posted
How do you avoid inserting yourself into a story about things you understand well enough to write about? It is to be avoided isn't it?
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posted
This is a sublime topic with significant complexity, if I take the intent meaning accurately. The principle as I know the term and as is generally used by writers, fan fiction writers and followers in particular: Mary Sue. Mary Sue is more formally known as "author" surrogacy ("Author Surrogate"Wikipedia), less formally and more encompassing as writer surrogacy. I don't know of "Mary Jane (autobiography)."
For ease of comprehension, the term "writer surrogacy" simplifies the label and expresses the general concept; that is, a writer's surrogate participates in a narrative's action.
Generally considered outside of fan fiction culture a writing vice, writer surrogacy inserts a surrogate persona into another writer's milieu, the Harry Potter saga franchise, for example.
Reasons why surrogacy is considered a vice are manifold, mostly due to a does-no-wrong, easy complication satisfaction, goddess-like beauty and power and strength, virtuous, self-idealized, self-efficacious, self-involved agonist persona. In short, she is perfect in every way and an impossibly perfect human being.
Is Mary Sue to be avoided in writing? Yes and no. Younger, less sophisticated readers tolerate or appreciate a degree of writer surrogacy more than older, more sophisticated readers. Successful middle grade category narratives, in fact, rely upon a degree of writer surrogacy, so long as a mite of moral crisis struggle is part of the action and poetic justice's nobleness rewarded and harmful selfishness punished outcomes are emphasized. Middle grade narratives are polar opposites of "good" and "evil" in contention, if not confliction or confrontation or conflagration. Therefore, no, Mary Sue is not to be completely avoided.
Also, an ironic parody of Mary Sue may appeal to sophisticated readers. Here's one that misses that mark, approves of Mary Sue without quite making a social commentary. If the writer had "flip-flopped" Mary Sue as "damned by faint praise" or praised by faint damnation or otherwise somehow ironically, the narrative would appeal to a range of audiences. The Autobiography of a Mary SueFanFiction.net by JolieFille.
Yes, though, otherwise avoid Mary Sues. Formal composition, for example, deprecates personal involvement, objectivity being the underlaid persuasion appeal of greatest significance. This is ethos: personal credibility appeals requires objectivity. Subjectivity is open to challenge, question, and interpretation, may be false or selfishly motivated. Logos, appeals to logic, is also a core criteria for formal composition. Least of the three, pathos, appeals to emotion, is no less critical, though at the back of the pecking order for formal composition.
Self-involvement is a core first principle of writer surrogacy. Prose, though, by variant methods must be personally emotionally appealing, pathos more than logos or ethos. A degree of self-involvement is essential for prose composition for the sake of pathos.
That self-involvement in prose involves a number of methods. Traditional prose composition entailed a narrator as writer surrogate. A shift in the Romanticism era extended writer surrogate to an implied writer. The Realism era shifted writer surrogacy to a protagonist. Modernism shifted writer surrogacy to all contending agonists. Postmodernism questioned and challenged notions writer surrogacy should or shouldn't be vested in one or many or all or no dramatis personae: real writer, implied writer, narrator or narrators, protagonist, one or more other agonists, or all personae.
Recent writing consensus enclaves have fostered a "rule" writer surrogacy is fatal. Opposing factions support writer surrogacy. A dissent reconciliation method might use writer surrogacy to artful effect. Like nature abhors a vacuum, human society abhors mortal perfection. A Mary Sue, or Marty Stu, protagonist might believe her or himself perfect, naturally and probably, because, really, don't we all believe we are close enough to perfection and everyone else fallen in some wicked or unsettling way?
Jane Austin's Emma (Project Gutenberg) portrays such a Mary Sue. The dramatic action of substance for the novel is Emma discovers her vices, pride most of all. Ironically, Emma treats others kindly, compassionately, though from a lofty sense of self-importance and propriety based on her wants and beliefs. She's a proud and perfect woman who realizes the errors of her vices through the tragedy of her interference influences. Sublime.
Self-involvement need not be a Mary Sue. So long as self-involvement is a matter of substance for a narrative's dramatic action, especially making personal meaning out of a personal moral crisis. Transformation of vice to virtue, or virtue to vice is the action of such a narrative. Simpler, perhaps less artful, probably less appealing Mary Sue narratives pose epic perfect heroines or heroes contending against mighty and absolute evil incarnate. Like Harry Potter and Voldemort.
Does Potter confront any personal moral crises? Maybe his pride when contending with evil personifications. Does Voldemort have a noble iota in his personality makeup? No.
