Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A How to prevent seeming like a Marty Stu-ish villain is cheating?

I'm not sure if you're asking the right question here. You say you don't want the reader to feel like your villain is cheating. I think what you should ask is how you can make the reader feel that ...

posted 6y ago by Belle-Sophie‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:32:31Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35208
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Belle-Sophie‭ · 2019-12-08T08:32:31Z (almost 5 years ago)
I'm not sure if you're asking the right question here. You say you don't want the reader to feel like your villain is cheating. I think what you should ask is how you can make the reader feel that you as a writer are not cheating.

As a reader, I don't care whether or not the antagonist is a Mary Sue / Marty Stu or not. I want the protagonist(s) and his/her/their journey to be believable and relatable. **Does the protagonist have the ability to overcome the antagonist, without becoming unbelievable?** And is it still satisfying to read? As long as you do not create a 'Deus Ex Machina' plot device, you should be fine.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-04-18T13:47:15Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 2