It was at a fannish gathering--at my house, I think--that I first heard the term "Mary Sue". Some large person with a beard was using it to put down the work of a female writer. I protested. I didn't see anything wrong with the very competent female character he was taking exception to.

Oh no, he said, it's not because she's female, it's because the author has inserted an unrealistically idealized version of herself into the story. It's bad writing, he said. The character isn't interesting and is too perfect and that hurts the story.

Well, ok, I thought, reluctantly. It's kind of like a deus ex-machina critique, but about a character rather than the plot. But it didn't sit well that the critique was given a woman's name, instead of something descriptive of the alleged fault. Why make the critique inherently gendered? Oh, well, I thought, whatever. A name is just a name, and the definition isn't gendered at all.

But over and over, I've heard that particular critique aimed at a woman writer who created a competent woman character. The critic was nearly always male. And the critique was leveled at all very competent female characters, not just the ones with a demonstrable resemblance (beyond gender) to the writer. I have even heard that complaint when the writer wasn't female. The term came, more and more, to be just a generic complaint about very competent women being "unrealistic".

But wait--our genre has a long history of unusually competent protagonists. When the world is at risk and the odds are against you, you need a very competent protagonist. The stories we tell demand one. And we've loved many super-competent characters. No one ever, in my hearing, called Luke Skywalker a "Larry Stu". Or Valentine Michael Smith or Superman or Paul Atreides or Ender Wiggin or Gandalf or James Tiberius Kirk or Dr. Who. In fact, although I am aware of the alternate term to use when applying that critique to male characters, I can't remember ever hearing someone bring that complaint against a male character except in the context of having been asked why it's only women characters who are so labeled.

Now, I certainly have not been a party to all conversations about characters in speculative fiction! But I've been an active party to a lot of them and have overheard or read a lot of critiques of fiction as well. So I think it's safe to say that overwhelmingly the term "Mary Sue" is the term in active use, and that it is exclusively used to belittle and dismiss kick-ass female characters and the female writers who created them. (If the term truly applied to any character, why would someone coin a rhyming term to use when the character is not female?)

The more I think about it, the more I think this isn't due to a change in how the term is used. I believe the term arose out of the unconscious conviction that women are not exceptional. All of the big names in science and politics and engineering (and religion and literature and, well, everything) have been men, right? Certainly that's the impression my textbooks seemed designed to give. The rare woman mentioned was presented as the exception that proved the rule.

But I know better. A lot of women are exceptional. I find more and more of them when I look, both in history and in today's world. Periodically I share a story about one of them on Facebook. I could share a dozen a day and not run out of exceptional women to talk about, if I wanted to post that much. Many of them have had men take the credit for their work, crediting them only with the status of "assistant" and characterizing their work as merely "clerical" or "supportive". Other women were given credit at the time, but quietly and briefly, their presence glossed over as soon as practicable. Others, like Joan of Arc, were discredited or even punished for daring to surpass the roles approved for women. But one way or another, exceptional women have been--and are too often still being--consistently and systematically belittled and dismissed.

I look at all those male heroes in fiction and in history--men who are loved and admired and celebrated. Little boys are encouraged to take them as role models and to attempt to emulate them. Never mind that they are arguably aspiring to more than they will ever achieve, they are still encouraged to dream and to work hard and to excel. They and their heroes are not belittled and dismissed; instead they are praised.

The contrast is pretty obvious.

It's time for us to discard the term "Mary Sue". It carries with it a heavy baggage of sexism, regardless of what an individual critic means to convey by it. If there is a valid critique about authorial insertion or poor characterization, then let's use non-gendered terms for those things.

And above all, let's stop complaining every time a female character is exceptional in a genre which has always focused on heroes. Instead, let's embrace and celebrate all of our heroes, regardless of the gender of the author, the character, or the reader.

Next weekend is Torn World's monthly creative jam, when our online storytellers create new fiction, poetry, and art to share with each other, our friends and our readers.  To help  us get in the mood, I thought I'd share this new bit of writing:

Story Time in Torn World
By Deirdre M. Murphy

In the far, cold, North:

Ashari wiggled on her blanket, looking up at the Itakith furshirt. "Tell us a story!"

Tarl rubbed his round belly. "I want a bread story."

Ashari giggled. Tarl always wanted a bread story, because then they got to eat the illustrations.

"How about the tale of Avoku and the moons?" Tarl smiled fondly--it took a lot of bread to illustrate that story properly.

"I'd rather have a teaching story." Ikaluu smiled up at the furshirt. "Tell us about the Others!"

Alainya tied a small ball of blue yarn to the end of her knitting. This bit was a lighter blue than the last one, which made her smile. Her sky-colors blanket needed to be longer to cover her growing legs. "Yes, tell us about Others. They're pretty."

