Thursday, March 27, 2008
Busy Times
...at work. It might be until Friday when I get the first of the final two storytelling essays in.
Schedule:
1. Examine either Trent Lane or Tom Sloane's role in the Daria storytelling engine.
2. Examine the other guy's role, the one what I haven't talked about.
3. Comment on the final tale from R. Lobinske's "Last Summer" series.
4. Do something else.
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Here's a fanfic reader's/writer's related thought, if not one particularly germane to the recent topics: Does reading/writing fanfic make one more sensitive to Mary Sues in mainstream fiction? I just started reading a highly-regarded fantasy novel, and the heroine is the most blatant Mary Sue I have ever seen! I could practically run down the checklist.
"Meaningful" name: check (Rhapsody)
"Exotic" eye color: check (green, which isn't physically impossible, of course, but is still the most uncommon kind)
Loving descriptions of the physical attributes of the character: check
Narration about how everyone just adores this character: check (in the second paragraph in the chapter in which she is introduced, a married man's knees tremble when she smiles at him, and the only villain so far is a man who had her once and will stop at nothing to get her back)
"Mysterious" past: check
And believe me, I could go on. And yet, this book made multiple top 10 lists the year it was released, and features recommending quotes from Anne McCaffrey, Greg Keyes, and Morgan Llewellyn (among others) -- all authors I respect. I wonder if my fanfic experience has made me inordinately sensitive to the use of a Mary Sue, since I'm accustomed to being on guard for one. If I had never read/written fanfic, would I be able to enjoy this book more?
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