How much awesome is too much awesome?

[Scribble]

I read this post on reddit this morning that I quite liked. It talks about overdoing "awesome" in stories at the cost of depth.

How do you deal with "awesomeness"? How do you know when you've sacrificed depth for awesomeness? It seems like a frailty of our genre. What do you think?

*snipped by Moderator for lengthy quoting*

I'm reminded of a story Patrick Rothfuss (fantasy writer) once told during an interview. He had a group of friends who played D&D together. Predictably, everyone designed their characters to be fairly awesome. You had Ulric Strongjaw the knight, and Rothgar Wildwind the barbarian, and Sarena Ravenhair the rogue... etc etc etc.
So on a whim, Rothfuss made his character the most pathetic and sorry excuse for a hero he possibly could. If I remember right, he created a hunchback with no real skills to speak of.

Except that his character desperately wanted to be a real hero.

And so of course, his character was more or less useless. He got in the way, he slowed them down, he couldn't fight worth a damn.

But he just wanted to be a hero so badly... it made for an incredibly compelling story.

He was pathetic beside all those other cookie-cutter heroes. He had no flash, he had no awesomeness.

And he was by far everyone's favorite.

Legendary knights with their +20 blades of asskickery looked dull and boring alongside this sad little cripple.
.... and you realize that this is essentially the same concept as the Lord of the Rings. A bunch of in-over-their-heads hobbits fighting an evil they should never have had to confront, looking pathetic and helpless beside all the other proper warriors of the Fellowship.

There is a reason why, overwhelmingly SAM is regarded as the favorite character. Not Legolas with his bow of Gimli with his axe, Gandalf with his magic or Aragorn with his crown.

This concept should be applied to every aspect of your story. Yes, there is a place for outright awesomeness... but that is not what makes a story good.

http://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1pvxx1/help_avoiding_fanfiction_style_of_writing/

 

[Svrtnsse]

I haven't really put in anything all that spectacularly awesome in my story yet. I do believe that the post you're quoting makes sense though. I believe it's about contrast. If you want to make something awesome you will have to make everything around it less awesome. The more unawesome everything is the more awesome the awesome thing will seem once it's introduced.

 

[Feo Takahari]

My rule of thumb for a lot of story elements is "does this interfere with the other elements I want to create?" In the case of awesomeness:

1): Does this interfere with believability? Self-explanatory.

2): Does this interfere with characterization? Part of making someone understandable is to show their weaknesses, and if a character spends all his time being awesome, he'll always have a wall up between him and the reader.

Also, Patrick Rothfuss thinks you shouldn't make your protagonists boring Mary Sues?

 

[Scribble]

My rule of thumb for a lot of story elements is "does this interfere with the other elements I want to create?" In the case of awesomeness:

1): Does this interfere with believability? Self-explanatory.

2): Does this interfere with characterization? Part of making someone understandable is to show their weaknesses, and if a character spends all his time being awesome, he'll always have a wall up between him and the reader.

Also, Patrick Rothfuss thinks you shouldn't make your protagonists boring Mary Sues?

That was well put, nice and tidy.

It is hard to argue with Patrick Rothfuss. I love that pathetic D&D hero story. I've been toying with a story idea in which the main characters are specifically not awesome.

 

[Steerpike]

"Mary Sues" can work just fine. People get too hung up on these sorts of labels, or even on tropes, which is why I never visit TVTropes or other such sites than I think can stifle writing.

 

[Scribble]

"Mary Sues" can work just fine.

I actually found the concept of Mary Sue hard to grok, I haven't really been subject to much fan fiction. I'd heard the term, of course.

I looked up this Mary Sue quiz in hopes of gaining some knowledge (The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test). You have a strong argument there about anti-creativity. I can well imagine this sort of thing stifling your ideas if you find yourself afraid to break these "rules".

 

[Steerpike]

@Scribble:

I think there are two definitions for "Mary Sue" thrown around. One is author projection onto the character and wish fulfillment; the other appears to be any character who is good at a lot of things and has no significant flaws.

I agree re: creativity, and I'll also add that once you've fallen into the trap of seeing everything in terms of tropes, it is hard to get your mind out of that box, and so considerations of tropes are necessarily going to affect your writing. I don't think that's a good thing, on the whole, though it may be useful in very specific instances where you consciously mean to invoke a trope.

 

[Devor]

Scribble, unfortunately super-lengthy excerpts cut from other sites is against our policy. Google penalizes us for lengthy excerpts.

