Unbalanced Scales

I was doing a little writing this weekend (sparked by my ponderings of Mary Sue-ism) and I realized I really need to work on my villains. I have over a dozen ideas for stories typed out on my computer, some of them even have a chapter or two written. Then they sit there. Every so often I go in and add a couple more lines of dialogue. It continues to sit there, unwilling to budge. I stare at it and it stares back with an unblinking gaze. The heroes laze around, generally being awesome and deathly bored because they have nothing to do.
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A hero is not a hero without a villain to match him/her. It's like the Batman stories are always saying about Batman and Joker being two sides of the same coin. Equal and opposite. The reason why Lex Luthor never dies (permanently, anyway), because what would Superman be without evil plots to thwart? The conflict of the opposing forces is what creates the story. Whether Batman caused Joker or the Joker caused Batman, doesn't matter (though it makes for heroic internal conflict), just that they both exist and play off each other.
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So now I'm working on channeling my dark side. When I'm not working on homework, anyway. I don't think I'll go the way of the method actor, however . . . Just seeing what pushes me to the edge, what pushes my buttons. Take that info and multiply it by . . . evil.
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I notice a trend, relating to the "two sides of the same coin" thing. If the hero is humorous, than the villain is deadly serious. The hero takes himself too seriously, then the villain is mocking/comically insane. (See Batman vs. Joker). I kind of like the villains who are laughing up their sleeves, but since most of my heroes have a well developed sense of humor the villains are automatically solemn.
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The picture on this post doesn't have anything to do with the topic. But I put it in before I began writing, so I'll just leave it be.

I Think I May Have Created a Monster

Mary Sue, sometimes shortened simply to Sue, is a pejorative term used to describe a fictional character who plays a major role in the plot and is particularly characterized by overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as wish-fulfillment fantasies for their authors or readers. Perhaps the single underlying feature of all characters described as "Mary Sues" is that they are too ostentatious for the audience's taste, or that the author seems to favor the character too highly. The author may seem to push how exceptional and wonderful the "Mary Sue" character is on his or her audience, sometimes leading the audience to dislike or even resent the character fairly quickly; such a character could be described as an "author's pet".
"Mary Sues" can be either male or female, but male characters are often dubbed "Marty Stu", "Gary Stu", or similar names.[1] While the label "Mary Sue" itself originates from a parody of this type of character, most characters labeled "Mary Sues" by readers are not intended by authors as such.

So spake the great Wikipedia. I was reading the descriptions of various Mary Sue characteristics on Tropes.com the other day when I was struck with a horrible realization. I have written a Mary Sue.

I swear, it was entirely unintentional. Then again, it usually is. At the age of fifteen I began to write a story.

• Of course, it was fantasy set in a Medieval-ish world and the main character was fifteen years old.


• Beautiful, smart, a powerful magic user, and actually hundreds of years old.


• No one could beat her in a fight or argument.


• She always knew what to do in any situation.


• Always cheerful even though her Past haunted her.


• Of course, she was a master sword fighter.


• Supermodel looks. Exotic, supermodel looks. Purple eyes with gold and green in them, namely.


• Even though the story was technically about three girls new to their magical powers everything turned out to be about HER.

Oh, yeah, her name was Vanessa. Drakesin. That she chose the name herself probably says something about the character/author/me.

Any event that occurred in the story she could deal with her right hand tied bed her back (she was probably ambidextrous, too) and without breaking a sweat. The only reason any other characters got any action was because Vanessa had to go off on convoluted quests for vague reasons. Her quests usually ended up being more important.

Fifteen is just too young to have a Tragic Past, so while she looked (and effectively was) fifteen she was actually a powerful enchantress centuries and centuries old. In the past she had saved the world on multiple occasions. People even talk about her previous incarnations. Usually she was around, grinning smugly in the background when they discussed this.

Her actual strength and power was poorly defined as: anything-that-needs-doing-or-that-the-author-ever-wanted-to-do. And do it better than anyone else. Little teacher's pet.

It has been several years since I created this evil and I have rewritten her story several times. However, the vestiages of her Mary Sue-ness still lingers. I recognized her in almost every Mary Sue catagory listed online. I do think the character has improved, however. She is no longer omnipotent, for one, and she is often wrong about things. Other characters get equal amounts of spotlight. I think Vanessa has stopped being my exclusive favorite.

I was reading through the story just recently and realized how much my writing skills have improved. The characters actually feel like real people sometimes. I also realized that several of the best characters reflect certain aspects of my own personality.

I'm not talking bravery, intelligence, or that sort of thing, either. The most obvious example is the character Selina whoe is constant Silly Mode. The kind when you're with your friends and you do very silly things to make each other laugh. It's so funny everyone does sillier and sillier things. Selina acts like that, only she is being serious. And she never stops. Ever.

Also, Vanessa's last name is Jackson now. Vanessa Jackson. Much better. She still has Mary Sue eyes. I quote myself:
"She had these amazing eyes, something like hazel, but with purple instead of blue and amber sprinkled at the edges. "
That won't make the final cut. We'll take it down to hazel, shall we? I didn't even realize that was still in there until I checked just now. I had been writing under the assumption that her eyes were hazel for a while now.

I blame Eragon. I was writing before I read it, but after I did it caused delusions. If this guy could write this epic book at the age of fifteen, then so could I. If Eragon could do everything, so could my character.
Hurm. I think the author is about my age now. Maybe older. His latest book proves that he still can't write. Darn good thing my parents weren't publishers. His were. Thus, got published. And, apparently, decided he didn't need to learn anything else about writing.