The W questions, who, when, where, what, why, and how, provide guidance on if and how much writer surrogacy to deploy. If why, mostly if self-involvement matters to the complication of substance is a best-practice consideration of writer surrogacy.
The one most-to-be-avoided area of self-involved writer surrogacy is wishy-washy ambiguity, self-involvement that makes no statement. One narrative may be too self-involved, mediate the action as a third party but not affected by the action and thus ambiguous from self-involvement. Another may be not self-involved enough and thus dispassionate. Ambivalence is essential: competing, contrasting emotional attitude extremes in a passionate contest. Personal moral crisis struggles fit that ambivalence criteria.
Therefore, no, self-involved writer surrogate Mary Sues or Marty Stews are not to be avoided, only their vanity mischiefs artfully managed. Vanity, there's the rub, a vice of pride opposed diametrically by humility. Note my ambivalence, not ambiguity, about the topic. Artless Mary Sues don't work for me. Artful ones do.
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There's nothing wrong with straightforward autobiography, as long as it's clear that's what you're writing.
There's also nothing wrong with autobiographical fiction, as long as you are willing to let things that may have actually happened one way be tweaked to serve the needs of true story.
But autobiography and autobiographical fiction are not the same as Mary Sue stories, as extrinsic has explained.
Just as pure and perfect good guys of any kind are boring, writing yourself into a story as such a pure and perfect character is also boring. And boring the reader has been called the ultimate writerly sin.
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posted
I've blogged about the dreaded Mary Sue. My theory is that it is more about how the plot and other characters treat the main character than anything else.
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Perhaps we could discuss how Rowling or Meyer might have anticipated and defused a fraction of readers feeling Potter or Bella are Mary Sues, rather than whether or not they are Mary Sues.
J.D. Salinger's, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, may offer insight, comparison, and contrast, one of a few if not only young adult novels which has not been judged a Mary Sue in any way. The novel, though, has been often misapprehended.
Of note is Caulfield's emotional maturation comes at a difficult personal cost. Personal costs are difficult and noble compromises and sacrifices for a common good contrary to personal want satisfaction and gratification. No mere generic loss of innocence, coming of age initiation tale with appropriate and suitable to the age generic compensations and costs, Caulfield's vanity personally costs him dearly and immediately personally. He realizes his coming of age empowerment privileges and rights come at the price of difficult responsibility and duty to others, especially, specifically to his younger sister Phoebe. Sublime.
posted
Mary Sues are usually constructs so the author can live vicariously through the love interest (or be with the love interest), not just use their own experiences for a story. You can create a character that is a sort of avatar, without it being a Mary Sue.
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Aren't all my characters extensions of myself, my experiences, and my values? Of course, I can write a character that is the antithesis of what I hold to be true, the antagonist, but even they will still retain a part of myself--the more terrible angles of my soul.
quote:Originally posted by Grumpy old guy: Aren't all my characters extensions of myself, my experiences, and my values? Of course, I can write a character that is the antithesis of what I hold to be true, the antagonist, but even they will still retain a part of myself--the more terrible angles of my soul.
Phil.
I'm not sure that including something of oneself makes for bad fiction, provided one is an interesting engaging person with whom the readers will want to sympathise Yes, it's frowned upon - but is it one of those "rules" that writers observe without question? I like to imagine there's a lot of Ian Fleming in the 007 books, and much of John Le Carre in his spy novels, and for me these authors' books are so much the better for it. I'm sure there was a lot of Heinlein in his SF. The robot stories of the last few decades would not have been what they were without Asimov breathing his scientific mind into his characters and robots, and his beliefs into his three laws.
My answer to Phil's question is much like Bent Tree's: I find it's fun to write about the clever, sophisticated, lantern-jawed winner I'd like to be, faced with antagonists drawn from the depths of my dark side, spiced with inspirations from newspaper stories of man's inhumanity to man, woman, and child. The whole work, if it's not co-authored, comes from one mind, one soul, and I think there's fun and challenge in getting the balance right. For example, one interesting and illuminating challenge is to write an anti-issue story, and present the arguments of the side you don't believe in, fairly and with credibility: that's important to do right, for without that balance the story comes across as a barely-disguised lecture or polemic with a predictable ending.
I wouldn't lose sleep over it Phil. Just let your trusted readers tell you, "It's not about you, Phil!"
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I'm inclined to think that when one writes about oneself to the exclusion of others, it makes the writing less interesting. (Take a look at John Lennon's output after he hooked up with the idea that all art was about the artist.) I've often thought those who do that lack the ability to emphathize with others. Some people just see the world from the confines of their skull; they can't put themselves beyond it.
