A Guide To Redwall Mary Sue
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Parodies of Mary Sue
~Label parodies as such~
Make sure it's labelled clearly. Put "Parody" in big letters in the summary.
Even if you think there is no way anyone could think it's serious, err on the
side of caution. Otherwise, you're risking flames - for writing badly if people
don't realise it's a joke, or for trolling if they do.
~Choose the Mary Sue you want to parody~
It's a good idea to choose which type of Sue and storyline you want to mock
before you start. You can do more than one, but each parody Sue should be a
distinguishable breed. Make sure the jokes fit that Sue. Sword jokes for a
Warrior Sue and computer jokes for a Human Sue, for example. You can have more
than one character in the same story and have them as different types, though,
or parody different Sues in different chapters, but be careful or your readers
will just get confused. Also, pick a storyline for your fic. Exaggerate one from
Chapter Two, do a Sue Slaying adventure story, write it as a poem if you're
feeling really adventurous. Just have a clear, understandable storyline, or your
fic will get boring.
~Make it as funny as possible~
Many parodies simply exaggerate Mary Sue, and this is admittedly quite funny.
It's a good idea to add other humour too, though. Watching Mary Sue be mocked is
great in small doses, but loses funny quotient fast on its own. If you want to
do just that, it's best reserved for short fics.
Don't restrict yourself to just mocking Mary Sue. Mock everything it is possible
to mock. Canon (more tips on this later in the chapter), fanon, other fandoms,
other published works, actual biology, your own serious work. Identify trends in
the fandom and poke fun at them mercilessly. Find useless facts about the
species of your parody Mary Sue and add them. Just don't mock other fanwriters
directly without permission, no matter how much they deserve it, or you're in
trouble. And don't use toilet humour - it was funny when you were eight, now
you're fifteen it isn't. Or jokes you found in Christmas crackers. Or ones your
five-year-old brother told you. They aren't funny enough.
~Mock the canon~
Laugh at the canon as well. Either exaggerate or twist - your choice. Pick on
cliches (see The Generic Redwall in Chapter Two, and Lady Storm's fic "Two Sides
to Every Story".) Tweak the personalities of the characters as well; either
reverse them, or exaggerate them so as to be unrecognisable. For example, Mara
the troubled teen badger is now a gothic punk rawk chick who listens to Eminem
and Marilyn Manson even though they don't exist in Mossflower. (I'd like to see
that!) Don't bother writing mole's or hare's accents, or write them horrendously
badly. The Riftgard ferrets have German accents? Great, your ferret Sue is
French. (Pepe LePew jokes ahoy, toon fans!) If you're doing MS Classic, have her
snap her Magic Mary Sue fingers and create Pinkwall Abbey. Yay! Sickening
Barbie-doll cuteness!
~Be original~
Use ideas that you've never or rarely seen done in parody before. Mary Sue
herself has almost never been parodied before in the Redwall fandom, but don't
let us descend into cliche-ridden unfunniness when they become popular. Read
parodies from other fandoms to get ideas but put your own twist on them, or put
twists on serious but cliched concepts. For example, do a story featuring Mary
Sue and her male sidekick/lust object, with a Dramatic seduction scene (see
Chapter Four) and everybeast expects Mary Sue to hook up with the male. . . and
then she walks in on him snogging her as-non-Mary-Sue-as-possible, apparently
very boring sister. Or, for a real shock, her brother.
~Go to extremes~
This is responsible for a lot of the fun. Either make your parody Canon Sue a
done-to-death character like Rose or Mariel, or a character whom nobody ever
writes about. Make the storyline and characters so implausible it's funny. Don't
just stick to stupid, because stupidity alone isn't much fun. Go for the gold
and cross the line into weird. Type all Mary Sue's words in misspelled
twenty-first century slang - or worse, netspeak - and have nobeast know what
she's saying. Yes, I have seen serious fics in netspeak. Truly painful on the
eyes, so be careful with this one. Have a Sue that claims to be a cross between
a mouse and a badger, and all the other characters hurt themselves trying to
understand how it works. (Okay, I'll wait here while you go Windex your brains
after that. Sorry.) You get the idea.
~Have fun~
Self-explanatory. Go forth and write!
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Hope you can use that chapter for your own works. I can't wait to see a few fics inspired by this. The next chapter will be about Mary Sue's male victims. Poor creatures. Maybe Sister Alkanet can make up a Mary Sue repellent for them.
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Questions? Comments? Email me at wordsmith101NOSPAM@btopenworld.com (don't forget to delete the NOSPAM first).