The furshirt gave her a stern look. "Others are dangerous."

Ikaluu grinned fiercely, and returned to scraping hairs off the hide she wanted to turn into a map. She was going to get her teaching story.


In a busy Empire city:

"Daddy! Daddy!" Kivegei ran up to Jerumal and hugged his knees. "I don't want to go to bed."

Amanel joined his brother, hugging Jerumal's thighs with one arm and his brother's shoulders with the other. “Let’s play!”

Denel smiled at her family. “Play time’s over. It’s time for bed.”

“But—” Amanel looked at his parent’s implacable faces. “All right, but first a story!”

“A story in bed!” Denel countered.

“One now and one in bed?”

Jerumal laughed. Already his son was learning to negotiate. That should be rewarded. “All right,” he started, but catching the look on his wife’s face, he added, “two stories. But both in bed.”

There were protests, but it really wasn’t hard getting the kids washed up and into bed after promising two stories. Once they were there, Jerumal sat in the bedside chair. “Now, what story should I tell?”

“I want a story about—” Kivegei scrunched up his face and said it slowly, carefully, “anomalies.”

Denel bit her lip, but Jerumal nodded. “I even have a new story for you, in that case. Up in the mountains, near the City of Lights—”

“But it’s not, any more—a City I mean.” Amanel commented.

“That’s right. It’s a restricted zone now.” Jerumal said, sadly.

“It’s a ruin!” Kivegei said, enthusiastically. “The ana-anomalies ruined it.”

“Do you want to hear a story or not?” Jerumal asked.

“Yes, yes, a story!” Both boys bounced in their beds.

“Then settle down.”

They laid down and pulled the covers up obediently.

“There was a day last summer, a particularly fine day. The wind was blowing, and the sun was shining, and Oranaan was working in his laboratory when two of his school friends came to see him.”

“But Science Master Oranaan is a man, not a school boy!” Amanel protested.

“Or a teacher,” Kivegei added.

Jerumal glared theatrically, and the boys pulled the covers up over their mouths.

Yes, Science Master Oranaan is a man, but he used to be a boy, and when he was a boy in school he had school friends. Two of those friends, now scientists, came to talk to him about cllimbing a tree…


In the far, warm South:

Megruu was sitting in one of his mother’s unlikely-looking driftwood-and-monster-bone chairs, showing off his new prostheses to a very young cousin, Druula. A young scientist had developed a method of heat-treating the tough fin-membrane of a deathfin or thunder whale, bending it to form a springy angular “foot”. The things were expensive, and only lasted about half a year, but they were worth it.

Two families of tourists walked by, and the children ran right to Megruu. “Were you a war-sailor?”

Druuli drew herself up as tall as she could. “Megruu is a war-sailor! You should have seen him saving people from a tooth typhoon on Rejoining Day!”

“A what?” A tall boy lifted up a partially-carved shark from Megruu’s table.

“On those things?” A girl pointed at the prostheses with a dark-skinned hand.

Megruu took the carving gently from the boy. “Now, there were a lot of people fighting the monsters that day—including my mother!”

“Really?” The girl gasped, looking at Neteilyu with something like awe.

“Tell the story, Megruu!” Druula urged.

“Yes, tell us the story!” The tall, skinny mainland boy plopped down in the sand in front of Megruu’s chair.

“A story! A story!” The younger children all pushed forward.

“All right then,” Megruu smiled, “If you’ll all sit down.”

The children cheered and settled, and Megruu picked up a small carving chisel and set to work detailing the shark’s teeth as he began. “It was the morning of Rejoining Day, and my stomach was grumbling. There was plenty of food—but just sundered times stuff, at that hour, and so I was saving room for the good food that wouldn’t be set out until lunchtime…”
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The links above are to  the Torn World stories and poetry I wrote that the characters are referring to.

I look forward to seeing many of you at the Muse Fusion.  Feel free to ask for the kinds of stories, poems, and art you'd like to see.  I also plan to offer one of my subscriber-only stories to be made public as follows:  Once the Fusion opens, for every linkback you tell me about and for every new prompter, I'll make 100 words of one story public in my journal for at least a week, and if the whole story is revealed, I'll leave it public here and have it made public on the Torn World site as well.

I'll run a poll in a few days, including all of my stories and poems that are suggested here, so you can vote which story should be the link-back story.  Here are three to start with:

An Afternoon of Stories
Madness
A Monstrous Feast

Let me know if I should add any others before setting up the poll!

Small print:  As always, this brand-new draft has not been approved by the Canon Board.  The final version that appears on Torn World may be different!