• Welcome to The Cave of Dragonflies forums, where the smallest bugs live alongside the strongest dragons.

    Guests are not able to post messages or even read certain areas of the forums. Now, that's boring, don't you think? Registration, on the other hand, is simple, completely free of charge, and does not require you to give out any personal information at all. As soon as you register, you can take part in some of the happy fun things at the forums such as posting messages, voting in polls, sending private messages to people and being told that this is where we drink tea and eat cod.

    Of course I'm not forcing you to do anything if you don't want to, but seriously, what have you got to lose? Five seconds of your life?

Self-insert?

A

Autumn

bye
Pronoun
she
So I'm writing a Warriors fanfic, and in it I plan to put my character Lakestorm. I don't consider it a self-insert/wish-fulfillment because the character is not me per se; it's merely my character. I make no attempts to make her much like me at all, nor do I put her into situations that I wish would happen to me; if I feel that she should show up in a fanfic I write her into it. However, she is still my character, so I'm trying to figure out if she's really not a self-insert or if I'm deluding myself and a hypocrite because of it. I can't explain this incredibly well, though...
 
It can be done well, you know. If you're able to do it then go for it. A self-insert isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just that they tend to go along with being Mary Sues. Stay away from love stories, stories where your character overshadows the main cast etc and you might be able to pull it off.
 
If you don't want the character to be you, try something like this: give the character some of your traits, but not all, and leave the rest sort of undefined. Start writing, and when that character is involved, be open to changes and twisting the character. That's what's happening with a lot of my stories; I started off the story just making the main character or a major character me, but now as the story moves along, I'm thinking of plot twists that will change that character and make her someone else. If that makes any sense. xD;
 
I don't like myself enough to have a self-insert. :p

Seriously, though, before you add an OC, try to think of a canon character that would be equally or more appropriate for the role you're giving her before adding her. Otherwise, there's no point, really.
 
Chucho said:
Seriously, though, before you add an OC, try to think of a canon character that would be equally or more appropriate for the role you're giving her before adding her. Otherwise, there's no point, really.
Click to expand...

The fanfic consists of nearly all OCs; adding in a canon for the role she's supposed to play would actually be a bad idea.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom