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jana_denardoIt's my pleasure to turn over my blog tonight to a friend of mine, Mark R. Hunter, author of the rom-com Storm Chaser and the short story spin off collection Stormchaser Shorts.
You can find Storm Chaser here (there is also a kindle version)
Mark has a little bit to say about Mary Sue vs self insert. I started into writing much the same way he did and admittedly my ten year old self started with a Mary Sue I’m still sort of embarrassed about to this day (well, I was ten, what did I know?). How does that differ from a self-insert (which I’m often asked about when I do author interviews)? Let’s see what Mark has to say on that topic.
Every writer puts themselves into their work … but sometimes that expression comes way too close to being literal.
I became a writer at an unfortunately young age, and like many kids it was all about me. Not only was I in the stories, but I was always the hero, and changing the character’s name didn’t hide it much. Years later I came to realize the characters shared an unfortunate trait with the kid-writer me:
They were dull.
But I got better, and although it really is impossible for a writer to stay entirely out of the story, I take that expression less literally these days. My male lead in Storm Chaser, Chance Hamlin, is about as far from being me as you can get in every way: blond instead of brunette, physically active and buff instead of a sedentary Doctor Who fan, too serious rather than too likely to pun. He’s the guy who used to get the girl while I steamed in the background, which might explain why, in my novel, the girl cuts him down to size.
But he’s got this friend. And the friend is … well … me.
Let me backtrack a bit. Over decades of writing, I learned to make my characters rounded, flawed and multifaceted and, most importantly, not me. But about ten years ago, finding myself dissatisfied with the ending of the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I discovered the wonder that is fanfiction.
Bet you know where I’m going with this.
Fanfiction inspired the term “Mary Sue”, which originated in a satirical 1973 Star Trek story by Paula Smith. Mary Sue encompassed the very worst of authorial self-insert, and her name became synonymous with that character who saves everyone, while the canon characters stand around in helpless awe and fall madly in love with her. Mary Sue gets all the accolades and lots of sex, then sometimes sacrifices her life to save the whole universe, leaving said universe to mourn her passing.
She’s also extremely annoying.
Because I was just having fun and didn’t really expect anyone else to read it, I made my Buffy-loving daughter one of the new slayers in the aftermath of BtVS, with myself as her nonplussed father. Although they weren’t the main characters, I broke all the rules by having them in the very first scene of what turned out to be a fourteen chapter story. I didn’t know there were rules.
Much to my surprise no one mentioned lynching me, and in fact Richard and Kara Philips became popular, and resurfaced in several of my later fanfictions. I poked fun at the whole concept with my story “Mary Sue Got Harried”, and Kara became one of the “Four Friends”, in a series of related short stories that includes three popular canon characters.
I should have been hated and shunned. Whatever did I do wrong?
What I did was follow the rules of character creation. Instead of becoming an instant superhero, Kara keeps accidentally smashing things and bumbles her way through her early adventures. When Richard encounters his first demon, he doesn’t save Buffy, or anyone: He gets thrown through a wall.
I’m wrote me, but Richard is more the real me: He worries about his kid, doesn’t like to be drawn out of his comfort zone, and loses more fights than he wins. Does everyone fall in love with him? On the contrary: He has unrequited feelings for a younger woman who happens to be a lesbian. And dead. The dead part, that’s a deal breaker for most people.
In short, Richard isn’t a Mary Sue at all: He’s a self-insert. It’s me in the story, but in a supporting role as a character who not only doesn’t save the day, but needs rescued himself from time to time.
Which brings me to a character in Storm Chaser, who’s so minor I never gave him a last name. His first name will be familiar, though: Rich. (My middle name is Richard.)
Again, I stuck him in just for fun, with the intention of having him appear in one scene. When I needed a supporting character for another task I got lazy and used Rich, so he popped up a half dozen times.
You know the rules, now: Is Rich a Mary Sue or a self-insert? Like me, Rich is an emergency dispatcher and volunteer firefighter, so hero, right? But Rich is roped reluctantly into a spying role he’s not comfortable with. Although he wisecracks with the best of them, the only thing we know about his heroics is that he has a reputation for ceilings falling on his head. He saves no one and no one falls in love with him, and in the end is only a step above the literary role of spear-carrier.
(Rich does appear again in one of the stories in my collection, Storm Chaser Shorts, and I may have some fun with him in a future sequel. He gets more lines, but that’s all I’m willing to give him.)
Either way it can be self-serving and maybe egotistical, but if you’re going to put yourself whole-bodied into a story, keep your role limited. The more you make your avatar look good in a story, the more you edge toward that dreaded branding: Mary Sue.
If you’re going to wink at your audience, make sure they laugh with you – and don’t pull their hair out.
You can find Storm Chaser Shorts
here
You can find Storm Chaser here (there is also a kindle version)Mark has a little bit to say about Mary Sue vs self insert. I started into writing much the same way he did and admittedly my ten year old self started with a Mary Sue I’m still sort of embarrassed about to this day (well, I was ten, what did I know?). How does that differ from a self-insert (which I’m often asked about when I do author interviews)? Let’s see what Mark has to say on that topic.
