Irene
who probably wouldn't have written Firestorm if she'd read about Mary Sues first
I'm with Chris. I'm glad you didn't know, Irene. Lee is one of the most non-Mary Sues I've ever read. Good OCs *are* possible; they're just harder to write than fanfic. I suppose you can say that any fiction writer is creating OCs, and its the good authors that avoid the Mary Sue syndrome.
Come to think of it, if one of us was Siegel or Schuster creating Clark Kent, wouldn't we be guilty of creating a Gary Stu? I mean, think about it. He's bright, he's the ultimate good guy, he's good-looking, he's nice to old ladies and kittens, he has these amazing powers... Good grief!
I'm glad people seem to enjoy the parody. Yes, it's okay to laugh about it, because you know I didn't take it seriously. Believe it or not, there are people who actually write that kind of claptrap and *mean* it.
Since Rivka said she enjoyed reading the links, I thought I'd add these for any Tolkien fans out there who have read even a fraction of the awful "modern girl falls into Middle-earth and joins the fellowship" Mary Sue fics that are so prevalent. Try
this (although I would add a bit of a language warning, at least for me
) and also
this one (follow the link to the actual story in the middle of the page), which takes the tiresome summary "falls into Middle-earth" quite literally.
Mary Sue parodies are great fun, when they're not mean-spirited.
Hazel
