First of all, don’t stress too much about the ‘Mary Sue’ thing. It’s too elastic a term and has more than one definition depending on who you’re asking about it.
Here are some alternatives to orphaning your main(s):
- One or both parents being MIA;
- Single parenting;
- Parent(s) working long hours or working abroad;
- Neglectful parent(s);
- Main(s) being unaware of their parentage.
That way, you can put your character in the care of another who matters to the story without having to kill off their parents (which often has to be explained somehow). Sometimes, parent characters aren’t within your cast allowance; you need to decide whether you need them or not and how to get rid of them in a way that is realistic to your setting.
So if you’re writing a world that is a literal battleground where no one family goes without losing someone, then it would make sense to have most of your characters orphans or suffering the loss of a major family member.
Also, accept that some characters just have awfully tragic pasts. It’s true to life; some people survive through some of the most difficult situations and hit bad experience after bad experience… Your character isn’t a Mary Sue for having a problematic childhood.
It’s how they deal with such a past that can turn a reader on or off. You might notice me referencing Wuthering Heights a lot, but Heathcliff, to me, is the perfect example for this. His childhood is abhorrent but it isn’t horrific in every aspect. There are moments of happiness there that counteract the unhappy times. Heathcliff also attempts to alleviate his own suffering; he makes his own choices and is motivated.
So long as there are reasons for your character being orphaned then you don’t have to explain your choices to anybody. Write what you want and write it well - show us why the character being orphaned matters to the story. Don’t let other people stress you out about what is and isn’t acceptable for you to write, okay?
- enlee.