I'm going to edit your post to remove it, but I wanted to give you the chance to send me a PM picking a shorter excerpt you would like me to leave for the discussion.

I'll be responding in a separate post about awesomeness.

 

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

*Sad Sigh* There goes my mine laying, fire breathing, triple winged, fanged rainbow unicorns of death, with their shoulder mounted ice cannons and their riders, who are just to awesome for words- seriously, they make Thor look like a rabbit!
*snigger*

 

[Devor]

The Mary Sue definition that I use and find helpful is a character whose positive traits are excessive enough to risk breaking immersion. I think that's a good line to watch for - I hate the other definitions.

As for awesome, I love awesome. But I've got a definition for that, too. Well, not really for awesome, exactly. But when I look for ways to create a "Crowning Moment of Awesome" in my writing, I do it by looking for ways that this specific character can resolve a plot point in ways that only that character, with his or her personality, would ever think to do. Which means I need problems nobody else can fix.

 

[Steerpike]

I guess that's going to vary from reader to reader, though, so what's the best approach to assess it? Jack Reacher, for example, doesn't break immersion for me, but the guy is always just so much better at everything than anyone else in the books that many would probably view him as a Mary Sue.

 

[Abbas-Al-Morim]

Mary Sues are actually more important for the roleplaying (pen&paper and internet) community, as those characters often hug the spotlight and ruin the game for others. Of course in a book that's less important because the main character is the most important character.

I'm not particularly fond of those characters (in books/movies/games) though. Of course there are characters that are good and that share the Mary Sue DNA. But most of the time, they are written horribly and most of the time, a well written three-dimensional character is a lot more compelling than a well written Mary Sue.

Mary Sue isn't just about being better. It's about combining all the clichés in an attempt to create the perfect character. These characters are generally very one-dimensional because they only have strengths, not flaws.

 

[GeekDavid]

Mary Sues are actually more important for the roleplaying (pen&paper and internet) community, as those characters often hug the spotlight and ruin the game for others. Of course in a book that's less important because the main character is the most important character.

I'm not particularly fond of those characters (in books/movies/games) though. Of course there are characters that are good and that share the Mary Sue DNA. But most of the time, they are written horribly and most of the time, a well written three-dimensional character is a lot more compelling than a well written Mary Sue.

Mary Sue isn't just about being better. It's about combining all the clichés in an attempt to create the perfect character. These characters are generally very one-dimensional because they only have strengths, not flaws.

If a character has no flaws there's no room for growth. If there's no growth there's really no story, at least no compelling story.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

If a character has no flaws there's no room for growth. If there's no growth there's really no story, at least no compelling story.

No flaws? Sure, i'll go with that.

The MC Kvothe from Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles grows during the story. He is certainly a Mary Sue.

I don't think the definition of Mary Sue has to be "no flaws".

 

[Steerpike]

I think you can write an engaging story without much if any character growth. I hesitate to mention Reacher again, but...

 

[BWFoster78]

No flaws? Sure, i'll go with that.

The MC Kvothe from Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles grows during the story. He is certainly a Mary Sue.

I don't think the definition of Mary Sue has to be "no flaws".

The way that I read this is that you're saying that Kvothe is portrayed as having no flaws. If my interpretation is correct, I must say I disagree.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

No...I meant he has flaws AND he's a Mary Sue.

 

[GeekDavid]

No flaws? Sure, i'll go with that.

The MC Kvothe from Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles grows during the story. He is certainly a Mary Sue.

I don't think the definition of Mary Sue has to be "no flaws".

I don't agree that he's a Mary Sue. That seems to be the bone of contention here.

 

[Scribble]

As for awesome, I love awesome. But I've got a definition for that, too. Well, not really for awesome, exactly. But when I look for ways to create a "Crowning Moment of Awesome" in my writing, I do it by looking for ways that this specific character can resolve a plot point in ways that only that character, with his or her personality, would ever think to do. Which means I need problems nobody else can fix.

This is worth posting above my monitor! Bravo

 

[Devor]

Jack Reacher, for example, doesn't break immersion for me, but the guy is always just so much better at everything than anyone else in the books that many would probably view him as a Mary Sue.

I think that's fine. Everything is arbitrary, except in the extremes.

This kind of trope jargon, let's call it, is only useful as a tool for dissecting the elements of a story. I don't really see much value to an aspiring author in going on a Mary Sue witch hunt - not to disparage a fan community that has fun doing it. But I think the value is in thinking, "I have this character. I'm worried he's becoming a bit of a Mary Sue. Maybe I should go back and tone down his magic and skills and make him struggle a little more before making the right choices."