I've always preferred to gift a little of my autobiographical experience to my characters as it seems necessary, but my characters are not me and, with rare exception, never were. Often they're doing or involved in things I've never done---maybe that violates "write what you know," but if I want to make it interesting I can't make that much use of my own life.
Actually, my characters seem pretty much cut from the same cloth, as they say.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: Perhaps we could discuss how Rowling or Meyer might have anticipated and defused a fraction of readers feeling Potter or Bella are Mary Sues, rather than whether or not they are Mary Sues.
Yes, that's a good idea.
Also, some stories are worth telling, but not worth being accused of writing. It's a big issue for amateurs like me who often just fail to communicate.
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Wayne Booth discusses those considerations at length in The Rhetoric of Fiction. He notes a fraction of readers naturally associate a writer's real persona with a work regardless, a fraction are ambiguous, a fraction are open to suggestions one way or the other, and a fraction naturally assume fiction is fiction. If the writer intended to imply a self-involvement, then yes. If not, then no. One way Booth suggests to defuse perceptions of self-involvement is to assume a different social-moral value system or social more motif that cannot possibly be the writer's.
Rowling partially defuses overt self-involvement, for instance, by posing a young, male protagonist, neither of which she is. That though is a blunt mechanical default practice. Character development aesthetics are more subtle.
As to intelligent discussions about potentially inciting situations, decorum and legal principles offer guidance: decorum, suit words and subject matter to each other and to the occasion (kairos) and the audience. Use of a risky term at a crowded event where the situation is explosively incendiary risks imminent danger to life, limb, and property, a contravention of the occasion aspect. Shouting a panicked danger warning in a crowded movie theater when no danger exists is criminally liable. Even whispered speech anymore is subject to careful scrutiny in public spaces.
Fiction writers come under scrutiny for inciting expression, a recent Hatrack discussion delved deeply into that very consideration. A writer had self-published an unsettling novel. Unrelated circumstances were sensationalized by purported evidence from the novel the writer was emotionally disturbed.
The writer could have anticipated the knee-jerk negative reaction of the community to the novel. The writer could have defused those anticipatable reactions by a more artful realization of writing methods. Foremost, the writer could have used poetic justice's conventions to express commentary about antisocial behaviors. Instead, the novel is bland and lackluster in terms of emotional attitude toward the central topics and social mores the novel depicts. By default, readers generally associated the premises with the writer's state of mind: flat affect and glorification of violent antisocial acts.
Note that a flat affect is useful for such discussions as these, emotionally neutral, and slanted implication without direct reference to, for example, incendiary personalities.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
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Avoiding the Mary Jane or Mary Sue is a rubbish way to write.
Why?
Because it misses the point. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the real measurement of whether a story is any good.
What's that measurement?
How much the reader enjoys the tale.
The hero of Larry Correia's Monster Hunter International is the biggest freaking Mary Sue's Brother there is. And do you know what? It doesn't matter in the least. Audiences love his story. I seem to be using Correia a lot in my examples. Wait until next month, and I'll switch to Lee Child.
As MAP points out in his post, Bella from Twilight could be a Mary Sue, but a gajillion readers didn't give a hoot. They gave Meyer money instead, and dressed up, and had vampire balls, and then went on to write trashy erotica fan fic (50 Shades).
Who cares whether the character is the center of attention or has all sorts of wish-fulfillment qualities? If it delights the intended reader, then it works. If it doesn't, then cut it.
Rules like this are nothing but red herrings.
Posts: 327 | Registered: Jul 2002
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but I think that Mary Sues are not red herrings-for every rule there are exceptions. One being not to have the MC waking up in the opening. Tanya Huff loves to use that one and I believe it is the most successful broken rule in writing. (An aside here but for those WotF writers here Dave Farland seems to hate it more than usual for editors)
With that said there are usually good reasons for rules even as we learn to bypass them.
Posts: 5289 | Registered: Jun 2010
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Boy, that's the question. Are there really any good reasons for these rules?
A rule suggests that this is how you should do it most of the time.
A question I've found helpful is to ask is: really? Does that match up with practice?
I remember when I asked that about the said-bookisms rule. I went to some of my favorite books. And, lo, said-bookisms. Everywhere.
I remember when I asked that about not having more than one pov in a scene. Dang, but a lot of successful and enjoyable books ignored that completely.
I remember when I asked that about our writerly shibboleth show-don't-tell. And found that writers can't show. Physically, it's not how it works. And that has implications for the writing.
Mary Sue says don't do thing X. Why not? Does it really matter? If so, how do we know when it does or doesn't?
Most discussions of rules forget to consider reader effect and to test the idea against reality. I'm certainly open to seeing new things, but in my tests I can't see that Mary Sues matter in the least.
