In Celebration of the Mary Sue

Source. Complete with jealous unicorn. 

When the ninth Star Wars movie came out, Rise of Skywalker, a particular term from writing communities online started to become ubiquitous. Horribly, it made its way around the internet's Manosphere, as particularly oafish chuds keen for low-hanging fruit reached for this easy prize. More happily, a backlash to the liberal and overused weaponised term became circulated, and we've now hit the saturation point of the wave where the term "Mary Sue" has fallen out of the limelight. 

When you hear the term "Mary Sue," which originated in Star Trek fan zines to call out a particular type of wish-fulfillment writing, you might have a variety of ideas. Some of them might be vague assocations - "isn't that a thing from that movie?" - or, if you're an Extremely Online person like myself, you might break out in compulsive shuddering and hives at the mere utterance of the phrase. 

But now that people have broken down the inherent sexism in the concept of the Mary Sue, to the extent that its creators have renounced its creation, we may have hit a point where we can just consider the Sue in isolation - and not only offer ways to accept and write around the wish-fulfillment character, but appreciate her for what she is: an often goofy fantasy that may help people process their powerlessness in real life and real trauma, offer escape from the weight of reality, or both. 

Who is Mary Sue? 

For an overview of this long-spanning trend and a glimpse of this essay's inspiration, this video is absolutely mandatory. For those who don't like Youtube, or just don't want to stop reading, the Sue is a personification of a criticism of a couple of writing problems. They're often conflated together, but they should actually be teased apart - despite how often they co-occur. A Sue is, 

Mar·y Sue

noun

noun: Mary Sue; plural noun: Mary Sues

1. (originally in fan fiction) a type of female character who is depicted as unrealistically lacking in flaws or weaknesses.

   "she was not a ‘strong woman’ so much as an insufferable Mary Sue"

Even the Oxford Dictionary's definition showcases the inherent special-case pleading and sexism applied to Sues. The original argument against Sues went thusly: 

1) Sues are badly written (inherently) because they 

2) Warp the plot, setting, and characters' actions around themselves; 

3) Have an unrealistic number of positive traits,

4) A corresponding deficit of actual negative traits (with the exception of tropey or common flaws that may or may not be actual flaws, such as "being too beloved") 

5) Get too much focus and attention in the story, 

6) Don't have to pay the price for their successes,

And 7), which often goes unspoken, "have wish fulfillment girl cooties all over them in some indefinably repulsive way." 

Now, I went through my own "anti-Sue" phase as a teenager and young adult; I used the Mary Sue Litmus to "make sure characters were balanced and well-written" as much as anyone. But now that I'm old, tired, and much more experienced as a writer, my perspective on this has changed drastically. 

And part of the reason for that is simply that I watched a show with an honest-to-god Mary Sue character, and it was great fun. 

The Chilling Adventures of Mary Sue 

Netflix's Riverdale and Sabrina have both had their moments, but despite being an avid fan of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch back in its Melissa Joan Hart era (when Disney Adventure Magazine advised copying her look by wearing an "earthy choker", a phrase that confuses me to this day) I had held off on watching either series. For one thing, the Archie comics series' lack of character development in its original form struck me as a type of perpetual purgatory worthy of The Good Place' s original demon pits. 

(As always, I'm late to the party, but Russian Doll and The Good Place are every bit as good as people have been saying they were. Give them a watch, or a rewatch, for some delectable afterlife paperwork tropes, fascinating philosophy, and heartfelt existentialism.) 

Being sick with COVID, as I mentioned in my last post, made this an ideal opportunity to catch up on some TV. I was in for quite a surprise with Sabrina. 

The magically-talented girlboss skips and bounces over third and fourth-wave feminist issues while literally and figuratively battling the patriarchy, showcasing phenomenal cosmic powers, being an absolute Chosen One to whom others are attracted or obsessed over, and is generally compassionate, friendly, serious, clever, and a great leader. She's also small, conventionally attractive, and the focus on attention for universe-bending powers. And here's the thing - she's great fun, and the show is great fun. 

Who's afraid of Mary Sue? 

Because the show takes itself just seriously enough and has just enough campy fun in the mix, it works like a Long Island Iced Tea - an easy-drinking alchemical mix of delight. Seeing the way the show worked perfectly fine, however, got me thinking about the ways in which Sabrina was a Sue - and it was perfectly fine. 

