The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test is a helpful tool if your beta-readers come back with comments like, "Nothing ever seems hard for (insert your main character's name)" or "Everybody loves (Insert main character's name), but I found him/her annoyingly / insufferably (insert trait here -- overconfident, arrogant, etc.)."
Mary Sue started out in Trekkie fan fiction but the term stuck and her "type" has undergone changes over the years, not the least of which was recognizing that this kind of character can occur across genders, ages, etc. They're everywhere. Does My Character Work Okay? How to Tell for Yourself!
So, What is a Mary Sue? This is as good an explanation of a Mary Sue as I've seen.
But there's a cautionary note, as well. Before You Go Declaring Other Peoples Characters Mary Sues you probably should read this.
Or better yet, just watch the latest Nancy Drew incarnation onscreen, Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019). Nancy's a Mary Sue if ever I saw one -- she doesn't have to suffer a single consequence for any of her actions and it starts in the opening scene when she's skateboarding down the middle of the street without disrupting traffic, while the girl running to catch up with her slams into the only person on the sidewalk! She even gets to take a frozen latte break while performing community service. She was so ridiculously a Mary Sue I checked out 15 minutes into the film, thoroughly annoyed.
In any case, the Mary Sue Litmus Test is quite long. I took it for "Original Fiction" character, my MC. He's not a Sue, but did score a -8. I then frantically starting researching Anti-Sues.
He didn't share many of the Sue traits, but I think that's because storytelling has changed a LOT since the 1970s, when this type of character was rampant (think Nancy Drew). As authors we're in general better educated and know to write our characters differently now.
I felt pretty confident he's not an Anti-Sue. I probably just misinterpreted the Litmus Test questions, which was fairly easy to do and many of them did not apply to my character.
What did your character score?