Every writer puts themselves into their work … but sometimes that expression comes way too close to being literal.
I became a writer at an unfortunately young age, and like many kids it was all about me. Not only was I in the stories, but I was always the hero, and changing the character’s name didn’t hide it much. Years later I came to realize the characters shared an unfortunate trait with the kid-writer me:
They were dull.
But I got better, and although it really is impossible for a writer to stay entirely out of the story, I take that expression less literally these days. My male lead in Storm Chaser, Chance Hamlin, is about as far from being me as you can get in every way: blond instead of brunette, physically active and buff instead of a sedentary Doctor Who fan, too serious rather than too likely to pun. He’s the guy who used to get the girl while I steamed in the background, which might explain why, in my novel, the girl cuts him down to size.
But he’s got this friend. And the friend is … well … me.
Let me backtrack a bit. Over decades of writing, I learned to make my characters rounded, flawed and multifaceted and, most importantly, not me. But about ten years ago, finding myself dissatisfied with the ending of the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I discovered the wonder that is fanfiction.
Bet you know where I’m going with this.
Fanfiction inspired the term “Mary Sue”, which originated in a satirical 1973 Star Trek story by Paula Smith. Mary Sue encompassed the very worst of authorial self-insert, and her name became synonymous with that character who saves everyone, while the canon characters stand around in helpless awe and fall madly in love with her. Mary Sue gets all the accolades and lots of sex, then sometimes sacrifices her life to save the whole universe, leaving said universe to mourn her passing.
She’s also extremely annoying.
Because I was just having fun and didn’t really expect anyone else to read it, I made my Buffy-loving daughter one of the new slayers in the aftermath of BtVS, with myself as her nonplussed father. Although they weren’t the main characters, I broke all the rules by having them in the very first scene of what turned out to be a fourteen chapter story. I didn’t know there were rules.
Much to my surprise no one mentioned lynching me, and in fact Richard and Kara Philips became popular, and resurfaced in several of my later fanfictions. I poked fun at the whole concept with my story “Mary Sue Got Harried”, and Kara became one of the “Four Friends”, in a series of related short stories that includes three popular canon characters.
I should have been hated and shunned. Whatever did I do wrong?
What I did was follow the rules of character creation. Instead of becoming an instant superhero, Kara keeps accidentally smashing things and bumbles her way through her early adventures. When Richard encounters his first demon, he doesn’t save Buffy, or anyone: He gets thrown through a wall.
I’m wrote me, but Richard is more the real me: He worries about his kid, doesn’t like to be drawn out of his comfort zone, and loses more fights than he wins. Does everyone fall in love with him? On the contrary: He has unrequited feelings for a younger woman who happens to be a lesbian. And dead. The dead part, that’s a deal breaker for most people.
In short, Richard isn’t a Mary Sue at all: He’s a self-insert. It’s me in the story, but in a supporting role as a character who not only doesn’t save the day, but needs rescued himself from time to time.
Which brings me to a character in Storm Chaser, who’s so minor I never gave him a last name. His first name will be familiar, though: Rich. (My middle name is Richard.)
Again, I stuck him in just for fun, with the intention of having him appear in one scene. When I needed a supporting character for another task I got lazy and used Rich, so he popped up a half dozen times.
You know the rules, now: Is Rich a Mary Sue or a self-insert? Like me, Rich is an emergency dispatcher and volunteer firefighter, so hero, right? But Rich is roped reluctantly into a spying role he’s not comfortable with. Although he wisecracks with the best of them, the only thing we know about his heroics is that he has a reputation for ceilings falling on his head. He saves no one and no one falls in love with him, and in the end is only a step above the literary role of spear-carrier.
(Rich does appear again in one of the stories in my collection, Storm Chaser Shorts, and I may have some fun with him in a future sequel. He gets more lines, but that’s all I’m willing to give him.)
Either way it can be self-serving and maybe egotistical, but if you’re going to put yourself whole-bodied into a story, keep your role limited. The more you make your avatar look good in a story, the more you edge toward that dreaded branding: Mary Sue.
If you’re going to wink at your audience, make sure they laugh with you – and don’t pull their hair out.
You can find Storm Chaser Shorts here
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Date: 2012-09-07 03:51 am (UTC)I've been eying your Storm Chasers for a while now. I need to find out if my library can/will get it.
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Date: 2012-09-07 04:51 am (UTC)I try to keep Richard humble ... which is probably easy for him, being a normal guy surrounded by people with super powers!
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Date: 2012-09-13 05:42 am (UTC)Of course, I had audio books, and then podcasts, to pass the time on the way down ...
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Date: 2012-09-14 05:34 am (UTC)I'm odd in that music puts me to sleep in the car, while talking keeps me awake. Besides, there aren't that many radio stations in central and south Illinois!
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Date: 2012-09-14 11:29 am (UTC)Eventually, I bought a boom box to carry with me, but I still listened to music for the most part.
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