sophinisba | question about Mary Sues

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question about Mary Sues

I think I like posting questions about fic even more than posting fic. There’s all the excitement of getting comments without that icky vulnerable feeling. Here’s one I’ve been wondering about for rather longer than I’ve been on LJ:

When, in the course of writing a fanfic, it becomes necessary to introduce an original female character who is a nice person, what strategies can be used to avoid Mary Sueism?

Some answers that have occurred to me:

1. Don't let her have sex with any of our hot guys.
2. Don't let her resolve all the conflicts within the story.
3. Don't make her too much like yourself.
4. Do a good job telling her story so that she will become an engaging character in her own right.
5. Don't tell too much of her story because she'll end up taking over the fic.
6. Sophie, you're far too inexperienced a fanfic writer to be taking on an OFC. Don't you realize they're dangerous? Either find a way to make this fic work with canon characters (and work hard at keeping them close to canon) or set it aside for a time and come back when you've had a little more practice.

I mostly read based on other people's recs, so I don't know that I've ever read an actual Mary Sue fic, although I certainly composed a lot of them in my head when I was younger, and I've read a few parodies. A while back I was trying to figure out what to do with a particularly troublesome young lady and took a look at the Mary Sue Litmus Test: LOTR Adaptation, which told me I was fine. But I’m still a bit concerned.

Thoughts?

ETA: This question does not have to do with the fic I've been posting about Frodo in jail. No worries there, we will not be veering into the tragic but inspiring life story of Hank's girlfriend Daisy. Thank you.

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Don't describe her extreme, unusual beauty in loving detail.

Don't dwell on how 'different' she is from the norm.

Don't go into her tragic/unusual past, especially if it has no bearing on your plot. ABSOLUTELY don't explore how 'unappreciated' she was as a child.

Keep her in the background at first then, if the audience likes her, bring her forward gradually in drabbles and one shots. Don't let her overwhelm the lead hobbits/elves/ents/whatever.

Don't give her a defining physical/emotional/mental disfigurement to make her more 'real.'

Don't give her magical powers.

Wow, the list goes on and on and on!

D'oh! I'm so going to scrap my OFC with the eyes that change colors wtih her moods and the flowing fiery hair that matches her temper. And damn -- I so shouldn't have her be able to beat Legolas at an archery contest, should I?

Meloirksejrklia, half Elf and half hobbit, get thee gone from MY story!

Her horrible, awful past should make up for her gifts! Write her!

oooh, let's see...I think she was probably raped by Thranduil (too lazy to look spelling up right now) while she was in an Elvish orphanage in Mirkwood. Yeah. That's it! And when she was six, her parents were tragically killed by giant spiders in the forest. And then she was slapped around by the Elves because she was tragically different (oh, man, those hobbit feet really stand out)....*wipes tears*

Oh! *Sniffle* I love her!

See, and the litmus test is good for a giggle, but in that way it's not really all that helpful. I mean, obviously I'm not going to write up a fiery-haired half-elven princess named Sophie, but there are some more borderline things that worry me more.

:-D I think I would have called that IMMEDIATELY if that's what you'd written...well, duh. :-) Yeah, I know what you mean. I really do.

By the way, I don't shy away from OFCs because of the Mary Sue thing. I figure if I really wanted to make an OFC, I would do my best to make her the best character I could, just as you are doing. All the same, there will ALWAYS be a chorus of people who will scream "MARY SUE omg" no matter what. Personally, and I don't know why this is, I don't really like to deal with female characters in LOTR fan fic. Nothing against my own kind, lol, but for some reason, I just don't do it that much. My stories tend to be very male oriented. I have no profound explanation for that. :-)

there will ALWAYS be a chorus of people who will scream "MARY SUE omg" no matter what

I guess that's a good way to think of it. I know some people just think OC=Mary Sue, and some people think all female characters in LOTR fic are OFCs. And it can be really limiting to worry too much about trying to please those folks. I liked your comment on the second chapter, that no one who cares that much about timelines is going to be reading this kind of AU anyway, so I should just go with it.