I'm suspecting the origin of this, those Star Trek stories, had more to do with a series of similar tales that didn't match up with a specific audience's tastes, or maybe even simply decreasing marginal returns as an editor or reader sees the same idea repeated, than it does with general writing.
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A set of these so-called rules are, in fact, a matter of law. Use of another writer's copyrighted material is an infringing use subject to litigation. Fan fiction is relatively harmless because few, if any, fan fiction works are conventionally published.
Like all rules, though, exceptions crop up. Some copyright holders tacitly allow fan fiction writers to use their milieus. As well, legal loopholes exist, like parody of a copyrighted work may pass legal tests.
Another set of "rules" are based upon readers and screeners weary of repeated trite and worn-out motifs used artlessly. The waking-up start, for example, is problematic because unwary writers insert their "waking up" in the waking dream state that fiction writing psyche actually is.
Though the Turkey City Lexicon focuses examples on cigarette smoking as a Dischism, waking-up starts are also Dischisms. Because many writers are unaware of their alpha-reality intrusions into their writing, many of the same Dischisms appear in their works and are then submitted and become signals to screeners and readers that the stories are artless throughout, easy rejections, unless one of these "rules" types is artfully managed immediately.
Another "rules" set involves basic craft convention expectations: plot structure for one. A degree of event, setting, and character development appeal in scene's reality imitation mode, for others, "tell's" lecture mode managed, and so on.
Another "rules" set involves grammar principles. These principles are widely perceived as a social contract that expects appealing reading ease and comprehension. They are a system for effective communication. Contraventions of grammar basics are as numerous as individuals, though, with each of us having and using our personal and private grammars no matter our education or whatever.
Yet a grammar is an evolved set of guidelines for universal communication. In some cases, our personal grammars are exotic and appeal because they communicate effectively and are artful for it. In other cases, our personal grammars are inaccessible and alienate from ineffective communication of our intents and meanings.
Another "rules" set is least understood and most used, instinctively; that is, a rhetorical style based on figurative language. Rhetorical figures, tropes, and schemes entail an exception set of grammar principles, and grammar is itself a rhetoric. This is the domain of artistic flair. Rhetoric's guiding function is, simply, persuasion, the art, the very function of communication in total. This is the "voice" feature of discourse.
Most rhetorical motifs are learned through osmosis, though, absorbed from our daily life experiences, not purposefully learned, not anymore, not since rhetoric curriculum was left out of school education in the mid twentieth century. Political agendas and dreary instruction practices caused rhetoric instruction to be abandoned.
Each "rules" set and in total expresses a fundamental "law" of artistic expression, any expression mode for that matter. Facilitate appealing reception and comprehension ease -- Law I. If not, communication is ineffective; alienation is probable or certain.
In total, these "rules" sets also entail another fundamental set of basic expression guidance. The set is how humans learn to communicate and in this order: grammar and rhetorical style, craft's content and organization, voice of discourse, and appeal to an audience. However, this is the opposite order in which readers receive expression.
"Rules" are a near infinite variety of effective guidance for expression. They are bounded by porous limitations. Not limits beyond which passage cannot go, but where passage should be closely considered for artfully persuasive effect. Otherwise, "rules" are made to be excepted for the purposes of effective communication, if not because artists are naturally subversives. In all and profoundly, expression's "rules" are a cultural contract's clauses through which social beings socialize dynamically, not boringly statically.
That's a useful breakdown of different types of rules.
Let's look at them.
Law. Law is law. It would be wise to follow those. And they are pretty universal in a given country. I don't know that we were talking about laws, but it's a valid point.
Screener rules. You mentioned waking up. Um, Hunger Games? I guess that screener was sleeping. Or maybe starting with a wake up has nothing to do with reader interest. Plenty of stories do it and do it successfully. Plenty start with weather.
Screener and publication preferences are not global rules. But if a magazine only publishes mystery and states not to send them fantasy, it would be good to follow that.
But that has nothing to do with good craft in general and delivering a satisfying experience to a reader.
Turkey city. I disagree completely. The only people who care and know about that list are writers looking for rules. And who makes that list anyway? Who are the arbiters? There are too many good stories that use items on that list for me to use that list for anything other than to spark ideas.
Grammar and communication I agree that there are a lot of these that are helpful and can facilitate communication. Pick a style guide, augment with your own house style, and be done with it. And then read Cormac McCarthy who figures common convention punctuation is for the rest of us because he wants a different effect.
basic craft convention expectations This is where I think all of the so-called "rules" need testing and double testing.
rhetoric boy, wouldn't it be great if they brought it back again?
In the end, you say that if we don't follow the rules, that writers will fail to communicate and probably alienate their readers.
