by
Janis Patterson
One of the more peculiar kinds of
book is known somewhat disparagingly as the Mary Sue. Although it can occur in
any genre, it seems most prevalent in romance and marginally less so in mystery
and usually but not always is the offering of a beginning or very amateurish
writer. The generally accepted definition of a Mary Sue book is that the
protagonist is always just too perfect – too beautiful/handsome, too smart, too
brave, too kind, too loveable, too adored by everyone they meet, too…
everything. Obviously most of the time this is just a bit of wish fulfillment
and self-projection by an unskilled author. Yes, there are professional authors
who indulge in this fantasy trip, but thankfully they are rare.
On the other hand, some don’t
believe a writer can create a believable character without putting a little of
themselves into the mix. It is this touch of humanity that makes the character
live. So when we are creating our characters, how much of yourself do you put
into your people? I’ve asked this of a lot of writers and have gotten answers
ranging from ‘nothing at all’ to ‘a passion for ripe olives’ to ‘she’s my Aunt
Clarissa.’
I know that writers are all
different, but I do believe that most writers tend to make their protagonist
the same sex as themselves. While there are some who do write the opposite sex both
beautifully and believably, doesn’t the basic denominator of sex itself color
our writing? A well-crafted male character will have a different view of and
reaction to the world than an equally well-crafted female character, no matter
by which sex they are written.
While I am neither, I have written
20 year old protagonists and 80 year old protagonists, but at the base of their
character is the fact that they are women and that basic fact of femaleness
does a great deal to shape them.
I’m not going to go into sex
stereotypes, which is its own minefield, but say again that what and who we are
has to influence the characters we create. As an experiment, we should take the
skeletal description of a character – for example, a 35 year old widowed single
mother of three who is a welder, who used to want to be a nun and who is
allergic to peanuts – and then ask five or ten authors to flesh the character
out by writing a couple of scenes. Other than those skeleton points, I wonder how
much any of the characters created would resemble each other.
To offer up my own work, my main
protagonists are human (as I am), are female (as I am), are Caucasian (as I
am), are politically and socially conservative (as I am), are generally tall
(as I am not but wish I were) and reasonably intelligent (as I hope I am).
Other than that they run the gamut from demure 19th century
librarian to arrogant and opinionated old lady to wildly courageous
contemporary spy and, should they ever meet, would probably have nothing of
substance to say to each other.
I’m not saying that every writer
should have something of herself in her characters. Neither am I saying that no
writer should ever put anything of herself in her characters. I am instead
offering for thought that a part of ourselves does live in our characters, that
it cannot help but do so. Our job as writers, though, is to keep Mary Sue at a
distance and let our characters shine as themselves.