I've noticed that most of your OCs are evil, and you usually let Aragorn or another character do the rescuing and healing and comforting, which is probably smart. Not asking your readers to fall in love with somebody you've made up. On the other hand, I've fallen in love with male and female OCs before, so I just don't know.

Oh god, that's what I was going to call my next OFC

omg, I'm sorry!! :-D I can switch one letter in mine and they can be twins! Tragically separated. Yours can have been raised in the Shire. Or in Rivendell. Or in Gondor with abusive!Denethor...:-D

No, my twin was raised by wolves. The white wolves that came over the frozen river and ravaged the Shire during the fell winter, but one of them is really an elf prince that was put under a spell by Sauron's younger sister, Sorhead.(I stole that name, but don't think anybody will care.) Think we could make money off this?

No magical powers, no unmiddleearthly beauty, that part's easy enough. It's the tragic past part that's more of a temptation and a headache, for some reason.

Who can resist a colorful past? Especially if your own past was ordinary.

Didn't we all do it at some point though? I mean, before I knew anything about fanfic it was totally my way of engaging with books and movies and bands I liked, to imagine myself, oh, not as the lover of our tragic hero, but as his friend and confidant. And of course my alter ego can relate to him better if she has her own obstacles to overcome and so on. Then I got here and found out this kind of thing was frowned upon, so I've tried to break the habit, but it's tricky.

By the way, am I the only one who tends to type "habbit" instead of "habit" now, as a result of typing "hobbit" so often?

I have to say, I laughed and giggled at the Litmus test. :-D

I know the lady of which you speak, and like I said, I'm going to continue to keep that in mind as I read on (yep, I WILL get one of your chapters out to you today...yesterday ended up being really crazy for me).

The next chapter is the one where she gets in the way the most. Man, you'd think she'd at least have the decency to show up later in the story and not frighten readers away. Sheesh.

I vote for #4. As a writer, I think you should have the "right" to craft a story the way you see it. I've never understood the hoopla and sheer terror about MarySue's. It seems to me to be someone's personal phobia blown way out of proportion.

I mean, if a story is obviously a teeny bopper, shallow little fantasy, one can reject it on that basis alone and forget it. But if you have written a decent, engaging, adult story with a female OFC who is interesting and makes sense, then I don't see why anyone should label it as something terrible--at least not to the point where a writer is afraid to even do it, lest they be lambasted.

But I understand what you mean and hope you can write your character without too much concern. Good luck. :)

I don't understand the terror of it either, and certainly I think any writer has the right to come up with whatever characters they want and do what makes them happy.

On the other hand, as a reader I do sometimes get bored if the focus stays away from my favorite characters for too long, and I want to avoid doing that. I don't have much fear of being lambasted because so far everyone's been really nice (sometimes I think too polite) about my stories, but I don't want to do something that will cause people to stop reading.

Anyway, your comment's very encouraging. Thanks for taking the time to write.

I blithely add OCs to my stories, and if somebody squints enough to see a Mary or a Larry Sue, I guess I'm guilty. I loved the Litmus test. Very funny.

It does seem like some people really fixate on the things they don't like about a story, doesn't it? Maybe I shouldn't worry about it so much.

YOu can't please everyone. First, write what you love. That's my only criteria. Somebody asked me why I didn't write romances, like Harlequin books, and I said, "Because I don't love them." If I knew I could make a lot of money writing something I'm not in love with, I'd just stay poor. Don't have much dough, but I'm happy.

Yes, we should write what we love, and also share. There does seem to be some audience out there for just about everything.

I have nothing against OFCs, to a point, if I know that's what I'm going to be reading and I'm not taken with it by surprise. To me, an OFC is best when like vanilla flavoring: a little bit can enhance the rest, but add too much, and it overshadows the entire thing. I'm differentiating, of course, between regular Middle-earth based OFCs and "girl dropped into Middle-earth from present day" sorts of fics. The latter I don't think can be done well very often except for parody. It can be done well, however, occasionally.

