How to Write Overpowered Characters Without Creating a Mary Sue or Gary Stu
I’m going to level with you. I love OP, or overpowered, characters. It’s one of my favourite tropes in fiction, especially if they didn’t become overpowered by way of magic or super powers. Give me the sword masters, the bullseye archers, the Sherlock Holms investigators with hyper intelligence and I will eat that shit up all day!
So then, what makes these kinds of characters more engaging than the over-the-top all powerful god characters that some writers, especially novice writers, fall into creating?
Well, there are actually a couple of things actually, and that’s what this article is going to go into.
The Bad of OP Characters
Unfortunately, sometimes when a writer tries to write their OP character, it becomes more of a Mary Sue or Gary Stu.
What do I mean by that?
When a character becomes good at everything with no weaknesses or flaws, they become predictable, bland, and boring. In researching this article, I looked up the origin of the term “Mary Sue” and found the history was actually quite fascinating.
Or maybe it just was for me since I love etymology.
Apparently the term was first used in 1973 in a Star Trek satirical fanfiction, written by the editor of a Star Trek fanzine who saw the trend of teenaged girls as the protagonist who were the youngest in their incredibly high rank, irresistibly attractive, and talented and capable in every adventure she and the crew embarked upon. These protagonists were often idealised self-inserts of the author and were particularly cringe-worthy. Mary Sue was the name of the protagonist in this satirical fanfiction.
Now, I have some empathy for those starry-eyed teenage geeks who just wanted to share their love of a sci-fi show, especially when such spheres could be hostile to girls attempting to “encroach” upon them. After all, I look at some of my own writing when I was that age and want to burn the lot of it.
Nonetheless, the name Mary Sue stuck, and began to be used to describe characters who fit that description.
Then the gender studies chimed in, saying that Mary Sue was inherently sexist, that female characters were held to a higher standard than male characters, et cetera.
[block quote]
Q: What do you call a male Mary Sue?
A: A protagonist.
[/blockquote]
I’m not going to get into that in this article, but suffice to say that the term Gary Stu (or Larry or Marty) came about in response to this to give male characters who are over-the-top perfect a name as well.
For the sake of conciseness, I will just use the term “Mary Sue”, but know that when I do, I’m not referring to only female characters. All characters, be they male, female, or anything in between or completely other, can fall into this trap.
If you want to write a highly competent protagonist, it can be tempting to make them efficient in everything they do. Some typical Mary Sue traits are:
Flawless, or near enough. Being perfect at everything and only having one or two character flaws is particularly boring. As readers, we like our characters to have many flaws, not always in a debilitating way, but they should not even come close to approaching perfection.
Exceptionally skilled or naturally talented in multiple areas. How many skills would you say you’re an expert in? And how many of those come naturally with no practice or training involved? If you’re lucky, you might answer one. Most people, even if they are an expert in something, it’s because they worked hard to become an expert. They trained extensively, they studied it, they focused their time and attention on it. Characters who just happen to be skilled at whatever they turn their hand to are unrealistic.
Always attractive and physically fit, without any effort on their part. Okay, so maybe they won the genetic lottery. Maybe they are naturally attractive (nevermind that ‘attractive’ means different things to different people, so no one is attractive to everyone). But, especially for men, they should not be naturally muscled. Strength and physique takes constant training and maintenance, careful diet, and regular workouts. A business CEO, for example, isn’t going to be ripped unless he spends several hours at the gym every week. Even then, those gorgeous muscles you see on TV? The actors have pumped iron right before the shoot to make them show that way. Otherwise, the men look quite normal. Maybe not flabby, but definitely not ripped. The same goes for women and their ‘perfect skin’, for example. Has your female character ever been outside in the sun? Chances are they’ve been sunburnt at least once in their life, so their skin is no longer “alabaster”.
Incorruptible; a strong moral compass that never wavers. Even good people have their breaking point. There is the saying that everyone has a price, and this should be true for your characters. That price doesn’t need to be financial, but there should be something that will make them go back on what they believe. I like to think that I’m a fairly upright and good person, law-abiding and generally want the best for others. But I tell you what, you hurt any one of my animals and I will end you, with no regrets. I don’t care if you have a family, if you’re a philanthropist, if you’re the leader of the known world, if you harm an animal you are dead to me and I will revel in your suffering. Your characters should be the same. Having them question what they should do shows them to be human.
Rare lineage or special destiny. This kind of plays in to the Chosen One trope and can be hit or miss. If you’re interested in tropes that work and those that don’t, check out my last article Stop Avoiding Tropes: How to Use Them to Write Better Stories. The cliffs notes version, however, is that having a character be special because of something out of their control, something they didn’t earn, makes that character unrelatable. And unrelatable characters are dull.
The Good of OP Characters
After all that, I don’t want you thinking you can never write a Mary Sue character. There are some very popular stories that use them, often as a parody. A favourite of mine is Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. I’ll link it below if you haven’t seen it; it’s only 42 minutes and well worth the watch.
Both Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion) and Penny (Felicia Day) are Mary Sues. However, not only is this a deliberate parody (Captain Hammer is the typical, over-the-top super hero and Penny is the idealised girl prize), it’s also told from the point of view of Dr Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) and from where he’s standing, both Captain Hammer and Penny are perfect in their own ways.
But say you want to write an OP character without it becoming a satire or a parody. Of course, that’s still possible, you just need to be a bit more careful in how you handle it.
