Posted: 2005-09-14 05:31pm
That second test is way wacky. It's supposed to work on Original Fiction.
So I ran it by the main characters of a book I'm working on.
The events of the book are set in motion by a character who is the first good interdimensional explorer (this sort of activity would tend to lead to book-worthy events, I figure).
The thing is, just by saying 'first interdimensional explorer' you have instantly granted that character roughly 29 points, which makes it a borderline Mary-Sue right there.
(edit: recount, found more things that the first interdimensional traveller would be very likely to be. I didn't even assume that being the FIDT would... ahem... help with mate selection! If we throw that in, it gets far far worse (uncalculated). And if he's a noble who only was able to do all this in the first place because of his enormous unearned wealth, we get 6 more points. And if he discovers parallel dimensions with other copies of himself, there come in 7 more points! I didn't count these because they aren't strictly necessary for the FIDT, and in particular didn't apply to the character I was doing the test on. However, had they been the case for a similar book, I would not consider it ANY more Mary-Sue)
So I ran it by the main characters of a book I'm working on.
The events of the book are set in motion by a character who is the first good interdimensional explorer (this sort of activity would tend to lead to book-worthy events, I figure).
The thing is, just by saying 'first interdimensional explorer' you have instantly granted that character roughly 29 points, which makes it a borderline Mary-Sue right there.
(edit: recount, found more things that the first interdimensional traveller would be very likely to be. I didn't even assume that being the FIDT would... ahem... help with mate selection! If we throw that in, it gets far far worse (uncalculated). And if he's a noble who only was able to do all this in the first place because of his enormous unearned wealth, we get 6 more points. And if he discovers parallel dimensions with other copies of himself, there come in 7 more points! I didn't count these because they aren't strictly necessary for the FIDT, and in particular didn't apply to the character I was doing the test on. However, had they been the case for a similar book, I would not consider it ANY more Mary-Sue)