For example, I've read some of an ff.net fic, based on recs, about two teenagers dropped into Middle-earth, and I was very impressed with how the author gave us a look at how different life would truly be according to social norms and cultures and that sort of thing. This fic was NOT a romance, though, which helped it tremendously. And then there's Ariel's The Gift of Illuvatar, in which an OFC cares and falls for Frodo, but it's written so skillfully and beautifully and you feel so sorry for her that you can't help but love the fic.

It just completely depends on the characterization. Of course I'd avoid the blatant Mary Sues in the teeny-bopper fics, but some others can be okay. There's a story in which Aragorn is ill and found by a poor woman who falls for him . . . she's very much not a Mary Sue and the story is well-written. And then of course, there are the completely NON Mary-Sueish types of OFCs, such as older women who fulfill a motherly type of role or evil antagonists.

My own personal difficulty with reading OFCs, besides the fact that I'd generally always rather read about the canon characters I love---is that often, the OFC takes over the story. Now, if I know from the start that the story will feature a prominent OFC, I'm okay with it. I can choose to read or not to read. But I can't tell you how many stories start out with minor OFCs and next thing, the OFC is the heart of the story---a "bait and switch."

I realize writers engage in a sort of role-play when writing---I do that with Frodo, even. He is my Mary Sue in many ways. So I don't care if writers put their own persona into an OFC--how would I know that, anyway? It would be too subtle to pick up most of the time.

As for h/c scenes, OFCs rarely melt my butter when caring for our heroes. From a completely personal standpoint I'd always rather see Aragorn caring for Frodo than an OFC---but that's personal taste, only! And seeing OFCs receive care from canon characters does nothing for me---I prefer OFCs to sort of "reflect" the canon characters and shed more light on them, not the other way. If an OFC enhances the canon characters, I can like her---if she overshadows them, I usually will stop reading.

That's my ramble for the day! :)

How I love your long, meaty answers.

I think I get confused because I hear such different ideas as to what calling a character Mary Sue actually means. Teenage girls (or, for that matter, twenty-something grad students) magically transported to Middle Earth is not something it would occur to me to write, that kind of fic is not a danger. Then some people think any OFC who gets into a romance with a canon character is a Mary Sue. Again, this is not something I'm tempted to do. On the other hand, what about taking care of Frodo or Aragorn when they're sick or injured? Isn't this something many of us would like to do? If Mary Sue is a projection of the author onto a character, then can't an older woman in a motherly role be one too? What do you mean when you say, "she's very much not a Mary Sue"?

Some people say it's a character who is too similar to the author, and some people say it's a character who has all the wonderful powers and/or interesting history that the author lacks in real life. So if your writing an OFC, should you make an effort to make her very different from yourself? Is it a lost cause?

I appreciate your mentioning the bait and switch thing. Like I said, I haven't actually read any of these, so I wasn't aware that they sometimes sneak up on you like that. Though I can see how it could happen, without an author even really intending it too. She's writing a story about Aragorn, say, and she needs some character to come in and do something for the plot, and suddenly, hey, this girl seems really interesting (to her)! She has to tell her story! And it's easy to forget that no, her story is not likely to be as interesting to most of your readers.

I think Frodo as Mary Sue works. Yes, as readers and writers of course we like to identify with somebody in the story, and yes, for me that's usually Frodo (or Elijah or Casey, depending). Not that it would be a good idea to alter his character beyond recognition, but to make the emotional connection with him, yes.

And I like your idea of OCs who reflect or enhance canon characters, though I wonder if you could explain a little more what you mean by that. I've been meaning to do this post for a really long time. I'm enjoying the responses a lot.

On the other hand, what about taking care of Frodo or Aragorn when they're sick or injured? Isn't this something many of us would like to do?

I would personally hate to do that; I would be miserable at it. Therefore, if you write this scenario, pretend you're me. The total void in your fic would have to suck in a completely made-up character!

