Magpie Mary Sue

[sistermagpie]

Happy birthday ljash!!!

I've been meaning to update for several days and just keep....what? Oh, getting distracted. I've been writing a lot elsewhere, though, and this weekend it really made me wonder about something.



Warning: this whole discussion could demonstrate a total lack of self-awareness on my part, but here we go.

I've been writing this thing, and there's this one secondary character I know is the one that's "me" for what that's worth. Not completely, obviously, but he's just the character who would be me. So I've been thinking about all the characters and trying to, like, get to know them by asking them questions interview style (which sounds unbearably poseur-ish when I write it down). So it was cool because when I got to this character I saw things about other characters that I didn't know based on how he saw them. Suddenly I was like, "Hey, J is a lot like my friend J and P is a little like S...” But the main thing was, this would be my Mary Sue, if you define Mary Sue as just by author insertion. And Mary Sues are so often characterized by having super powers and everyone loves them and they have a tragic past and they are absolutely beautiful. So often when somebody is identifying with that character, they become right. They take over the story.

Okay, so I'm not 14 and being in the fandom I naturally know not to give my Mary Sue/Gary Stu eyes like sapphires, raven black hair with violet highlights, porcelain skin and sculpted muscles that making him the sexiest ten-year-old on the playground. But still, when I was asking this character questions it was more embarrassing than anything. Going in I'd assumed that being me he'd be the most reasonable character, and he does seem that way. But the poor kid just seems to have been saddled with all of my issues. And it made me think aback on another character, the first thing I gave to my agent, and I didn't even really think of her as a Mary Sue, but she was obviously the "me" character in that piece and being perfect was not her problem. Her problem was she seemed to have these really annoying faults--at least to the agent. It was kind of funny, actually. The agent was just like, "What's wrong with her? Why does she keep doing this?" and I thought what she was doing was being this very reasonable human being. That was a little humiliating. So there we go...I think I'm making her right and she seems wrong.

Do people go one way or the other? Because really when I think of the few characters I've written where I would say they were more "me" than another character they seemed to have a real problem in becoming non-entities--that was the problem with that problem too, in a way. She kept seeing everybody else's pov. This character has a totally different set of issues, and I don't know how apparent they will be, since he's not a main character. It's just struck me that perhaps I just have a personality that produces a very different Mary Sue than the one commonly seen. Originally there was this girl character that I thought was more like me, and then I realized she needed to be the complete opposite. It's kind of sad, really. Woe to the character that is my Mary Sue!

Comments

[ackonrad.livejournal.com]

I wrote my first story about twelve years ago, and the main characters were a Mary Sue and a Gary Stu. It was a horrible story, and the only good thing about it was that I made these both characters die.

Anyway, I wouldn't say I identified myself with them when I wrote them - it was more that I was trying to described how I wanted to be at that time. I've always hated my own name, so I gave her a 'beautiful' name - I hated my dark hair, so I made her hair blond, I didn't have a pretty dress, so I called the fic 'The Pink Dress', the boy I liked at that time ignored me, so I made Gary Stu fall in love with her. She was everything I wasn't, and she had everything I didn't. In a way, I was trying to transmit my fantasy on her and her prince.

Why did I make her die in the end? It's not because I hate happy endings; in fact, you may have noticed I like them quite a lot. I made her die because, thanks God, although I've always tried to escape the reality, I've always been aware of the fact that reality and fantasy are two different things. I made her die because I knew, subconsciously, that she wasn't real and never will be, and that no matter what I do, I'll never be quite as she was.

So no, my Mary Sue wasn't based on me - she was totally the opposite. But yes, I compared her to me and it was my own personality and wishes that made me create her. Does this make any sense? *stares*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, that makes perfect sense--and really, I think the character who is "not me" can be just as much "me" as the one who is, you know? Because who you want to be is an important part of you. You can also do a character that's the opposite of you without it being wish-fulfillment, of course, where you're just trying to see what it's like to be a very different person. But Mary Sue, I think, is more whatever the author thinks is cool to be.