One of the easiest ways to do this is to limit the things that your character is good at. Instead of having your character be an expert in the sword and the bow and in tactics and in wooing the opposite sex (or same sex, who am I to judge), have them good at just one of those things. They don’t necessarily need to be bad at everything else, but because they’re good at that one thing, they will usually try to use it to overcome their obstacles.
For example, you have a swordmaster character. And they have to… I don’t know, rescue a damsel from a tower. Yeah, yeah, I know, how typical. There are many ways a character could approach this challenge. They can use stealth and sneak into the tower under the cover of night. They can cast a spell to fly up to the top of the tower. They can use their charisma and gift of the gab to talk their way in through the front door. But our character is a swordmaster so they will be drawn to any way that has them use their sword. Maybe they opt to fight a duel, with the damsel as the prize? Or perhaps they just charge in, swinging their sword and slaughter everyone. While this may succeed, it will have consequences, and exploring those consequences is what makes the whole thing interesting.
Another way to have an interesting OP character is by giving them some kind of almost crippling flaw to counter what they are very good at. A fun, common one is they are socially inept. Think along the lines of House. He is a brilliant doctor, able to think outside the box and diagnose and treat anything (we’ll ignore some of the not quite PC stuff in the show). He’s a cynical old guy who is addicted to pain medication and, let’s face it, a bit of a dick. But if you have a medical problem that no one else can diagnose, he’s your best bet at a cure.
Your OP character should also have an equally OP antagonist to go up against. One well-known example of this is the manga and anime Death Note. Light is, in many ways, a Mary Sue character. He is young, conventionally attractive (according to the standards of Japanese animation anyway), and is brilliantly intelligent. To counter this, a foil is created when the character L is introduced, an equally intelligent person who is actively working against Light. This battle of wills is engaging and the tension is kept high because, despite Light’s hyper-competence, it remains possible that he could lose against the equally matched L.
One final way to improve the relatability of your OP character is to show them working at the skill they are expert in. It doesn’t have to be a training montage (though you can if you like, I quite enjoy a good training montage), but it should show them practicing their skills, honing and improving them throughout the course of the book. It can be an interesting character developing moment, with them able to do something at the end of the book that they couldn’t at the start, just because they have focused and practiced and worked at it.
If you would like to study OP characters more in fiction, there is a book series I recommend and have been enjoying called the King’s Dark Tidings by Kel Kade. It definitely falls into the power fantasy trope and is far from perfect. The protagonist, Rezkin, claims to be a master at “all the skills”, a claim he backs up with action. In the first book, Rezkin is definitely a Mary Sue. He is good at everything and the girls all want him. Kade tries to counter this with Rezkin having very poor social skills from being raised in isolation, and his skills were obtained through relentless non-stop training. In the end, his poor social skills actually prevent him from getting what he wants and for all his skills, he cannot use them to obtain this goal. However, none of this really negates the feeling that the protagonist is unrealistically powerful. This makes the book a good instruction on what not to do when writing an OP character.
To Kel Kade’s credit, he takes this criticism and turns it around in subsequent books. Some explanations Kade came up to explain this included magic being performed upon Rezkin without his knowledge and that he has a photographic memory which he didn’t realise was unusual. He also includes a special lineage, but, rather than using that to Rezkin’s gain, he dismisses it and does everything he can to avoid calling upon it. Kade also introduces new significantly powerful enemies, enemies Rezkin currently cannot defeat despite all his skills.
In looking at this series objectively, I could see the progression of the author’s skills. It started out as a typical unrefined story from a debut author, but they then took what were fair criticisms on board and came up with ways to adjust and change things, without upsetting the currently established narrative, in a way that makes Rezkin an interesting character instead of just a male power fantasy.
Final Thoughts
Overpowered characters can be a fun addition to your story that requires careful balance and nuanced storytelling to get right. The key is to humanise them through carefully crafted flaws, limitations, and have them progress and change over the course of the story.
Remember, the most memorable characters aren’t defined by their perfection, but by the struggles they go through and the growth they achieve. When they are a complex, evolving individual with depth, vulnerabilities, and a compelling character arc, overpowered characters are fascinating and enticing. And, quite frankly, a lot of fun.
Who are your favourite OP characters? Let me know in the comments and let’s start a discussion!
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References
Andruid. (June 23, 2023). The Gary Sue character type explained. Writing Games. Retrieved March 25, 2025 https://writing-games.com/gary-sue-character-type-explained/
Dictionary.com. (n.d.). Mary Sue. Retrieved March 25, 2025 https://www.dictionary.com/e/fictional-characters/mary-sue/
Harlow, E. (April 25, 2024). What makes powerful characters a turn-off in fiction? The Writing Cooperative. Retrieved March 25, 2025 https://writingcooperative.com/what-makes-powerful-characters-a-turn-off-in-fiction-149ef5686da5
Kade, K. (2015-present). King’s Dark Tidings [book series]. Dark Rover Publishing.
Max. (September 28, 2015). Being a better writer: underpowered and overpowered characters. Unusual Things. Retrieved March 25, 2025 https://maxonwriting.com/2015/09/28/being-a-better-writer-underpowered-and-overpowered-characters/
Next Chapters. (2025). Clever, not invincible: keeping your characters from being overpowered . Retrieved March 25, 2025 https://nextchapters.com/creative-writing/clever-not-invincible-keeping-your-characters-from-being-overpowered/