[Mary Sues fill a vital spot in the wish fulfillment fantasies of the person who writes them. I know this because I have intimate knowledge of this process. I have done it myself, on occasion.]
Robby was tall and crushingly present everywhere he went. Nobody was afforded the opportunity of missing him in a crowd.
[When I was younger, I wandered the field at home, telling myself stories and acting them out. I was trying to figure out who I would be and what I would act like when I got older. Believe it or not, I can draw a few incredibly strong parallels between my core character traits and the stories I made up about myself.]
When he was twenty or so, he noticed his latent powers. He kept his prowess hidden until his birthday, when his whole family was gathered in celebration of him. That day, Robby stood up and stretched his gorgeous fiery wings to soak up the sun and his family's shock. The thin skin stretched over rattling bones and filtered out all but the blood orange light of a deep sunset.
[But wish fulfillment is that, and no more. No one can claim that their personal fantasies have worth to humanity. If they do, the value is purely accidental. No, the activity of a Mary Sue is not literature. It is creativity for an audience of one. Sadly, when one bores of one's own story, there really is nowhere left to go.]
When Robby left town, he left a him-shaped hole in the heart of all the women and children. Grizzled men shed tears for his future.
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"When I was younger, I wandered the field at home, telling myself stories and acting them out. I was trying to figure out who I would be and what I would act like when I got older. Believe it or not, I can draw a few incredibly strong parallels between my core character traits and the stories I made up about myself."
ReplyDeleteI like this.
"Sadly, when one bores of one's own story, there really is nowhere left to go."
Hm.
Yeah, I like this. Also, I am sorry.
Also also, good luck with this semester.
Robby! I just found your blog and now I want to talk to you about life and such. You express your inner thoughts so well. Let's talk this week! I assume you're coming back?
ReplyDeleteYa, Theus. I'm back. Student teaching! Huzzah.
ReplyDeleteJanelle. You do the same thing, and don't lie. That's probably a big part of why you like it.
And seriously . . . when you get bored of your story, you sleep around or get hooked on addictions (substance or otherwise). Doesn't matter.
Sure.
ReplyDeleteI'm still sorry.
I didn't have a field, but I'll be honest: I did the same thing. Granted, I was usually pretending to be the characters in whatever story I was writing at the time, but I was still telling myself stories.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think it's surprisingly common.
ReplyDelete