Lily mentions one point among her excellent many: people read fanfic because they love _these particular characters_. The world might be interesting, but we get all perky when our heroes are on the scene. This doesn't mean make your OCs boring! But just realize that you have to work harder to make someone care about your OC. The character has to be real and engaging; that done, we'll like him or her (or hate, if it's a villain). But our little hearts will flutter fastest for those who've already claimed our affections; that's the way it works in fanfic land!

Hee, no, I would totally suck at taking care of them too, I'd be so awkward, no clue what to do. But some h/c fics make me want to be there anyway, maybe just to give Frodo a hug, I guess.

It is, it's very true, of course are favorite characters are the reason we're here. And as a reader I can never really handle being away from them for long. It's just funny, because before I started reading fanfic I always thought coming up with original characters was something to strive for in writing fiction, and here it's so often frowned on, or OCs aren't given a chance. It's interesting trying to work out those differences. I do love hearing from all of you talented people about this.

I'm betaing a story right now that is almost all OCs. It's a lot of fun! It's well written and very exciting. I don't have a prejudice about OCs as many people seem to do (I don't have a OTP either). If a story is good, I'm happy to read it. But I confess, I look for Frodo first. There's many good authors I will never read because they write about some of the other characters. My loss, but one can't read everything!

BTW, I flunked the Mary Sue test. I tried it out for Too Many Tooks, and completely failed. My 3 Took daughters are all related to Frodo and Pippin, they had many lovers before they pounced on Frodo, and their physical attributes are described frequently during the many rounds of love making (well, sex. It's just sex!). What I think this test is trying to do is point out the obvious cliches and pitfalls, but it really isn't a litmus test. As you've heard from many of your commenters by now, one person's OFC is another's Mary Sue.

Hmm, yeah, I don't have an OTP anymore either, at least in Middle Earth. I used to be a Frodo/Sam girl, but now I just demand lots of Frodo, and whoever else comes along, OCs included, is welcome.

That's hilarious that you failed the Mary Sue test. The thing about the Took lasses though, I think, is they don't demand that we as readers care about them. They're just hot for Frodo, and who wouldn't be? Some of the OCs in your other fics though really have made me care for them, though. It's good to hear some of your ideas about how that can be done.

On the other hand, what about taking care of Frodo or Aragorn when they're sick or injured?

I'm with Mariole---I might be miserable at it, and I'm not sure I'd want to be the main caretaker, but I'd LOVE to be a fly on the wall and watch it. :)

As far as a Mary Sue being a projection of an author---yes, that's the definition, but you know, that doesn't bother me. I really don't care if the OFC shares traits with the author. So yes, I suppose those in older "motherly" roles could be Mary Sues, but they generally don't fit enough requirements, I don't think, to qualify. As for the author giving the OFC traits she wishes she had---well, if she overdoes it, then yes, it's a real turn-off to me.

It's been a long time since I read the Aragorn fic I was speaking of, but I seem to recall the character was extremely poor, lived in a hut, lived a very dull life, and was quite believable. There was no romance, just one-sided unrequited love. If the author projected herself onto this character, then I feel quite sorry for the author. :) On the other hand, I read a fic once in which a character got pregnant by Aragorn pre-quest, causing MANY problems. The fic was excellently done, and the character well-written . . . at first. Then I felt the character ended up being loved and adored much too much by Elrond and Legolas and Elrohir and Elladan, and watching them catering to this OFC got irritating and I quit reading. The story revolved around her, and I knew that from the very beginning, but what could have been an enjoyable fic about a woman caught in a bad situation turned into a woman who had every elf in Rivendell pining after her.

I think a Mary Sue is one of those vague things: You can't define it, but you know it when you see it.

CON'T below...

And I like your idea of OCs who reflect or enhance canon characters, though I wonder if you could explain a little more what you mean by that.

