Self-punishment and the Mary-Sue

There's a character I created for a Hornblower fanfic, The Courtship of Major Cotard (and, no, that fic isn't up on my fanfic journal, evenstar_tales just yet, for obvious reasons as you'll see after you're done reading this post). She is without a doubt the most difficult character I've ever written in the most trying fic I've struggled with to date. To say that it wasn't really enjoyed by readers is kind of like saying that people prefer not to have lemon juice squirted in to their open sores; understatement city. So, why bring it up, you may or may not ask?

You see, I really laid myself bare in writing the character: she started out with my own clumsiess, both physical and social; her rather damaged sense of self-worth and need for reassurance; but, most of all, her absolute hunger and desperation for love and the power it had to change and heal her. I bascially exposed myself in ways that left me far too velnerable to be good for me. They're not necessarily negative emotions, but not things I'm typically proud of either. As a matter of fact, when the reactions came back, well, let's be kind and call them lukewarm, my own reaction wasn't self-pity but an extreme and rather frightening hatred and loathing of the character, which of course linked back quite obviously to me.

The more I tried and tried and tried to make her sympathetic in a way the readers would understand, the more the dislike grew and I found that, much to my dismay, I was doing with the character what I do with myself in real life. 'You don't like me? Wait, how about now? I can change again, if you want?' I so wanted that acceptance of the character as an acceptance of myself and the harder I tried, the more it slipped away from me. And the more honest I became, hoping that the criticism would abate some what when they realized I was laying my heart before them. And the quicker and sharper it became, the more I hated myself.

I wrote about difficult emotions, like still loving my abusive father and believing I deserved to be hurt by others. And I wanted to hurt the character. So badly, I wanted to kill her only partly to martyr her, mostly to punish her for being everything I am and for being hated for it. She didn't deserve the love of the romantic hero, she didn't even deserve life. I wanted to hurt her so that I could hurt myself. I wanted to hurt her so that everyone could see how she hurt and... like her, sympathize with her, I dunno.

Last night I was feeling awful about myself again and all I could think of were these horrendous scenarios where the heroine dies lost and alone, in pain and without any sympthy or realization after her death. This is what Mary Sue means to me, this is how I deal with self-insertion into stories. I've been told I'm over-sensitive; this is true and always has been, which is why childhood was a hell and adulthood continues to be. What a strange thing it is to be so aware of yourself, of your flaws and the hard issues and complex feelings you had to work through, that you can present them, offer them up so innocently.

One day, I'm going to rewrite the story; the urge to kill the character is still very strong though it's not the direction I'm going to go in. That's self-destructive and, frankly, terrifying! And yet, I find I'm still trying to find acceptance, telling people I want to kill her off, hoping so hard that it'll spark some kind of sympathetic reaction. It never does. One very good friend of mine suggested different ways I could handle the story after her death, with the romantic hero learning a lesson from it, learning how to treat a new partner. And I thought, 'How depressing is that? Imagining things after my life is over and how people will use experiences with me as ways to be happy with others?!' But then, that's my greatest fear, isn't it? To be remembered, if at all, as some sort of curiosity by others, someone who passed through and wasn't even greatly missed.

Peace, Ghani