Oh, frig, I know what I want to say; I just can't figure out how to say it.

[sholio]

I've been reading a bunch of Metafandom links on the Mary Sue concept today, and trying to write a thoughtful and coherent post on how all of this is making me challenge my own core values as a writer (in a good way, I think) and it just ... will not come together. Maybe because I'm still struggling with my own reactions to it.

I particularly recommend reading Such stuff as dreams are made on, and Why the Culture of Mary Sue Shaming is Bully Culture, and on mary sue policing and why i cannot abide it. I am not saying that I agree with everything they're saying, but they've definitely given me a tremendous amount of food for thought, and made me look at the uglier side of my own drive to "write better! aim higher!" with newly critical eyes.

I feel like an idiot for not having realized the extent to which "writing well" is a moral value for me - I'm not saying that I judge people as less worthy for the quality of their writing, or anything like that, but reading these posts and trying to think of what I consider "poor" writing as being just as worthy and worthwhile and fulfilling as what I consider "good" writing - on an intellectual level, I absolutely think it is! But I still feel like a core value of mine is under siege and I'm struggling with that knee-jerk reaction - I know it's irrational and wrong, but I can't seem to make it stop. I've always pushed myself hard as a writer, and I want to keep doing that, but I want to manage to balance that with not being elitist and judgmental towards other people's writing, and I'm not sure how to do that. HELP.

It doesn't help that I don't think I'd had any idea that the creeping expansion of the Mary Sue term is as bad as it seems to be. I had no idea that people used Mary Sue for as wide a range of character types as they do - any OFC? Really? When I say "Mary Sue" I've always meant it in its narrow sense - or at least I thought I did, but then I get to thinking about all the various situations that I've used the "Mary Sue" term, and ... I'm not so sure anymore. But I definitely think of a certain type of character and situation when I hear it, so I'm struggling with both the battle to accept that as a valid character type even though my internal editor is saying NOOOO, and the fact that I think I've just been intellectually convinced that it's not really a useful term of critique but my internal editor wants to hang onto it.

It's interesting to consider Mary Sue a genre of itself, just as deserving of having fans and followers and communities grow up around it as, say, hurt/comfort or any of our other established fannish genres. Non-h/c people may roll their eyes at h/c or mock the more WTF? examples, but I don't think anyone questions its right to exist. I had honestly never thought of self-insertion that way, as a perfectly valid form of indulgence for some people that's just as deserving of its own dedicated communities and fans, but - why the heck not?

And this post is kind of completely awesome: Celebration of Mary Sue, or, Writing Advice I Could Have Used at Age 14. Because yes, this is SO much better than judging and looking down upon new writers - explaining community norms to them and giving them the tools to create their own spaces, so that they can play with the self-insert idea as long as they need to (forever, if need be) in safe non-judgmental places. Isn't that better than saying "Get your Mary Sues out of my fandom"? I'm not sure how to export that ideal to fandom as a whole, but I agree with the bloggers above that something ought to be done, because we don't want to be chasing away new writers before they have a chance to get their writing legs under them.

ETA: And here is another post making similar points. It's foolish and short-sighted to say "Don't write that!" when you can win friends and new writers in your fandom by saying, "Here is how you can take what you already have and make it better."

ETA2: Just in case anyone was thinking about it, please do not link this in Metafandom.

Comments

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

dangit! that was me again! >.>

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

ZOMG, okay, I read a post (http://nicki.dreamwidth.org/80898.html?format=light) this morning that made a comparison that I had to come running back here to share, because I think it perfectly encapsulates where I've been trying to go with this.

It compared use of the term "Mary Sue" to use of the term "slut" (not as directly meaning the same thing, of course, but in terms of how they're used in critical discourse). And I went, OMG, yes, that's perfect. Because sluts and sluttish behavior - in its narrow, non-pejorative sense; the denotative, not the connotative - certainly exist! We've all known people who sleep around a lot, I'm sure; we see lots of them, of both genders, in the media.

But even though it describes a real, existing thing, "slut" is utterly useless as a term of criticism - because, the way it's been used all these years, it's intrinsically tangled up in its pejorative meaning, in its sexist connotations, in the blurred and subjective and impossible-to-define boundaries of the behavior it describes. It's so vague that it could mean anything: "that person has a lot of sex partners" or "that person cheated on their regular sex partner" or "that person's sexual morals are different from mine" or "I just don't like that person".

I don't think "Mary Sue" is nearly that bad yet, but I think it's rapidly sliding down all those axes - the vagueness one, the pejorative one, the sexism one. Saying "That character's a slut" stops critical discourse dead; even though the term refers to actual real-world behavior, there's no useful way you can go from there. And even though Mary Sue (in its narrow, non-pejorative sense) refers, or used to refer, to an actual thing, if you want to seriously talk about that thing, is it really the most useful term to use, with all the baggage and negative connotations and vagueness that go along with it? Or would it be more useful to stick to the specifics of the issue at hand - "This character would probably be more sympathetic if she didn't win so easily at the end", or whatnot.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm. The difference is that there are alternative, non- (or less-) perjorative words to describe the same behavior as the basic defintion of "slut" - sexually promiscuous and/or polyamorous, depending on the sitation, have the same meaning but not the same judgmental ring. There isn't any alternative word to "Mary Sue" - "self-insert" is about the closest, but "self-insert" is nearly as judgmental, these days. And we need *some* word for the concept, judgmental or not; even if we stop using Mary Sue, another word will pop up to replace it, that's just how language works.

Some fans right now seem to be trying to reclaim Mary Sue as a positive term, as a creative fanfic trope to be encouraged, and I think that's probably got a better chance than ignoring the word and dimissing those who use it - especially since at least right now, a lot of thoughtful, intelligent fans out there will not have heard of this discussion, and not realize that "Mary Sue" is now considered unforgivably rude rather than just the name of a common fictional trope.

...argh. I want a new fandom out there...I'm tired of reading meta, I just want some squee, dangit! >.