Mah Muzak

Edit: April 17 2009
I find this post a touch ironic. My current project in my Graphic Design class is to design a CD cover. I'm doing one for Skillet's album Comatose. Yes, very ironic.

Why is it that I work better plugged into my headphones, music blaring? I can't work well when the apartment is quiet. Soft music is about the same, even though I enjoy listening to it. Classical and Celtic in particular. When I have a paper due, or I'm just sitting on the bed sketching I need to have my rock music on.

For instance, right now I have BarLowGirl's "Let Go" playing. Oh, just changed to "Jesus Freak" by DC Talk. Check them out on iTunes. Guitars, drums, pretty loud. Nowhere near anything like hard rock or heavy metal, but still pretty noisy.

Maybe it's the influence of too many movies. How can you tell a person is working hard and making progress when you're watching a movie? The soundtrack will start playing fast, loud music while the sceen shows flashes of work and closeups of the actors' faces when they're thinking particularly hard. In one word, a montage.

So, in my head I've associated hard work, definitive progress, and ultimately, success, with fast-paced rock music that dwindles away to silence in the scene's climax. And who doesn't want to have their own soundtrack? Right now mine is Emery's "Ten Talents". Will I stand my ground and hold? I'd like to think so . . .

On a similar note, who doesn't walk along plugged into their iPod pretending it's their personal soundtrack?

Happy Easter

I made a rather rambling complaint yesterday about how the media shys away from saying "Merry Christmas". This came up because I was wondering if they still bothered to say "Happy Easter" or if it were just "Happy Holidays" or "Happy Bunny Day". While at Christmas time it is almost impossible to find anything that explictly says "Christmas" on the label, during Easter there are still packages that say "Easter" on them. There were even chocolate crosses in the candy aisle, which surprised me.

Anyway, I was saying this to someone and they told me that it would be more important if Christmas and Easter weren't "stolen holidays" that the Christians replaced with "less sinful" celebrations. I really wanted to respond to that, but I know it would just start a small war in the chat box. So I'm over here instead, preaching to the choir.

It isn't so simple as stealing holidays. In fact, there were no holidays before Christians. Holidays=Holy Days. Well, maybe pagan Holy Days. Definitely Pagan festivals. Christians did schedule their days of celebration to match up with the Romans', but not just so we could have "less sinful" celebrations. Anyone who knows a little bit of history about this time knows that the Christians weren't so popular with either the Romans or the Jews. There was a lot of persecution happening and it was hard to practice the faith openly. So having Christian celebrations on the same day the Romans were having their winter bash was a really smart move. Who would question the little get together going on at Uncle Peter's when the whole town was getting their groove on?

It did, however, serve to eventually "steal" the "more sinful" celebrations through the clever tactic of double-booking. To honor this ancient achievement Church secretaries of today constantly pay tribute by booking the church fair for the same Sunday as the Knight's of Columbus fund raiser.

What in the world is "less sinful" supposed to mean, anyway? The whole point of any Christian celebration is to not sin at all. We prefer elimination rather than moderation on this point. I can just imagine the committee of Christians way back in the when. Going over to the Romans with a petition.

"Hello. We're the Christians. We're new. We noticed that your parties get kind of rowdy around here and we were wondering if you could tone it down a bit? Little quieter on the drunken singing, please, and maybe water the wine about 10% more? Oh, you don't have to stop, just be a little less sinful. Thanks awfully."

Vainly attempting to care

Someone remarked (after I threatened to create a blog devoted to hating on them) that I couldn't even keep up my original blog. I shrugged and told them to check out the name of my blog again. This apathy isn't just for show.

Recently I've been doing a lot of figure drawing. Seeing as I am constantly painting abstract images I thought I would challenge myself with some realism. So, over Christmas break I started sketching faces and figures. I pause videos when I watch them so I can sketch a certain pose or expression. I even started watching old superhero cartoons on youtube. These are surprisingly good sources for figure drawing basics. They're all wearing spandex so the shapes are simple and clear. The only problem is that I would like to draw someone who isn't over six-foot and absurdly over-muscled.

Haven't had much time for youtube cartoons lately, though. Too busy with school.

Anyway, as I watched these cartoons and read wikipedia entries on the various characters I kept thinking, Good grief, how many times can a character die before they actually stay dead? And how many superheroes will stumble in the pitfalls of cliche? And most importantly, do all the female heroes have to dress up in lowcut, mini-skirt, swimsuit outfits? They can't be getting much protection when they're fighting. They don't even have different outfits for Fall and Winter. They must be freezing! It must be a superpower that their legs are always shaved and their hair is absolutely perfect.

Then there is the problem that Marvel, DC and other comic book companies crank out the issues as long as they are making a profit. Writers are frequently changed and the character's origins, personalities, and even their deaths, are constantly changed to raise sales. So, what's canon? Um, all of it, really. Wait, it's canon that guy died? Three times? Uh, well, yes. You see, there was this alternate universe/dream sequence/mass hallucination . . . clone.

And would somebody please take off Clark Kent's glasses and realize that he is freakin' Superman?!

The point of this ranting is that I would like to write and draw my own comic books. Well, I suppose I would be doing Graphic Novels. Comic books are ongoing without a foreseeable end. I would like to have a story with a beginning, middle, and resolution that does not change. Mainly, though, I want to draw a female hero who wears a really cool outfit that is at least semi-practical.

Have a Blessed Easter!