I have known people who have met the original Mary-Sue (I think Dr. Mauser may have met her as well). She was a real person from the PNW, who actually made it into (she was mentioned) one of the 'making of Star Trek' books out there (which was where I first heard of her in the 70's). They talked about the script (fan-fic) she'd written and submitted and the lengths gone to, to make it look professional, and official. I'm guessing that other than the absurd character it was written well enough that it stood out enough that it got mentioned. That and I think she spent a lot of time passing out copies at conventions or some such? I've heard she'd show up in a star fleet uniform.
Prior to 'Mary-Sue' taking over the space, the prior insult was 'Heinlein Hero'. Because his heroes were all such competent people, there was no way they could possible exist!
And then I went to college raised on Heinlein stories and I very much wanted to know how to do 'everything' or as much of it as one man can. I did have the benefit of being raise by parents who were both very competent in multiple disciplines, (for all that neither one went to college). So of course I write my own heroes (and heroines) as being competent people, and either knowing, or learning, many different things.
Therefore I have been accused of writing Mary-Sues (I don't like the 'marty-stu' term, he didn't exist) many, many, times and of course putting myself in my books.
When I look at the characters I've written, it makes me laugh. Yeah, no. No Way. There may be parts of me in more than a few of them, but there's parts of other people I've met or known as well. And some of those people... are definitely not me. Wish fulfillment? Well isn't the goal to write a character to make people wish things were different, that maybe they were different? To please, to motivate, to inspire, and yes, dream?
The person who wrote the screen play that was submitted to Desi-lu, which was (as I understand it) where the whole concept came from, was prior to the writing of that story. That happened in the late 60's.
Some of what we are must, by necessity, find it into all our characters, hero or villain. This is because what is written comes from our learned experience, whether lived or witnessed.
That said, your fully realized characters grow, fail, learn, and fight on. Their innate formation is borrowed from the you who lives, but that is nowhere near the same as spewing out an inner fantasy upon the page that leads nowhere.
Why does no one mention Mary Poppins? After all, she was, "practically perfect in every way." It was a part of her schtick. She could solve any issue, straighten up the messes and the family messes and then go on her way to do it again later. She didn't have a character arc. She just is and does. There is a place for that kind of person in a story. It's more of a "pulp" place I think. Where the stories aren't so much about the character developing, but how the world is changed by them, (some westerns, some detective stories, The Destroyer, etc) and what adventures they have - what will they do next? Just my thoughts.
She *says* she's practically perfect in every way, but the narration does not agree with her. For instance, she praises her good looks, but the narration makes it clear that she's pretty plain.
I suppose the hardest part about writing, inserting your thoughts into the world, is in the getting of them from your brain to your fingertips, either by pen, pencil, crayon or keyboard. A person's wonderful story has to survive that journey. And it's a journey fraught with hazards....a moment's loss of focus, synaptic fatigue, the off-putting effects that a bad Tex-Mex dinner can have on parsing, You can argue pro se all you want about your prose but if that vital process fails you...getting the story from your mind to paper or to digital 1's and 0's via your fingertips ...you'll as likely birth a turd as a masterpiece. Writing is a crap shoot. I blame arthritic fingers and poor penmanship for my failures. I think the last time a publishing house took a handwritten or typed manuscript was when they latched on to A Confederacy of Dunces. Anyway, we can take comfort in the fact that every rejection is the denial of a Pulitzer Prize. Who needs to get painted with that tar brush?
It's easy to write characters with greater overlap on the venn <friggin' autocorrupt put "vent" here> diagram to ourselves. But who wants easy when the best viewpoint character for a scene is nothing like ourselves?
Stretch, fail, and rise again. 🙂
I love Peter's SF series and never caught a whiff of Mary Sue's perfume. 😁
I have known people who have met the original Mary-Sue (I think Dr. Mauser may have met her as well). She was a real person from the PNW, who actually made it into (she was mentioned) one of the 'making of Star Trek' books out there (which was where I first heard of her in the 70's). They talked about the script (fan-fic) she'd written and submitted and the lengths gone to, to make it look professional, and official. I'm guessing that other than the absurd character it was written well enough that it stood out enough that it got mentioned. That and I think she spent a lot of time passing out copies at conventions or some such? I've heard she'd show up in a star fleet uniform.
