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writing Mary as a third wheel
Feb. 5th, 2014 04:27 amI've promised ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
just_ann_now a blog post on my thoughts about Mary Morstan's character in the latest Sherlock series. This isn't that, though that blog post is in the works. Rather, I'd like to talk about a related problem that I've seen poke up a few times in Sherlock fanfic and that I'm afraid will become even more of an issue. Namely, it's how to deal with Mary's character when you're writing series three fic.
(Be forewarned: spoilers for "His Last Vow" and series three generally ahead.)
This isn't a problem limited to the Sherlock fandom, by a long shot. I saw the same thing happen in the Tolkien fandom, particularly in slash though I'm sure it could happen in het contexts as well. What typically happens is the author sees a certain connection between A and B and wants to explore it, but B already is married to C, or has a serious canonical relationship with her, something along those lines. Said author isn't interested in a one-night affair or a boyfriend on the side; she wants A to be the love of B's life. To make this seem less like a math equation, let's focus in on the John-Mary-Sherlock triangle. You want to get John and Sherlock together as the true love in each others' life, but now John's gone and married Mary. Oops!
( Read more... )
just_ann_now a blog post on my thoughts about Mary Morstan's character in the latest Sherlock series. This isn't that, though that blog post is in the works. Rather, I'd like to talk about a related problem that I've seen poke up a few times in Sherlock fanfic and that I'm afraid will become even more of an issue. Namely, it's how to deal with Mary's character when you're writing series three fic.(Be forewarned: spoilers for "His Last Vow" and series three generally ahead.)
This isn't a problem limited to the Sherlock fandom, by a long shot. I saw the same thing happen in the Tolkien fandom, particularly in slash though I'm sure it could happen in het contexts as well. What typically happens is the author sees a certain connection between A and B and wants to explore it, but B already is married to C, or has a serious canonical relationship with her, something along those lines. Said author isn't interested in a one-night affair or a boyfriend on the side; she wants A to be the love of B's life. To make this seem less like a math equation, let's focus in on the John-Mary-Sherlock triangle. You want to get John and Sherlock together as the true love in each others' life, but now John's gone and married Mary. Oops!( Read more... )
