Over-Candied Characters

At first glance, it might be alluring to create a character who has it all: good looks, mad skills, everyone’s love. At second glance, such characters are not very good. They’re what Mythcreants calls ‘over-candied.’ Now, I’m not going to go into the candy-spinach analogy right here, let’s just say you can’t have the good without the bad. Your character needs flaws. How candied is too candied, though?

First of all, over-candied characters are often referred to as a ‘Mary Sue,’ based on a parody of Star Trek fan fiction created a long time ago where a seriously over-candied character was called Mary Sue. Unfortunately, the female moniker leads to the problem that quite often female characters get tagged with it while male characters get away with the same or an even higher level of being over-candied.
Candy and spinach, on the other hand, are gender-neutral terms which is why I prefer using them. Chances are they will be used a little less gender-biased as well. Of course, it’s much easier for a female character to be called over-candied, too, because the idea of what a female character can be like is much more narrow than it is for male ones. It’s even easy to prove — give certain fans a gender-switched description of Batman or James Bond, and they’ll be screaming “Mary Sue!” from the top of their lungs whereas they’d never apply the same expression (or the male versions ‘Marty Stu’ or ‘Gary Stu’) to the originals. Make no mistake — both Batman and James Bond are seriously over-candied and clearly wish-fulfilment characters. They’re just getting away with it.

So, let’s look into what an over-candied character really is and what makes them a problem. An over-candied character is one who has so many skills and other positive aspects to them that they simply can’t lose. With this character on the pages, the people they’re with must win, there’s no other way that can end. With that, though, such a story has no tension. Tension comes from the possibility of failure. It must be possible for the main character or characters to lose.
An over-candied or over-powered character will not lose. They can do everything, they are beloved by everyone, and they simply will never be wrong. While that makes for a cool wish-fulfilment character, it’s not the kind of character who can and should carry a story.

In order to work as a main character of a story, a character must have both candy, some positive aspects, and spinach, some negative aspects. As a matter of fact, many stories follow two different plot arcs — an external plot that drives the story and an internal one in which the character has some character development and overcomes a flaw. To overcome a flaw, a character needs one, though. It must always be a real flaw, too, not just be presented as one. It must hinder the character in some way.
Some authors come up with ‘fake’ spinach for their characters, telling people that they are badly off (but they have rich friends who usually help out) or that they are horribly bad at public speaking (but they never have to speak in public, anyway) or that they are bad fighters (in a story about political intrigue where the last thing anyone will do is pick up a physical weapon). Spinach must matter in the story. If a character is supposed to speak in public, but is too shy, it is spinach. If a character has to go to war and they’re horrid with weapons, it is spinach. The flaw matters.
An over-candied character has no real flaws if they don’t matter. A balanced character has both candy and spinach. They’re not necessarily in a horrid place (although a dark setting might put them in a seriously dark situation at the beginning), but they’re also not just sailing through life without being touched by it. Like this, they can help create the tension for the story — and they can have their internal plot arc.

Both male and female characters need their balance of candy and spinach. It’s easier to get away with an over-candied male character because the acceptance of overly competent and overly powerful male characters is much higher. Yet, an over-candied male character will destroy the tension of a story just as much as an over-candied female one. There is no real difference here.
Make a female character competent where they need to be. Give them skills they can rely on. Then give them a flaw or two that will hinder them. Are they from a social background that puts them at a disadvantage? Do they have anger-management or shyness issues? Whatever you pick, it must be connected to the story you’re telling.
This will allow you to balance the tension. The character is competent at this, but they might have to rely on that and they’re bad at it. That makes the audience wonder whether it works out in some way. Perhaps they can turn things around by finding a way to use their skill here. Perhaps they can overcome their flaw and make it work that way. There’s options and with options comes tension. If a character is just overall bad at things, everyone will assume they’ll fail. If a character is just overall good at all they do, everyone will assume they’ll succeed.

On the whole, do what you can to keep characters from being over-candied. If a character can’t fail, then there is no tension. If there is no tension, there’s no true conflict. Without a conflict, you don’t have a functioning story. Make sure your character has flaws and make them real flaws that matter. Making them consider themselves ugly while they’re described as attractive is not a flaw. Failing at something that is not relevant in the story is not a flaw — not within the story that is. If it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t count. Avoid over-candied characters — and avoid the ‘Mary Sue’ label when you can. It’s neither helpful nor is it used correctly by many people.