Island of the Lone Sane Thought

I'm always fascinated by fics written by teenagers that portray adults. Certainly there are many teen writers with a lot of skill who draw convincing portraits of adults. But then there's that wish fulfillment fantasy writing--a teen writing about herself as an adult, or what she imagines would be a "cool" life as an adult.

Ages ago, I read a story (HP story) by a teen whose protagonist drove an "old" car; worked as a bartender--but was so good at is she only had to work three days a month; kept only the money she needed to live on and donated the rest (retirement? huh?); wore clothing/makeup that wasn't so great, but anyone who looked at her knew she would be gorgeous if she spent a moment on it; could speak Russian fluently; had lots of dangerous enemies; had an apartment with some sort of homemade security system; and didn't bother with a man because she didn't need one. There are a lot of details I've forgotten by this point, but you get the picture.

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I've already babbled at length about Mary Sues in this entry about writing fanfiction, so I won't rehash the basic definition of a MS, as y'all are quite thoroughly familiar with it, I'm certain.

What I've been thinking about a lot recently is Deeper Sueism. I don't mean the really obvious Sues, who run around killing orcs with their Bare Palm Crushing Strike attack, or practice their Unforgiveable Countercurses on the Quidditch pitch.

No, I mean the more Subtle Sues.

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This morning I had a very intense set of dreams.

The last dream (I won't even go into the Flying Winnebago dream):

I was with most of the Fellowship. We were inside some sort of huge half-sphere (kind of like a biodome). ( Click to read more... )

Yep, that's it. Singing, supah battle skills...again, I'm a Sue. At least I don't have pretentious ponytails like last time.

privatemaladict's questions for me:

( Lovely questions, with answers, and even a mini-rant about OCs... )

If you want to be interviewed, leave a comment and I'll ask you five questions.

The only fragment I have that is not part of the original story...I bring to you...the Earthmother, in all her Mary Sue glory.

(I wrote this when I was 14 or 15.)

( Prepare for Ludicrous Speed! )

The idea that a supreme being would need a couch to sit on in an elemental plane is quite amusing. The worst has to be her little Sue fit at the end. Ugh...this stings! Enjoy, privatemaladict.

I originally posted this on privatemaladict's journal...thought it was interesting enough to post here too.

( Mary Sue  )

Ah, ciabatta bread. And French goat's milk butter. Heavenly.

Where was I?

Ah yes...the lovely polarized muse...on one side, writing ANYTHING is better than writing nothing...on the other side, shouldn't you be writing something that can get you somewhere, instead of writing what amounts to someone else's property?

After all, fanfiction is truly the property of the creator behind the original source.

So we have the lovely duality of writing for fun, or writing for (hopefully) profit. I've seen some "rebels" who seem to imply that fanfic is the far nobler course. I am not sure that I see it that way. It really just seems to be a great way to exercise the writing muscles.

I mean, creating a whole world from scratch takes time, sure. But using someone else's world believably is just as much of a difficulty in some ways. After all, every time you write you have to continually think, would they really say this? think this? do this? It can be spectacularly distracting. I think it does take skill. Plus, one of the biggest inherent dangers in the fanfic world is a badly written self-insertion fic, which seems to happen quite a bit. So you have to constantly monitor yourself. Is this believable? Is this too Mary Sue-ish? It can get crazy. Really.

Mary Sues are interesting, though, in one way. Sociologically. After all, they are the author, but better. And it's always revealing to see how segments of society view themselves, and what they wish for.

Mary Sue patterns I've noticed generally:

1) Dangerous Mary Sue. The overlooked, the meek, the generally restrained author creates a Mary Sue You Don't Want To Mess With. She has some really amazing power, is half-demon or full demon, red eyes, glowing fangs, etc. Another character does something really obviously obnoxious, and DMS goes into full power mode, punishing and yelling like they would really like to do in real life.

2) Perfect Mary Sue. She's beautiful, can sing, play an instrument, has all powers or several really strong ones at least. No one ever gets the better of PMS. (Hee hee.) Most important...have to repeat it...she has no flaws. She has no flaws. No, really. She does everything right. We all would love that.

3) Ultra cool Mary Sue. She's the one who is a bartender in Europe, the most sought after bartender in Europe, but works only a few days a month, but makes enough from those three days to support herself, yet gives enormous tips to...gas station attendants. And bad guys accost her out of nowhere, but she is so tremendously ultracool that she deals out death in a matter of moments, yet not soon enough to save the gas station attendant. So now she's cool *and* has Righteous Anger. Right on, UCMS!! She seems to be a young adult kind of author self-insertion...can take care of herself, has mad skillz, isn't chained to a desk job, and yet gives to charity.

4) Bad girl Mary Sue. Very near DMS, but plays out more like a soap opera than a bad anime film.

These are just my interpretations...there are better ones out there.

Got off topic there a little. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though a lot of fanfic is...not good, to say the least, it still has redeeming qualities, and I wish that I didn't feel so odd writing it.