In turn, I reflected on my own D&D campaigns and writing, and considered how my players had made their own super cool wish fulfillment characters not only bearable, but actually fun to play with. Now, the rules for writing with others and writing solo are a bit different, but there is some overlap. 

Because the term is so stigmatized, it may be more comfortable for readers to hear about the negative instances first, before we ease into how Sues can be worked with and even weaponized for good in the plot. 

Bad Sues 

Of course, everyone online or who plays tabletop games has some kind of a story about that one bad player whose self-insert character absolutely destroyed the game, or a DM/GM (Dungeon or Game Master) whose NPC (Non-Player Character) was just the most obnoxious piece of crap ever to grace the wet-erase maps. These people are real, and they exist in many spaces - but the problem with them is generally not what they're creating, but how they interact with others. We tend to project that negativity from the experience onto their writing, but the real sin was just being selfish and a bad sport. 

In two different roleplay groups, I had players who wanted to portray similar roles - the stone-cold, stoic badass who takes epic kill shots and gets to be at the centre of the plot arc. One of these players was bad with consent and paying attention to fellow players, and ultimately ended up getting the boot from that group. The other player, however, remains a good friend to this day, and actually did get the kill shot on the Big Bad Evil Guy of that adventure because she a) was and is always well-mannered to other players, b) put the work in to make her badass character get better, and c) went with the fun twists that the DM threw at her, rather than resisting them or bickering. 

Fixing Mary Sue 

Let's get this one out of the way - the problem with Mary Sues is not actually their existence, but their contextual existence with others. Balance is a bit of a myth when protagonists are involved - and something that, as many other writers have noted, never becomes a concern or comes into play when male characters are protagonists - but when working with an ensemble cast, making sure that existing characters either a) get their moment or b) have a really good reason for not getting their moment, is vitally important. 

There's a wonderful Star Trek: TNG episode called "Disaster" in which Deanna Troi gets to be leader for a day, while Captain Picard is stuck in an elevator with a cadre of children. It's surprisingly heartwarming and adorable - partly because for once, Troi is taken seriously and permitted to be useful and competent. However, the way Picard is removed is absolutely excellent, and very much recommendable if one wanted ways to neutralize other main characters: a common ailment + their greatest weakness = an existing MC out of commission. 

In a roleplay game, making sure that every player character gets some kind of moment during the game, whether it be an acting or emotional beat, a cool fight move, a clever problem-solving section, or even just a great assist for another friend, is a great way to create a sense of symmetry. Symmetry is better than balance, because all too often, "balance" becomes a reason to throw a wet blanket on fun, exciting, over-the-top moments - when the real solution is not a wet blanket, but consequences. 

Does Mary Sue have every type of elemental bending power without being an Avatar? Cool; make her a fugitive, and send horrible politicians and scientists after her, trying to weaponize her strengths. Is she an orphan? Have a situation come up where her family connections backfire on her or the lack thereof creates some kind of disadvantage. This turns the sometimes overstuffed backpack of traits and tropes that Sues tend to lug around into a handy-dandy kit of tools for storytellers to use. As long as there are consequences for characters' actions or advantages, the audience will feel the illusion of balance, and a sense of symmetry will be created. 

Embrace the Sue

Ultimately, Mary Sue is the daughter of Joy and Enthusiasm, and the problem isn't her rainbow Converse or fairy wings or super duper magic powers - it's cases of bad manners. And while some might consider it unmannerly to be tacky, which the Sue often arguably is, I would counterpoint that part of writing and creative activities is inherently about fantasy. The smallness of someone's imagination should not be the boundary of other people's creations. 

Watching a bunch of one's friends get to play out the ideal versions of their best selves isn't a buzzkill - it's actually fantastic and delightful. Ultimately, that's what a Mary Sue can be and can offer: a chance to glimpse our ideal selves and our fantasies, and sometimes, to pursue that in our real lives. 

, 

Apex Published Me!

 I've currently got COVID - it doesn't look serious so far, but it's certainly annoying, and I'm homebound. However, I thought you all might enjoy having a look at this. 

My article on polyamory and OT3s

I'm hoping to get more articles out this year (I know, again) so stay tuned to this space for more writing advice, media thoughts, and the occasional bit of personal stuff. 

