"'You know, when you stop and think about it… Cthulhu is a bit a Mary Sue isn’t he?'"
second definition of Mary Sue
I found that quote on Errant Story, one of my favourite webcomics. I laughed so damn hard I hurt. I'm still hurting. Oh, the pain!
I know a lot of fan-fic writers, and found this "Mary Sue Litmus Test", as well as this similar one, to be amusingly useful, and probably a good wakeup call. . . Because I know a lot of my favourite characters from various fantasy novels would score high on this thing.
But really, the idea that authors need to take a good, hard look at their characters and think about the character a lot more would make a lot of writing a hell of a lot more interesting.
On a personal note, I realized that there are some places, some things where I simply need to start over. I'm not quite sure how to do that quite yet, but I'd like to try that. I was just thinking that it might be a good bet to simply start at the beginning with everybody, and everything.
There's so much I love in this life, and I need it to be shiny and new again.