Mary Sue as a Stage
Feb. 3rd, 2013 02:39 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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section7mfuBecause Glenna asked:
It always amuses me when the topic of Mary Sue comes up. Sometimes, the discussion can drip with vitriol and turn into flame wars. To me, after teaching writers in various venues for over 30 years, there's a pretty simple answer: Mary Sue (originally coined, BTW, by my good friend and publisher, Paula Smith)is a stage of development in writing. Everyone --- repeat *everyone* ---goes through it, just at different times. Years ago, before the internet, before anyone could publish anything in public and thereby embarrass themselves needlessly, this developmental stage was accomplished in relative privacy (a very good thing, BTW).
If you start writing stories in the preteen years as I did (I think I started even before that) you can write your Mary Sues to your heart's content, write characters based on yourself and your friends, and get it all out of your system. And if your parents keep you off the internet, no one need witness you taking your first baby steps into writing except your squeeing buddies, your parents and a supportive teacher or two.
If you don't start writing until later, you'll still have to go through a Mary Sue period at whatever age you start. Granted, after 25, it can be a little embarassing, but hopefully, because by now you're also mentally mature, it will pass quickly. (And don't tell me, oh experienced writer, you *never* did. You *did*, believe me, you just didn't know it or it went by pretty fast.) If you're older, your approach may be more sophisticated, but your main character will still be a sort of biographical stand-in for yourself until you work out your issues and make the shift/jump to writing *the other."
You won't stop writing about yourself --- pieces of a writer's self will be ---and should be, actually --- found in all his or her characters. But you'll learn to expand the psychic space within a character to widen beyond your own self, which allows your readers to climb in beside you as well.
So, like Piaget outlined for children's physical/mental development, writers go through stages as well. The problem is, that unlike real life children, writers can get stuck at stages. Some writers write for years and *never* move out of the Mary Sue stage. I'm not sure why. I'd chalk it up to lack of talent, motivation, self awareness, or simply a failure of imagination.
I wish folks, though, would accept the fact that Mary Sue is just a part, a phase, of every writer's development. Perhaps, we would be kinder and more understanding of each other when she appears.
It always amuses me when the topic of Mary Sue comes up. Sometimes, the discussion can drip with vitriol and turn into flame wars. To me, after teaching writers in various venues for over 30 years, there's a pretty simple answer: Mary Sue (originally coined, BTW, by my good friend and publisher, Paula Smith)is a stage of development in writing. Everyone --- repeat *everyone* ---goes through it, just at different times. Years ago, before the internet, before anyone could publish anything in public and thereby embarrass themselves needlessly, this developmental stage was accomplished in relative privacy (a very good thing, BTW).
If you start writing stories in the preteen years as I did (I think I started even before that) you can write your Mary Sues to your heart's content, write characters based on yourself and your friends, and get it all out of your system. And if your parents keep you off the internet, no one need witness you taking your first baby steps into writing except your squeeing buddies, your parents and a supportive teacher or two.
If you don't start writing until later, you'll still have to go through a Mary Sue period at whatever age you start. Granted, after 25, it can be a little embarassing, but hopefully, because by now you're also mentally mature, it will pass quickly. (And don't tell me, oh experienced writer, you *never* did. You *did*, believe me, you just didn't know it or it went by pretty fast.) If you're older, your approach may be more sophisticated, but your main character will still be a sort of biographical stand-in for yourself until you work out your issues and make the shift/jump to writing *the other."
You won't stop writing about yourself --- pieces of a writer's self will be ---and should be, actually --- found in all his or her characters. But you'll learn to expand the psychic space within a character to widen beyond your own self, which allows your readers to climb in beside you as well.
So, like Piaget outlined for children's physical/mental development, writers go through stages as well. The problem is, that unlike real life children, writers can get stuck at stages. Some writers write for years and *never* move out of the Mary Sue stage. I'm not sure why. I'd chalk it up to lack of talent, motivation, self awareness, or simply a failure of imagination.
I wish folks, though, would accept the fact that Mary Sue is just a part, a phase, of every writer's development. Perhaps, we would be kinder and more understanding of each other when she appears.
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no subject
Date: 2013-02-04 04:40 am (UTC)What has always amazed me is how popular this one is. Perhaps it was just coy enough to let others participate and enjoy the experience without fear of reprisals. Well, it's a theory.
I look forward to hearing more from you as this progresses. The task of purposefully composing a Mary Sue character may prove more challenging than we think. I can't wait to see the results.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-04 04:57 am (UTC)If she'd been a Mary Sue, Illya would have taken one look into her eyes and fallen in love. She'd have probably already had at least one handsome boy in attendance, and her friend would either have been her subservient hench person, or a rival totally without redeeming qualities. (Except to the reader, who would have found her hostility to the MS an estimable quality.)
no subject
Date: 2013-02-04 05:02 am (UTC)See, this is why I'm saying that writing a Mary Sue on purpose might be difficult. There is a lot to this in order to get it right. I'm looking forward to what people do with this challenge.
And thanks for saying nice things about the story :D