For those of you not familiar with the term let me try to explain. A Mary Sue is a character that stands in as proxy for the author. Obvious proxy. And perfect. Idealized. The term started in the fan fiction universe, specifically the Star Trek fanfic. Mary Sue was the main character in a story written to show just how obvious and annoying these perfect proxies were. The brilliant science engineer who spoke 12 languages and made everyone on the ship fall in love with her before saving the entire ship in some sort of miracle maneuver. Those sorts of things. But as things in the real world tend to do it's sort of lost its meaning and now is just a quick and derisive way to "critique" someone's work. "Oh such a Mary Sue."
And it drives me nuts.
Because almost every writer I know has a touch of Mary Sue in their work.
It's why we write.
When I was younger when I read a book if I really liked the story I "wrote" myself in to it later. I didn't just read a book once, you see, I read it over and over and over again if it was a favorite. And then I would think about the characters and their stories and then I would make new stories in my head with me in them. And I was always awesome and wonderful and smart and the main character would fall in love with me and...total Mary Sue. Because it was my escape. Why would I make up a story in my head where I was awkward and a little skittish and really angry? I had that in real life. For the most part I didn't write these stories down, they were just part of the fantasy life in my head. But they were still my stories.
I was also the kid on the playground who during a game was always saying, "now you say this..." I might be a story teller at heart but I always wanted to direct...
Anyway, back to the point. Writing a Mary Sue story is natural. Like I said, I think it's how most people start writing. They make up stories where they are the hero. Watch kids at play, they are the princess, the fireman, the Mom or the Dad. They are the hero. Total Mary Sues the lot of them...
The other thing I've found that is natural is that though we all tend to Mary Sue ourselves in our made up stories when we are reading or watching other stories we identify with the outsider. The one who is different from everyone else. During one of those "post the celebrity you look like" things on Facebook I posted a picture of Ally Sheedy from The Breakfast Club. When I was younger I got that I looked like her a lot. But when I posted it a friend of mine from high school commented that she was just like that in high school. Sheedy's character. The odd ball artistic one. I actually laughed because that is not at all how I remembered this person. She was one of the popular kids, in student government (that was a thing popular kids did in my high school, I know it's not the same every where else), active in clubs, she was a prep in my mind. Not at all an outsider eccentric. But that's how she viewed herself. (to be clear I posted it because I looked like her, I always viewed myself as a blending of Judd Nelson's and Anthony Michael Hall's characters I was the angry dweeb).
If you are on Facebook for any length of time you will see this over and over. People post things about how unique they are. Now generally the things they post are those pre-made little mini-posters and they don't seem to get the humor in that but... anyway...everyone thinks they are a snowflake. Precious and unique and maybe a little edgy. Everyone wants to be the hero when given the free reign choice. And most of us fall someplace in the middle.
We find people who are so much like us that we have to abandon the snowflake theory. We meet people who really are Mary Sue and just sit with our mouths hanging open as we marvel at their accomplishments.
So where does this leave me when I'm writing a story? Is the main character really me? Just a more perfect version? Or an edgier replica? No. And yes. They are. And the supporting cast as well. They all have to be me don't they? I mean they came out of my head, I'm the one giving them their words and their situations. So they sort of have to be a part of me. And yet they aren't, and the supporting cast isn't either. There is a core of me in there, the spark that brought them to life. But then they have a life of their own. Yes, I am still writing their dialog, I am still describing their worlds, but they stop reacting how I would react and start taking on their own lives. People who don't write look at me like I'm crazy when I try to explain it, people who do write nod along.
You know when you have an important presentation to make or an important discussion to have and you sort of rehearse it? You practice what you are going to say and you try to imagine what the people in the meeting or conversation with you would say? And if you know them really well you can do a pretty good job of guessing. They aren't you, but you know them well enough to guess where they are going. It's sort of like that. But sometimes they don't. They say something else.
And that's when I know I've got a good character going. When they surprise me.
Though I do still sometimes say..."NO! You say this..."
And Mary Sue arches her perfectly shaped eyebrow at me and replies..."No, now I say this..."
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