Oh, Mary Sue….

So, I am no longer upset at the one review I have on the re-edition of Darkship Thieves (Btw, if anyone is feeling charitable, could you contact Amazon as customers and b*tch that they haven’t linked the ebook edition to paper or had cover, and they haven’t linked this edition to the Baen edition either. They will listen to costumers more.)

I was a little upset, because the gentleman — who patently meant no harm, being one of my newsletter subscribers (the newsletter was hiding comments!) — said that Darkship Thieves is a “Mary Sue” story. He also said it worked and he gave it five stars, but I was still stung.

You see, apparently I come from the pre-history when “Mary Sue” had a very specific meaning. It also denoted “amateurish.”

I’ve been informed the meaning has “evolved” though it is still in most cases meant as a criticism (not in this one, see “that worked.” but in most cases.)

So, for those who didn’t know this: Mary Sue came about because of — I THINK — Star Trek fanfic. A young fan wrote herself — Mary Sue — into a story. The Mary Sue character just did everything perfectly, was courted by both Kirk and Spock, and everyone loved her. Without much reason to, because the fan didn’t bother giving the character a personality. No need, since it was her own.

So, Mary Sue became used for INCOMPETENT author self-insert character.

In this sense, the aspersion offended me mightily. Darkship Thieves is not an early work, even by date of writing (as opposed to publication.) I’d written…. 10 novels, by that point, two of which while unpublished (one the sword sandal and sorcery thing I need to rewrite) had won me national contests. And I didn’t self insert in ANY of them. (For one, I tended to write male characters, when I was young. Took me a while to learn to write females. Look, I’m not a typical female. While I am female, it’s easier to write males. Still is. There’s a reason that AFGM is possibly my most authentic voice.) I know my fans joke about it, but seriously, the only congruence between Athena and I is that we’re both female and bad tempered. That’s not enough for a self-insert. Her personality comes from her history, like mine comes from mine. And … well, there just is very little contact. Oh, wait, we BOTH hate being tied up/restrained. I’ve only experienced it in hospitals, when on IV and/or strapped in so I don’t fall, but I hate it with a passion and try to get out of it as soon as possible. Also, Athena is NOT loved by everyone, and she does a lot of wrong things.

So I was mildly annoyed at the aspersions.

Then it was explained to me that these days “Mary Sue” is used for “competent character” out of a total disbelief in competence or ability to do things among the younger generation, or at least the younger generation of writers, who delight in writing helpless victims.

This at once explained to me why Weber, Correia, Ringo and HEINLEIN all get accused of Mary Sues, and why it never made any sense to me.

It also got me very, very, very grumpy.

I should insert a picture of me yelling at cloud, but considering it’s past noon and I’m writing the first of two blog posts, in pajamas, you might not want to see that.

You kids, get off my fricking lawn.

I like writing competent characters, because for failure and incompetence I have myself, or a lot of public functionaries and institutions.

Now, do I write competent characters with no flaw? AHAHAHAHHAH. No.

My characters often have abilities they don’t know how they acquired (in the DST world) due to gene engineering. BUT they have flaws a mile wide. I mean, Thena tends to do things without thinking, her light of love is choleric, Luce is almost debilitatingly depressive and probably bug f*ck nuts, HIS light of love has his own issues. Etc. because flawless characters don’t get in trouble. Also, I’ve been accused of spending so much time developing the characters personality and emotions that some of the more stodgy readers think I’m writing romance. So, definitely not Mary Sue.

Except of course, my characters tend to be competent. My current “vacation” involves writing two books I’ve been carrying around for 45 years, give or take. AND that character is “competent in spite of himself.” (He was raised by parents who demanded the impossible. So…. he had to do it.) I’m rather looking forward to that book getting me accused both of writing gay characters to corrupt the youth and being homophobic. Given the nature of the world, they might throw transphobic in too. You know, it’s great being me. I haven’t had this much fun since I was accused of hating Asians for writing Connan in the shifter series.

Anyway, the one thing I do NOT write is old style Mary Sues. I don’t write myself, because what’s the fun in that? And I develop the characters personalities because, well, either that’s the fun, or they show up on my door step fully formed. I’m not going to tell you which is true. You figure it out.

In any case this has been a brief (?) lecture on what Mary Sue is and ISN’T. Yes, there are competently written Mary Sues, that I enjoyed reading. But I don’t write those. I’m really not interesting enough to be a book character (why I’ve resisted writing an auto-biography.) Writing is my chance to kind of be in someone else’s head. Like reading, but more so.

And competent characters are no Mary Sue. While I’m not particularly competent (I trip over my own two feet. Standing still. And I always need a napkin while having a cup of coffee sitting at the table, because I spill a lot. I’m not competent at life!) I know tons of competent people, and trust me, they’re more fun to write about, because they can get out of the tight spots I get them into in ways I couldn’t do.

Therefore, please stop calling competence Mary Sue.

Or I’ll come and stand on your lawn yelling at the clouds. In my pajamas.

And nobody wants that.