But that's the crux of the matter right there. That's the test.
And we can't talk about the audience as if it's monolithic, because it isn't. YA readers are different from crusty screeners at university publications that want more stories that adhere to the latest litfic fad, who are different from thriller readers, who are different from romance readers, who are different from you name it.
Which brings me back to the questions I posed in another post.
1. Is it boring or interesting? 2. Is it clear?
That's the bottom line. That's the test. My intended audience loves this or it doesn't.
I agree there is cause and effect. There are principles. But there's too much variety in what works to accommodate many of the rules we read.
Posts: 327 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:Originally posted by johnbrown: In the end, you say that if we don't follow the rules, that writers will fail to communicate and probably alienate their readers.
I made no such assertion. I said maybe, maybe not, or, rather, self-satisfying a superficially dissonant though reconcilable cognitive dilemma is a proportion of "rules'" value and function. In the end, to each their own according to his or her own self-imposed rules and sentiments and sensibilities and tastes. This is for me a stronger appeal of expression: accessibly cognitive challenges suitable to an idealized audience of that degree of cognitive ability.
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posted
Hum, then it appears I did not understand the third paragraph from the bottom of your post, where you talk about the rule sets being fundamental law.
Posts: 327 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I suppose I failed to realize a first law's association with an accumulation of guiding principles could be assumed to assert that rules must be obeyed. As well, an assertion that rules must not be obeyed, when my assertion is they are options for consideration that add up to that first law as discretionary parts of a large potentiality set. A whole lot of daylight shines between a sunrise and a sunset time, and a lot of nighttime otherwise.
Would discussion of "rules" and how their exceptions are artfully managed be a more appealing and productive way to name, label, whatever, and share and nurture their persuasive management? Like Mary Sue. How? Ironically, I suggested above, for one. I also used an example of Jane Austin's Emma as an ironic novel in which Mary Sue is artfully managed and how Austin accomplishes that management. I named an example and summarized and explained how the example manages Mary Sue.
I could name and explicate numerous different examples how other narratives entail and manage Mary Sue. Homer's Odyssey, James Joyce's Ulysses, any Retief or Stainless Steel Rat narrative, Mickey Spillane or Dashiell Hammett, etc., or a large number of classically arranged Aristotlean comedy narratives, for a few examples. As well, I could name and explicate numerous contrast narratives that don't involve Mary Sue though no less are writer self-involved. Narratives that are bereft of overt writer self-involvement, perhaps not covertly though, now that might take a bit of recollection and persuasion to name and explicate. Shakespeare, generally!? Maybe.
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posted
I think the "rules" are common beginner mistakes that annoy editors and agents. Some readers may also be annoyed by them, but most readers probably won't even notice as long as they are entertained.
I'm sure readers of the slush pile get really sick of openings involving characters waking because they read so many of them. If you can open in a unique and interesting place, your story will stand out. Said bookisms can be annoying when used over and over again. They shouldn't be completely avoided, but try not to over use them.
I think these rules are helpful for beginning writers to think more critically about what they have written and to consider if there is a better way.
Ultimately, I agree with John Brown that the most important aspect in writing is to be clear and not be boring.
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posted
I don't think even the law matters when it's designed to support a corrupt status quo. Some of the best newspapers and satirical magazines are constantly getting "cease and desist" letters from lawyers, all one needs to do libel is enough money to mount a lawyerly defence. The other "writerly rules" are, as has often been said here, optional, and one pays as much attention to them as one believes they are worth. There's even a place for ungrammatick writing methinks.
To my mind the Turkey City Lexicon, being promulgated by SWFA is a helpful guide that was compiled by experienced SF writers I choose to respect - but like all other guidance it's not mandatory: indeed, visibly giving the rules a trouncing can be highly entertaining when it's done right. (It's one reason I enjoy satire.)
"Ultimately, I agree with John Brown that the most important aspect in writing is to be clear and not be boring" I agree also.
Posts: 1796 | Registered: Jun 2007
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I cannot in good conscience respond to the question without violating at least four of Hatrack's "if you're registered, you agreed to this" forum rules.
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I believe that means my question did not come across as intended and has offended. Or it generated a huge desire in extrinsic to promote a pyramid scheme.
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Yes, it's frowned upon - but is it one of those "rules" that writers observe without question? I like to imagine there's a lot of Ian Fleming in the 007 books, and much of John Le Carre in his spy novels, and for me these authors' books are so much the better for it. I'm sure there was a lot of Heinlein in his SF. The robot stories of the last few decades would not have been what they were without Asimov breathing his scientific mind into his characters and robots, and his beliefs into his three laws.