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her spouses and their cats. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people’s manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

Game of ZZZs: How Long Stories Ruin Everything

I've been putting this one off because I was kind of busy writing an 18-part series deep-dive involving journalism and undercover work, but since Lindsay Ellis has released her video essay conclusion, I have finally put my thoughts in order.





So, today we're going to talk about something contentious. I have no issue with books being long, or shows being long, or movies being long - but at the same time, I do. And yes, I know some people adore epic scale stories for their own sake.  Not everything needs to be a thousand-page-long ten-book series with three spinoffs and prequels. Oh, sure, market forces and advertising play a role in this, but creators still participate in it.

But sometimes a story isn't long because it needs to be, it's long because the writer thinks it HAS to be. From my personal experience as a reader and writer, and especially as an editor, I've come to some conclusions about how stories are artificially extended. And in a world of global warming and climate change, shouldn't we be fighting waste everywhere, on every level?

Now, a certain show ended its eighth season not long ago; Big Bang Theory came to a whimper of a close after ten seasons, and Veep - which I only heard about towards its grand finale, alas - has also finished up a seven-season run.

I'm not saying all of these shows participated in various errors. I'm saying pretty much every show, book, and movie series will partake in them eventually. So how do we do better than the bad ones, and how do we echo or even improve on the good ones? We can't fight what we don't know about, so let's get into it.

Spacing

Everything happens, but not right away. No, the important events are distanced from each other, to the point where there are long stretches of dead zones or deserts of nonsense in between them. I'm not talking about character interactions as nonsense here, but unfortunately, a lot of authors seem to think that they count, and that human drama isn't interesting enough to be a climax. Older fantasy works--cough, cough, Wheel of Time--can be particularly bad about this. The problem with spacing out events and using human drama between the big McGuffin/army-driven fights is that readers get frustrated by the human drama rather than finding it rewarding. Or worse, they find the army and McGuffiny-crap a distraction from the human stuff.

Padding

I know about this issue from the inside. Bad Things that Happen to Girls started off as a book called Foreverland, and then was untitled for a while before getting its current name. It went through two full rewrites before arriving at its current published form. When I wrote it at first, I thought it absolutely had to be a long novel, with lots of details about the girls' lives and a slow-burn breakdown, then an extended road trip in the middle and a bunch of scenes about their experiences in university.

I didn't realise I was padding it, but when I experimented with radically decreasing the timeline of events, I had a revelation. I didn't need years and paragraphs on paragraphs chronicling their lived experiences, full of pointless dialogue and meandering descriptions. All I had to do were give little samples and important moments, and that would get the idea across. Sometimes a flash reveals more than a long exposure shot, to put it in cinematic terms.

Cramming

EVERYTHING MUST HAPPEN AND IT MUST HAPPEN NOW AND HERE ARE TEN NEW CHARACTERS AND A NEW SUBPLOT AND HOLY CRAP WE MUST MAKE UP FOR WRAPPING UP TOO MANY THREADS AT THE END OF THE LAST SEASON OOPS.

The caps lock here was entirely necessary and appropriate, because with cramming, the story often feels like it's shouting at you. (Probably in German.)

The biggest problem with cramming, too, is that it requires glossing over things. If readers get interested by a small detail, they might end up screaming, "wait, go back!" long after the author's moved to another topic, or three other topics. Finding the balance between this and padding can be tricky, but the best solution I can offer is "external perspective." Get someone to read over your work, and when they lose attention, that's time to cut. It's a trick I often use with editing manuscripts - the minute my attention wavers, I mark it, just in case.

Crashing

this tends to happen to shows that have lived past their expiry date. Supernatural is a fine example of this. This is where "shark-jumping" tends to come into play; characters do things that go against their nature and development for the sake of jump-starting a narrative or adding some excitement.

Oh, the shark-jump. That's worth a mini-section of its own. Honestly, most shows either end or jump the shark in order to keep going. There's no such thing as a perfect writer or a perfect story; mostly because these things are subjective, but partly because keeping all the balls in the air for a story is just plain hard.

Endless escalation 

Science fiction authors are prone to this, and so are epic fantasy authors. In an effort to keep reader interest, stakes rise and rise and rise, and then lose sight of the human scale of things. The problem is that stories are made of people, and if you forget about the people, you don't have a story anymore.