I'm not even sure I'm qualified to explain it... it's just my own personal opinion. I guess what I'm saying is that a lot of stories NEED OCs, including OFCs, to help fill in plotholes and such, especially gapfiller stories that take place pre-quest. Our nine Fellowship members can't do everything, after all, I guess. :)

So, if I'm reading a primarily Frodo story that does NOT revolve around a major OFC. I usually don't mind an OFC who crops up to help me appreciate Frodo more. Or who helps the other characters to appreciate him more. Maybe by looking after him, talking to him, falling for him, or just providing some conflict. But when she starts taking the other characters' attentions away from my Frodo and redirecting them onto herself, well . . .

Example: Frodo is kidnapped, and Aragorn and Sam are searching frantically for him. Ruffians mistreat him and terrible things ensue. Frodo, while captured, meets up with a young OFC---little more than child, so there's no romance---and becomes quite a father-figure to her during his horrible ordeal. Aragorn and Sam are still frantically searching.

All right, so far. I'm with the story, I'm pining for Aragorn to find Frodo and give him all the TLC he can handle. The OFC bothers me not--she's there to give Frodo moral support and get him through this.

Cut to many chapters later. Frodo is found, but somewhere along the way the OFC has really become a major focus of the story. So during Frodo's rescue and recovery, we're not really treated to Aragorn fretting over Frodo's hurts and ills and mental state---as he did during the first few chapters---as much as OMG, WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO LITTLE FLORA-LILY NOW? We see little Flora-Lily's wounds being treated, but not Frodo's; we see little Flora-Lily winning Aragorn and Sam over with her cuteness, so that instead of sitting by Frodo's bedside and giving him enemas, Aragorn is instead putting wet towels on little Flora-Lily's pale brow. I've been waiting for my big pay-off---seeing Frodo rescued, but instead---I'm sitting there having to read about Flora-Lily in complete detail! I like her fine, but that's not why I started reading the story.

We get many long paragraphs of Aragorn and Sam worrying over Flora-Lily's health and emotional state and parentage and family. Meanwhile, Frodo is recovering but has almost been relegated to a secondary character, except for when he's worrying about Flora-Lily. The entire focus of the story has shifted. THAT is when I get pissy. :D

That's when I think an OFC has taken over, and I've seen it so many times. Now, I'm not saying Flora-Lily is a Mary Sue, for certain, but undying love and devotion on the part of all the canon characters toward an OFC meets the criteria for me.

I don't think all romance partners are Mary Sues, either. Romance does not a Mary Sue make. It's really just how believable a character is.

Writers love to write OFCs because they're a challenge, and they hope that readers will love and adore their OFCs as much as everyone else. But OFCs are a bit like other people's children: Few people love them as much as the writer herself.

This brings to mind the professional Pocket Books Star Trek novels. They started out very well and good and I loved quite a few of them, though they certainly had their share of Mary Sues! But somewhere along the beaten path, Pocket Books changed editors and suddenly, books were being published with Kirk and Spock as secondary characters and OCs and aliens and all getting the most attention. I quit reading them then, pretty much, and the general opinion among Internet fandom on some groups I lurked on was that they'd really lost their focus and appeal because of that.

Thank you very much for this, Lily. I especially loved the story of little Flora-Lily and also this paragraph:

"Writers love to write OFCs because they're a challenge, and they hope that readers will love and adore their OFCs as much as everyone else. But OFCs are a bit like other people's children: Few people love them as much as the writer herself."

I will think about this and write more to you tomorrow. Should really sleep now.

You know what's especially great about your Flora-Lily story? I was totally into it at first! And not just the idea of Frodo being kidnapped and tormented by ruffians or the thought of frantic Aragorn and Sam. I also *love* it when Frodo is strong and mature and helps out a younger person going through difficult times. It seems to me this happens in several of

baylorsr's stories, and Marigold, a particular favorite of mine, is pretty much centered on an OFC, and it makes me love Marigold but also helps me appreciate Frodo more.

But yes, after that, when everybody starts worrying about Flora-Lily, I do get annoyed. Especially if it's like you say, a story that starts out being centered on Frodo and then forgets about him. How could anybody forget about Frodo?

mariole's story Devoted has, goodness, a whole lot of chapters, and I always especially looked forward to the ones with Frodo in them; but even the ones that he's not in are all about his friends thinking about him, worrying about him, loving him! As it should be!

