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RE: Hello Mary Sue, Goodbye Readers
This is a piece of writing advice I've never heard of before.
One of the things I've observed with characters I've attempted to create is that I have a hard time letting them be who they are without too much engineering. This is probably my version of Mary Sue.
I don't like when every situation falls into place too easily but the internal adversity is quite a bit harder for me to envision than external. It's hard to figure out my characters' flaws and work them subtly into the story. There's nothing quite as bad as seeing an author's homework in the story (adversity, check, character flaw, check, etc.), so it has to be organic...and that's where I have trouble.
I'm reading an excellent book on that, at the moment, actually, by Chuck Wendig. Damn Fine Story.
It talks not so much about writing, but about storytelling. He believes, as I do, that the character is te architect of the story, instead of the writer.
It often frustrates me that my characters refuse to do what I want them to more often than not. Still, I realise that these are the stories that turn out the best of all. Because they're allowed to grow organically.
;-)
I think quite often my characters don't do what I want them to do because I don't know who they are. It's difficult to get out of my own head and into someone else's. And after reading the Mary Sue story, I think that might be what it's all about. Mary Sue is a way for a Trekkie to insert themselves as a hero(ine) into the Star Trek universe and be noticed by their favorite characters but she's just a shadow out of someone's brain, not a real person...