As with Cramming, this can lead to glossing over interesting bits as well. The full impact of a big change or shift isn't always felt if we rush to the next big, shiny thing. In real life, though, long-reaching consequences of events can have ripples for decades or even centuries. The Magna Carta was a big deal when it was signed; the effects of the Spanish Inquisitions, the Crusades, the unification of China (which happened more than once), the Viking cultural expansions, and the colonization of North America (by which I mean the land-theft and genocide of Indigenous peoples) are all still talked about to this day.

Bad things that happen to characters need room to resonate. PTSD and trauma are not only interesting, they're natural, and even when people mostly recover from them, they leave a lasting impact. Let your characters get wrecked by something. Have characters reference things that have happened. Let characters get fatigued, collapse, and have to fix themselves. It'll not only demonstrate the actual impact of your events, it'll keep you from having to throw together another big, shiny thing to make the story more exciting (looking at you, Avengers series and mainstream comics).

So, what tends to actually cause these writing techniques behind the scenes?

Burnout or boredom

One of the most difficult and important factors - one which arguably contributed to the absolute mess that was the GoT finale - is just getting tired of your own damn story. When this happens, authors and creators will end up trying to revamp something with weird new twists partly to keep themselves interested, might engineer an awkward left turn to justify a foreshadowed plot element, or might just do a half-hearted wrap-up of the previous plot elements.

Here's the thing - audiences don't always consume stories at the same rate as authors write them. Many times, readers or viewers will stumble on a work and binge it in a relatively short time, so what took years for the writer will take months, at most, for the consumer. This can make tonal clashes very jarring.

In other cases, an author will abandon a series due to writer's block or life events - a sin of which I, cough, am guilty - and then try to pick it up later. This will still impact the story, often negatively. Maybe one has just gotten well and thoroughly tired of the subject matter, or it's been done to death in the popular sphere. It doesn't really matter - either way, authors are subject to the world around them, and sometimes, the only way to deal with burnout or boredom is rotating to another project. That's fine - the only issue comes when the first project is completely abandoned, and languishes, unfinished.

Societal changes and personal development 

I'm combining these two because the world around us affects us, and sometimes, we even affect the world. If you'd told me that Donald Trump and Boris Johnson were going to rise to power during my lifetime, I wouldn't've believed you. To many, it sounded like a bad dream. Well, here we are, and the long night has not yet come to an end. Using art to cope with dark times and critique them is a long-celebrated human trend, and there's no reason to stop now. Sure, we might fear our work aging poorly - but stories that try to be timeless always age anyhow, and an earnest time capsule often lasts longer, because it can tap into the problems of an era (which echo forward, as discussed in the section above).

If you'd told me that I'd be able to deal with my family issues in a more satisfactory way, I might have believed you - but realising the impact of that on my writing both as a Game Master and an author is another matter. However, the additional perspective and maturity of healing has, rather than distancing me from characters' struggles, provided additional objectivity and even empathy. Fixing ourselves and healing doesn't "take away our artistic magic" - far from it. If anything, getting over issues unlocks the ability to deal with them in fiction much more effectively.

Disillusionment and insecurity

These are nasty brain demons, all right - perhaps one has taken a look at the broad span of one's work, compared it to one's goals, and feels they are just - well, left wanting. Every creator struggles with this at some point, whether crafting a story for a D&D party or for hundreds of readers or thousands of viewers. The only way to deal with it is with external perspective and turning to objective sources of both external critique and validation.

After all, we tell ourselves things that may or may not be true all the time, and measuring them against the perceptions of the audience can drastically correct things. Your readers might just be happy to see the characters get married - never mind that it took you five years to write about them getting together. And even if they don't like something specific or complain about it or nitpick - hey, they're coming back. You compelled them. Even if the readers, say, abandon their fandom and proclaim it a trashfire - they're still paying for or giving your story attention and money. And ultimately, from a marketing perspective attention is always neutral or positive - even if that attention is controversial - because it increases profits.

How do we even begin to fix all this? 

But.

All hope is not lost.

By acknowledging burnout, boredom, disillusionment, insecurity, personal development, and societal change - the factors which often lead to writing shortcuts detailed in the previous section - we can compensate for the natural creative struggles by accepting and anticipating them.

Try to write books in a series in a continuous stretch when possible, making it harder to lose track of the tone or style or character journeys. Plot things out, and get yourself a hands-on editor and/or extremely trustworthy beta-readers. And forgive yourself for screwing up - then get back to writing. At least, that's what I'm doing!

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people's manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * 

* Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi