Brace yourselves: Mary Sue is back.

Well, to be fair, I guess she never left.

Chihuahua Zero posted about Mary Sue and whether she still means anything today. I wrote fanfic on the side for years, and remember some of the Mary Sue discussions that would come out of various communities. By the time I stopped writing fanfic, she was the talk (but not the toast) of the town. I guess she still is.

I’ve participated in a handful of discussions regarding her over the years, usually during NaNoWriMo, when I crawl out of my cave and attempt to interact with other people. I was always kind of surprised to see it on the NaNo boards, but CZ pointed out to me in a tweet that Mary Sue has made the jump into regular fiction, too. No, I don’t know where I’ve been. Probably under my rock, watching zombie movies.

At some point several years ago, Mary Sue stretched out, encompassing more and more traits. Suddenly, if a character had access to powers of some sort (no matter what sort of universe the story took place in)…Mary Sue. If other characters liked her, or at least didn’t hate her on the spot…Mary Sue. If she had a backstory that was remotely interesting…you got it, Mary Sue. If she wasn’t downright ugly…the list goes on. At times, it seemed like any female character who was remotely capable of handling herself (in general and in a fight, regardless of the universe she operates in) was dismissed as a Sue.

Frankly, I think it’s become a catch-all term for when a reader just doesn’t like the character in question.

I do wonder if “she’s a Mary Sue” is indicative of society’s desire to make everything happen faster, and deliver information in small, bite-sized pieces. “She seems like a Sue” is easier to say than “She’s shallow, everything goes her way, five men fell in love with her in five minutes and her hair is NOT realistic.”

If you’re serious about helping a writer out, definitely go for specifics.

I can’t really speak for how the term “Mary Sue” is used in traditional fiction. If the discussions I saw during my brief Web search are any indication, then the usage hasn’t changed all that much. Looking at the books I’ve read in the last few years, I haven’t seen anything I’d really consider a Mary Sue. There have been characters I didn’t care for, but more often than not that was due to specific things I didn’t like about them, not because they were Sues, at least not by my definition.

Maybe I’ve just gotten lucky in my reading, or maybe I’m just not on Mary Sue High Alert. I’m curious as to what people are reading that they’re finding Sues to complain about.

To answer the question CZ posed, no, I don’t think Mary Sue a useful critique, because even if it’s not just used as a blanket insult, Sues are different things to different people. For me, a Mary Sue is the emerald-eyed, raven-haired, perfect-figured little cheerleader named Typhanie (the e is silent) who gets sucked into Middle-Earth and instantly attracts the attention of a certain blond elven archer, who is like, “Ah, I would give up all my lembas for but a taste of her perfectly plump, berry-stained lips…while she sings in fluent elvish.”

Talented girl, that Typhanie.

An odd bit of synchronicity went down today: yesterday, I decided that today would be the day I pulled out Lusitania and started retooling the plot with an eye toward a 2013 rewrite. Today, I woke up and discovered that Nightwish, the band that provided much of the “soundtrack” to the first draft, had parted ways with vocalist Anette Olzon.

And just now,  I pulled one of my many Lusitania books off the shelf to check something, put it back, and was rewarded with a crack as the shelf fell down. It’s being supported by the big books underneath it at the moment, but…er…it’s definitely busted.

I’m not a big believer in signs or anything like that, but maybe this is an indication that I should let Lusy be a little while longer.

The Nightwish thing bums me out for sure. “The Poet and the Pendulum,” both its standard and instrumental versions, became that story’s theme song. Moreover, I just loved Anette’s interpretation of older songs. I’m sure both parties will be happier going forward, but…sigh.

In other news…I’m almost 14k into the projected 25k novella that I will try to release around November. I guess it could be classified as sci-fi. It’s quite different from other things I’ve attempted.

And…I got the basic plot outline for GNW3 down on paper. Filled up a few notebook pages outlining scenes, adding little notes to myself, and asking questions where I needed to. I’m still a bit hazy on the ending, but I’d say a good 75% of the book is plotted out, and I can at least get started.

Onward!

November is National Novel Writing Month–NaNoWriMo for short. I’ve participated since 2002, and my project for this year, Death and Biker Gangs, is the sequel to Grave New World.

The gist of it is that you write 50,000 words in a month. As far as the traditional publishing industry goes, that’s only about half a novel, but it’s actually a bit longer than what I envision Death and Biker Gangs to top out at.  Basically, you sit down and bang out 50,000 words. You give yourself permission to just write and write and write…by the end, if you’re a typical NaNo-er, you’ve got 50,000+ words of stuff. Most of it won’t be instantly publishable, but you’ll have a springboard for revising and editing, and you’ll have a lot of ideas.

There are, of course, some naysayers. Some feel the idea of cranking out words as opposed to cranking out quality is a bad idea, and I can understand that. There’s those that just see it as a stupid stunt. Yep, I can see that aspect of it, too. But the biggest argument I see is that “Noveling takes time. Writers must practice their craft. These little NaNites are not novelists!” The idea behind this argument is that a Novelist is a member of an exclusive club.

Newsflash, kids: If you’ve written a novel, you’re a novelist. You might not be a published novelist, or even a good novelist, but you’re still a novelist. So yes, the NaNoers do get the title, along with every other person who’s ever written a book.

As for the “50,000 words of crap in a month is not a good aspiration” folks, let me tell my little story and explain why I’m so firmly behind NaNo.

When I was in college, I worked at our University Writing Center, tutoring students who had trouble writing. I probably saw thousands over my four years there…and a lot of them downright hated writing. Hated it. Despised it. Wouldn’t mind if it took a long walk off a short pier.

Most of them had also never, ever been allowed to write about what they were interested in (let’s face it, most school writing assignments have nothing to do with a student’s actual interests). I told them “write what you like” and they stared blankly at me. They had no idea where to begin. I started challenging my remedial writing groups to write 50,000 words in November–not necessarily a novel, but 50,000 words of whatever they felt like. Some of them started journals. One did write a story and showed it to me. The beginning read like her essays (which needed a lot of work), but you basically can’t write 50,000 words and not show some improvement. Midway through, the writing style smoothed out noticeably. I asked her about it and she said she picked up some books “that were like the idea” she had (basically chick-lit) and she adopted some of the narrative techniques she saw.

Consider our modern world. Writing ability is virtually ignored in school until students reach college, where they’re expected to pass the Graduation Writing Test (at least in California). Quite a few of them aren’t ready for it. We’re all doing a dozen things at once, we can barely sit down to breathe, and we’re supposed to just write 50,000 words…? Hell, that in itself shows some dedication. If nothing else, NaNo can teach discipline, which is a good chunk of the writing battle.

Let’s be blunt, though. If it gets people excited about writing, it’s OK by me. Write on, my friends.