyday insanity that we use to cope with life.

Bottom line: Everybody's a little crazy. It's how we cope.

...I believe that if a Mary Sue is well written then there is no reason why it can't be a good character.

An Example

Historical Sues, the name says it all. They are Sues, therefore they are bad, right? I don't think that is the case, but let's not take my word for it.

I note specifically a line that says "Historical Sues are generally less egregious and poorly written than their contemporary counterparts, and most of the works mentioned below are worth reading."

So a Sue can be well written and liked. That does not seem like a bad thing to me.