Well, I was thinking about Mary Sues, and I had a thought.

Suppose someone writes a fic, and s/he needs an original character for it. S/he creates one that is not at all Mary Sueish. It's just an average person, with strengths and weaknesses, that takes part in the action just like everyone else.

So far, so good.

But the thing is, you happen to know a few things about this person. And his/her original character is basically himself/herself, with the same character, same personality traits, same interests, same everything. Does that make the character a Mary Sue? (Or Gary Stu, at that?)

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

A Mary Sue isn't just a character that's based on the author -- it's one who has exaggerated traits (fancy name, unusual hair/eye color, brilliant, etc) and who becomes the focus of the story. In Star Trek fic, the example is the beautiful young ensign whom Kirk falls madly in love with, only to grieve forever when she's tragically killed. In L&C fic, I think it's more likely to be Clark's younger cousin/old friend, who solves the case and helps L&C's romance progress when they're stuck.

If, however, you want to give yourself a walk-on part, that can be perfectly fine. In Tryst, quite a few things (not everything) about Ginny were based on me and my experiences, but I trust I kept her to appropriate supporting-character status.

PJ

While I was trying to jog my brain into some kind of logical answer to this one, Pam nipped in before me and saved me the trouble.

Which is longhand for 'me too'.

I think putting snippets of your own experiences and moments from your life into a story are very different from Mary Sueism.

Personally, I don't do a lot of the former, but I have occasionally in the past. Probably the nearest example was my contribution to ML Thompson's World Tour story, which was basically just a reworking of a wonderfully memorable day my husband and I spent at Dunfermline Abbey, one summer, and the sights and impressions I had that day.

Or decide to give up his career and the Enterprise for, so that they can ride off into the sunset together and live happily ever after - which was in many ways much worse!

LabRat

So I'm taking this to mean that "The Switch" was a Mary Sue? Bummer, I hate knowing I've done this, and yet I don't feel horribly bad, I mean it was still a pretty good story.

TEEEEEEEEEJ

A Mary Sue isn't always a perfect character, either. Sometimes he/she is the uber-smart hacker, the cool rebel, the superhero's sidekick, the comedian whose jokes never fail to cheer up the heroine when she's feeling blue, the evil villain/ness who the heroes have to struggle to beat despite numerous plot holes, etc. It is usually whatever the author wishes he/she could be, though.

As for self-projecting, if you don't put a little bit of yourself into your characters, they're going to fall flat and seem two-dimensional. Say you have a dog, and you want your character to have the same breed. That's fine up to a point. If you want to be the best dog trainer ever, and your character turns out to be that, then you've got a Sue. The trick is to not put too much of yourself in and to know when you've got too much (or to listen to people when they tell you that you've got a Sue and not get mad at them).

TJ -

You put yourself deliberately into the action with switch because you... hmmm. Can't say it here.

Let's just say you wanted to be naughty. Doesn't seem mary-suish to me.

L