All the same, like I said before, I can see how it could happen to an author even if she doesn't start out with that intention, especially if she's going along posting as she writes. Mariole said Fatty Bolger in Devoted got to be more of an important character partly because readers responded so well to him, but that was fine with all of us because all of Fatty's energy went into helping Frodo and Sam. It was lovely to watch! In your scenario, though, maybe Frodo's helping out Flora-Lily and some readers are leaving comments like OMG Flora-Lily is so cute I hope she will be ok! And the author gets to caring more and more about that. 'Cause lots of people have written stories of Frodo's kidnapping and rescue, but who else is going to tell poor Flora-Lily' story?

Rest assured, this is not something I'm planning to do. (How could I abandon Frodo?) I'm just saying, I can see the temptation.

Yep, you got my point exactly... it's when the focus shifts that I get annoyed. I haven't read Mariole's het fics with the Took sisters, but I DO know that the Took sisters are ALL about Frodo... the story still retains him as the focus.

I see the above scenario happen a lot... the reviewers squee over the OCs and then the author feels compelled to let them take over.

When I wrote Frozen in Time, I was a real newcomer to fanfic, and didn't realize the dangers of the Mary Sue. There have been arguments over whether Ellen is a Mary Sue or not. The basis of the argument seems to come down to whether the reader feels like any OFC is a Mary Sue.

Most people liked the story. This may be in part because I started the story with the OFC, rather than bringing her in after. In other words, people probably weren't tempted to read very far if they didn't like the way the story was going. I eventually started posting it with the warning that if you didn't like the OFC in the first two chapters, you most likely wouldn't like the fic.

Personally, I think one thing that allowed it to work was that there were a lot of OCs; not just the 'heroine' through whose eyes the story developed, but five of the seven characters.

Should the OFC be like you or not like you? I've heard it said that any character you write is a facet of yourself. Just make sure she's a 'real' person; an interesting character - not too wonderful, not too stupid.

See, I lurked for about six months before I started writing any fanfic. And I read some, er, strongly worded criticisms of certain types of fic maybe a week or two into the lurking period. I sometimes think I might have started writing a lot earlier if I hadn't seen that. Anyway, that made me very much aware, possibly too much aware, of the hate some people have for poor little Mary Sue. I still get really insecure about doing some of the things I've seen rants against, even when I know that the friends I've made in LJ are very tolerant and kind, and besides that no one's likely to consider me important enough to set up for public ridicule. :-)

In the fic Claudia's looking at for me now I have sort of the opposite problem from what Lily was talking about. That is, the OFC is fairly prominant in some of the early chapters and then fades into the background, and we get more and more of our favorite hobbits later on. So I almost feel like I need the opposite of a warning, to say, no seriously, folks, she's not going to be the main character! She'll go away soon, I promise!

I like the not too wonderful, not too stupid advice. A lot of my favorite OCs in fanfic are quite flawed, and more believable for that. Thanks for your ideas.

I think this "Mary Sue" business has gotten a little out of hand. I think most writers steal or adapt personal traits or those of people they know to add verisimilitude to their fictional creations. If the character is a girl, she will have some traits in common with you, be it only basic gender issues. The question to be asking is, how does this character serve the story? What does she add? Is she essential? Are her attitudes believable? Fit with the story/theme? Basically, the same questions you would ask about any character or scene. Having her do triple duty (humor + love story + plot advancement, for example) is even better. I'm not saying she's superhuman; I'm saying she has a valid part to play in the story.

Now, once you've got her, who is she? What was her family background? What are her nueroses? Bad or good habits? Favorite color? All that stuff that makes a character feel real. Because it's fiction, the traits you choose to flesh out in her will be relevant to the story. For example, if Frodo is in prison, having her come from an oppressive background, or (alternatively) one totally incapable of identifying with his situation, will give her more of a motivation/conflict to get involved. I'm very big on motive. What goes on between the ears is what makes a character come alive. Am I just blabbing? Igore me. Write her, enjoy her, and don't worry about any rules. You can't write well when you're looking over your shoulder. Cheers.

