Shells for Ships, Dead Horses, La Mer

[greygirlbeast]

Since I mentioned it this morning, here's the clip Spooky shot yesterday of me experimenting with the buoyancy of clam shells, filmed near Moonstone, on the stream connecting Trustom and Card ponds.

You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com

Clamshell Boat, Riding the Current from Kathryn Pollnac on Vimeo.
It's starting to look as though my shadow is destined to get a lot more screen time

Comments

[robyn_ma]

It could also be said that there are a lot of poorly conceived characters with an unrealistic abundance of flattering attributes who are not Mary Sues. My hunch is that the whole Mary Sue thing began as a legitimate shorthand to call out fanfic writers who inserted themselves into, say, Star Trek slashfic, with Kirk and Spock falling in love with them, or some such thing. But then it spread to professional fiction, where the use of Mary Sue as a pejorative, even if accurate in some cases, carries a sexist whiff because it's almost always aimed at female authors: See, these dizzy broads can't resist making little cute versions of themselves in their little stories. (Of course, the pejorative is just as often wielded by female critics.) Why are male writers' idealized Tek Jansen heroes not also called Mary Sues? (Actually, they're called Gary Stu. Groan.)

Setting aside the legitimacy of the term, or lack thereof, the discussion interests me because it gets to deeper issues about what we want from fictional characters and what function they serve for their creators. Sometimes the two agendas, for want of a better word, dovetail nicely; other times, the writer might go a step too far and the reader gets that 'Oh, gimme a break' feeling. But to what extent does a writer go against idealization to the point where it becomes almost inverted idealization, i.e., this character is the worst, stupidest, most flawed character ever to appear in print? Like, how far can we go with this fucked-up character and still get you to care about what happens to her? Or, how far can we idealize her and still get you to identify? Is identification necessary to begin with? And so on.

I suspect that you're rejecting Mary Sue as a valid criticism on some level because you don't want to be thinking about it the next time you sit down to create a character; you don't want it, unbidden, anywhere on your radar, and you certainly don't want any possibility of some potential fanboy/fangirl snark to influence you one way or the other. So, okay: Mary Sue is a pretty weak criticism much of the time. The funny thing is, none of your characters have ever struck me as being remotely Mary Sue-ish, so why dignify it at all? It's not something that has anything to do with what you do. What would Harlan say? Probably 'What the fuck is a Mary Sue and why are you even thinking about it?' Interspersed with 'kiddo' and various uses of 'fuck.'

[greygirlbeast]

But to what extent does a writer go against idealization to the point where it becomes almost inverted idealization, i.e., this character is the worst, stupidest, most flawed character ever to appear in print? Like, how far can we go with this fucked-up character and still get you to care about what happens to her? Or, how far can we idealize her and still get you to identify? Is identification necessary to begin with? And so on.

Honestly, when I'm writing, these are not even questions I pause to consider. I do not believe the are valid, from the POV of the author.

I suspect that you're rejecting Mary Sue as a valid criticism on some level because you don't want to be thinking about it the next time you sit down to create a character; you don't want it, unbidden, anywhere on your radar, and you certainly don't want any possibility of some potential fanboy/fangirl snark to influence you one way or the other.

See above.

he funny thing is, none of your characters have ever struck me as being remotely Mary Sue-ish, so why dignify it at all? It's not something that has anything to do with what you do.

I don't know. Echo aside, I can see this fallacious "criticism" being leveled at a lot of my earlier characters, especially in Silk and Tales of Pain and Wonder. And it is true, they were all parts of me, and here and there, there's wish fulfillment (when did that get to be a bad thing?). These things irk me. Just knowing that there are people in the world who buy into this crap irks me.

What would Harlan say? Probably 'What the fuck is a Mary Sue and why are you even thinking about it?' Interspersed with 'kiddo' and various uses of 'fuck.'

Yeah, and "toots." He likes to call me toots.

[sovay]

And it is true, they were all parts of me

And why is that a strike against the author, anyway? Does anyone call up John le Carré and tell him George Smiley and Alec Leamas are invalid characters because he wrote them out of his experiences of working for MI5 and MI6? I know this is not worth ranting about, but people have some very weird ideas about art.

[greygirlbeast]

I know this is not worth ranting about, but people have some very weird ideas about art.

Weird and horrendously wrongheaded.

[robyn_ma]

Honestly, when I'm writing, these are not even questions I pause to consider. I do not believe the are valid, from the POV of the author.

It's obvious that - like any author who's actually been published - you haven't spent much time looking at dumb 'How to Create Characters We Care About' articles in Writer's Digest. I have to wonder if that rag has actually helped any aspiring writer.

Yeah, and "toots." He likes to call me toots.

*snerk* And yet you let him live.

[greygirlbeast]

*snerk* And yet you let him live.

Well, he's Harlan. And it's oddly sweet.

[robyn_ma]

I can cite an example of a meta-Mary Sue that you wouldn't necessarily consider a Mary Sue: Tyler Durden (book and film). He even comments on how much of a Mary Sue he is ('I look the way you want to look, I fuck the way you want to fuck,' said to the first-person narrator), which is what makes him meta, and the twist makes him a surprise Mary Sue. While I doubt Chuck Palahniuk sat down and said 'I think I'll satirize Mary Sues,' that's kind of what he ended up doing.

[opalblack]

[...]what we want from fictional characters and what function they serve for their creators

Rem acu tetigisti. I think it comes out when the reader feels that what they are getting out of reading the book is notably and obviously less than the what the author got out of writing it. It also seems independent of any actual ratio of benefit derived, and probably comes down to good writing; which in turn is probably why Caitlín hasn't had many such criticism, despite the open fact that her work is often (at some level) very personal.