Mary Sue. Yes, I've done it, too.
Nov. 8th, 2004 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusI'm new to fandom, but with deepest regrets and apologies to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mctabby, wikdsushi and tartanshell, I confess that I too have committed (Icarus takes a deep, remorseful breath)... Mary Sueage.
Although my stepfather's inability to fake a compliment (Quote: "Well. Ah. It's certainly... action-packed...") -- and the fact that PCs had not been invented yet -- spared you all the agony, I will for your edification recount the plot.
Or should I say "plot"?
The lead character's name is fortuitously lost in the mists of time, but we meet up with her during her gallant escape.
Yes. She has been on a planet (ship? spacestation? Location is actually a bit unclear) running through darkened metallic halls. She has been experimented upon, and for dastardly reasons unknown to all (including herself, her captors, the readers..) she has been given catsclaws and catseyes.
For some reason, her captors never considered these superpowers to be any threat to themselves. So when the mutations were complete, she (fanfare please) escaped! She slipped aboard a Freetrader vessel (what? You never read Andre Norton?), though it is also unclear exactly how she got there, how she knew where they were, where she was going... oh you get the idea.
Fortunately for her, a young Freetrader who bears a striking resemblance to the youthful Icarus' ideal guy (surprise, surprise) is the one who discovers her as a stowaway. He risks his career to help her... how exactly is sort of foggy, except that it involves hiding her in his *ahem* room.
Alas, this Mary Sue died a swift death at the hands of my stepfather's unwitting sarcasm.
*toothy embarrassed grin*
mctabby, wikdsushi and tartanshell, I confess that I too have committed (Icarus takes a deep, remorseful breath)... Mary Sueage.Although my stepfather's inability to fake a compliment (Quote: "Well. Ah. It's certainly... action-packed...") -- and the fact that PCs had not been invented yet -- spared you all the agony, I will for your edification recount the plot.
Or should I say "plot"?
The lead character's name is fortuitously lost in the mists of time, but we meet up with her during her gallant escape.
Yes. She has been on a planet (ship? spacestation? Location is actually a bit unclear) running through darkened metallic halls. She has been experimented upon, and for dastardly reasons unknown to all (including herself, her captors, the readers..) she has been given catsclaws and catseyes.
For some reason, her captors never considered these superpowers to be any threat to themselves. So when the mutations were complete, she (fanfare please) escaped! She slipped aboard a Freetrader vessel (what? You never read Andre Norton?), though it is also unclear exactly how she got there, how she knew where they were, where she was going... oh you get the idea.
Fortunately for her, a young Freetrader who bears a striking resemblance to the youthful Icarus' ideal guy (surprise, surprise) is the one who discovers her as a stowaway. He risks his career to help her... how exactly is sort of foggy, except that it involves hiding her in his *ahem* room.
Alas, this Mary Sue died a swift death at the hands of my stepfather's unwitting sarcasm.
*toothy embarrassed grin*
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Date: 2004-11-08 11:50 am (UTC)Oh, I was so into cats, it wasn't even funny. But back then you couldn't get the specialty contact lenses unless you were Michael Jackson performing in Thriller with Vincent Price.
How old was I?
13.
But I didn't attempt another story until I was in high school, guess it was 15? 16?
This time, well, I got to about 15 pages of plot outlines and scenes, and told a couple friends of mine about it (a little smarter, I just described the story rather than letting them maul my actual work).
Friend A was the one with taste. She gave me a funny look and said, "sure... go right ahead." I wrote her cynicism off as, well, Fantasy wasn't her genre. *sniff*
Friend B was not known for her taste. She thought it was... interesting... but she had all sorts of ideas to make it better. "It needs romance," she said, dreamily. "Maybe you can have a girl who's rescued by...." (Andrea really was like that.) Every part she liked was something that I'd considered cutting, and she was confused by just what was going on in the story. At first I decided that she just wasn't too bright and stuck in cliches. But I started to feel a little unsatisfied with my storyline.
I carefully re-read my outlines and decided, "Wow. This is crap. The characters are just... not real... they're just there, for no reason. I don't care about any of them. I don't know how my magic works. And Andrea's right to be confused: there are big blanks! I have no story."
At the time I decided to not be so hard on writers because it was a lot harder to write a novel than I'd thought. I also decided I'd never be able to do it.
Icarus