You know who I love? I love Marigold Gamgee as written in Devoted. You do original characters wonderfully, Mariole, I'm so glad to have your advice on this. I really should have put this question up before I wrote the fic (dammit), but anyway the discussion will give me a lot to think about while revising.

It's not so much the projection thing that I'm having trouble with. I think it's perfectly valid to put aspects of yourself in your characters, but this woman is really barely similar to me at all. It's more the tragic past/taking over the story thing. I felt the plot demanded bringing her in, but right away she wanted to be important, to tell her own story and have everybody care! It's maddening! I've had to keep hacking her part down but I just can't stand to get rid of her. It's very strange. Probably not that big a deal, but I don't seem to be able to stop looking over my shoulder.

Hmm. When that happens to me, I try to listen really hard. What is the character trying to say? What is the "juice" that's fueling this, what is trying to get out?

Because I don't think a person ever really writes a story, although we try. I think the best stories just come from somewhere, and it's up to the author to type as fast as she can and get the heck out of the way to let the story come through. So, what's trying to come through? It might need to be its own story. Where is the "juice" in the other story, the one that's getting crowded out? You need to find its life pulse, and get it beating happily again.

Oh, heck. This thing is all mysterious to me. I really have no idea how it happens. But I'm a big believer in, if it's not working, throw it completely away and start again. I have many old chapters that were false starts. After the story gets working again, I can sometimes see why they didn't work. But it's a mystery. I just say, well, that's not working. What would happen if... and approach it a completely different way. But everyone has their own way of working. Mine is the scrap and rewrite method. Other people have their own tricks.

Thank you for the kind words about Marigold. I really don't know where she came from. I think in her case she was a reaction to Sam. We know very well what Sam is like. In a big family, people tend to fill roles. So who would Sam have as a confidant and friend in this big family, and how would she compliment his character? So she has hobbit sense but different hobbit sense than Sam; she's practical, but in different ways than Sam. They're the younger kids offering each other support against the older sisters; they might squabble, but they're always there for each other. Hmm; it's interesting and scary to think this out consciously! Great topic.

I'm a big believer in, if it's not working, throw it completely away and start again.

No!!!! *clutches notebooks and notebook computer tightly* You mustn't take it away! It's 30,000 words and it's *done* and it's precious to me!!!

But everyone has their own way of working.

*calms down somewhat* Actually, I have done some fairly brutal cuts and revisions already, and I did try rewriting it without her in it, and liked it less. So I don't think starting over is the answer, at least not for this particular situation. But I like your advice about listening to what the characters want to say, and also Lily's about using OCs to tell us something about ~~the canon characters~~ Frodo. I'll keep all that in mind when I'm revising this and also when working on another fic I have bits and pieces of (which features some Marigold and rather a lot of Rosie).

But it all is mysterious, and for me it's especially mysterious when I'm looking at my own writing, like I lose all capacity to judge whether it's working or not. I do know that I enjoyed writing this one a lot, so that's something to hold on to anyway. :-)

I can't judge, either. I'm too close to it. That's why I'm a big believer in beta, or first reader, or critique group. It's amazing the things that are perfectly clear to me that never end up on the page, only in my head.

I wasn't trying to suggest you scrap the whole fic-- although that's what Tolkien always did with LOTR. CS Lewis said he had two responses to criticism: he either ignored it, or started over from the beginning. In your case, I was thinking of just starting the troubling chapters over again. But it sounds like you're already doing that. I hope other people have had more useful suggestions. Good luck! I really like this fic!

Oh, this all has to do with a different fic, one I haven't posted any of yet; Claudia's taking a look at it now. And I'm seeking more general advice for other things I might want to write in the future.

"A Brief Adventure" is not done yet and has been stalled for a while, which is a little troubling in itself. On the bright side, it has no looming potential Mary Sues. Kind of a lot of OCs maybe, but none of them threatening to hijack the story. It's so nice to know you're enjoying it so far!

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