Prior to 'Mary-Sue' taking over the space, the prior insult was 'Heinlein Hero'. Because his heroes were all such competent people, there was no way they could possible exist!
And then I went to college raised on Heinlein stories and I very much wanted to know how to do 'everything' or as much of it as one man can. I did have the benefit of being raise by parents who were both very competent in multiple disciplines, (for all that neither one went to college). So of course I write my own heroes (and heroines) as being competent people, and either knowing, or learning, many different things.
Therefore I have been accused of writing Mary-Sues (I don't like the 'marty-stu' term, he didn't exist) many, many, times and of course putting myself in my books.
When I look at the characters I've written, it makes me laugh. Yeah, no. No Way. There may be parts of me in more than a few of them, but there's parts of other people I've met or known as well. And some of those people... are definitely not me. Wish fulfillment? Well isn't the goal to write a character to make people wish things were different, that maybe they were different? To please, to motivate, to inspire, and yes, dream?
The original one named Mary-Sue was a parody by a writer who had read one too many StarTrek fanfics.
No, it wasn't a parody. It was serious.
Paula Smith's "A Trekkie's Tale" was definitely a parody.
The person who wrote the screen play that was submitted to Desi-lu, which was (as I understand it) where the whole concept came from, was prior to the writing of that story. That happened in the late 60's.
The concept is much older. Read George Eliot's *Silly Novels By Lady Novelists*.
The term comes from the story because that was one that people read.
Now that's sad that those reviewers never escape the bubble of mediocrity and can't perceive of someone possessing superior competence.
I've been blessed to meet competent, disciplined people whom I try to bring into my stories. 🙂
"Character driven" is not Mary Sue.
Some of what we are must, by necessity, find it into all our characters, hero or villain. This is because what is written comes from our learned experience, whether lived or witnessed.
That said, your fully realized characters grow, fail, learn, and fight on. Their innate formation is borrowed from the you who lives, but that is nowhere near the same as spewing out an inner fantasy upon the page that leads nowhere.
Why does no one mention Mary Poppins? After all, she was, "practically perfect in every way." It was a part of her schtick. She could solve any issue, straighten up the messes and the family messes and then go on her way to do it again later. She didn't have a character arc. She just is and does. There is a place for that kind of person in a story. It's more of a "pulp" place I think. Where the stories aren't so much about the character developing, but how the world is changed by them, (some westerns, some detective stories, The Destroyer, etc) and what adventures they have - what will they do next? Just my thoughts.
She *says* she's practically perfect in every way, but the narration does not agree with her. For instance, she praises her good looks, but the narration makes it clear that she's pretty plain.
I suppose the hardest part about writing, inserting your thoughts into the world, is in the getting of them from your brain to your fingertips, either by pen, pencil, crayon or keyboard. A person's wonderful story has to survive that journey. And it's a journey fraught with hazards....a moment's loss of focus, synaptic fatigue, the off-putting effects that a bad Tex-Mex dinner can have on parsing, You can argue pro se all you want about your prose but if that vital process fails you...getting the story from your mind to paper or to digital 1's and 0's via your fingertips ...you'll as likely birth a turd as a masterpiece. Writing is a crap shoot. I blame arthritic fingers and poor penmanship for my failures. I think the last time a publishing house took a handwritten or typed manuscript was when they latched on to A Confederacy of Dunces. Anyway, we can take comfort in the fact that every rejection is the denial of a Pulitzer Prize. Who needs to get painted with that tar brush?
It's easy to write characters with greater overlap on the venn <friggin' autocorrupt put "vent" here> diagram to ourselves. But who wants easy when the best viewpoint character for a scene is nothing like ourselves?
Stretch, fail, and rise again. 🙂
I love Peter's SF series and never caught a whiff of Mary Sue's perfume. 😁
Then there's Clive Cussler, who combined the Self-Insertion with deus ex machina in his later books.
And John Norman's 38 Gor books.