Self-inserting

AliceShiki

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Ah, all my characters have a bit of me in them I guess.

I don't go all-in self-inserts anymore, but I make sure my characters all have some aspect of myself in them... I mean... I feel like I won't be able to properly understand them otherwise, and then it gets hard to write about them~

Though of course, they do shape up into their own selves as the story progresses~

As for inserting other people? Uhn... Not really? I just try to make my characters as my characters. They have some of me in them, but I don't tend to base them off on any specific person or any group of people that I know~
 

KoyukiMegumi

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HAH, I think I only insert myself into my characters. Though... maybe some traits from others... :blob_hide:
 

lnv

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Do you do it?
Do you insert people you know?
How do you feel about it?

For those who read my story, it is absolutely self-insertion and wish fulfillment.

I prefer not to self-insert, that said, I have given characters "some" traits of people I know and myself to make them more realistic/authentic. Specifically the flaws. This way, I try to avoid forced unrealistic plots "as much as possible" (Cause you know, nobody is perfect, except for cats who are purr~faction~).

But no character is even 50% based on a real person be it me or others.

As for how I feel about self inserts... it depends how heavy it is. I am all for characters being awesome, but if it makes everyone else seem completely incompetent, I'd rather not. Cause that is the big downside to self-inserts, no character can be smarter than the author. And trying to make the self insert based on you to stand out pretty much means everyone else has to be dumber.

To the point it sometimes makes me wonder if characters can even remember to breath properly if the MC isn't there to teach them how to breath.
 

DarkeReises

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Although I haven't written much, and I'm not good at it, my characters are very unrealistic (aside from the fact they're all heavily fantasy based) and they're blown way out of proportion. So no, i don't do it, but I'd love to become some of my characters. Come on god, ISEKAI ME ALREADY!

... Smh
 

Biggest-Kusa-Out-There

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I've never understood this self insertion thing... does it mean to create a character completely like us? Or what? Is there a degree to it? me notto andastando
 

SailusGebel

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I've never understood this self insertion thing... does it mean to create a character completely like us? Or what? Is there a degree to it? me notto andastando
You are basically making yourself an MC of your own story. MC reacts as how you would react, has the same ideas and beliefs, and other stuff like that. It's like you are living a different life through the MC.
 

AliceShiki

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I've never understood this self insertion thing... does it mean to create a character completely like us? Or what? Is there a degree to it? me notto andastando
There are different degrees of self-insertion. In Roleplays we usually refer to this as about how much of the author bleeds into the character~ (and how much of the character bleeds into the author, but that's another thing altogether, let's ignore that part)

An all-in self-insert is basically having your character be yourself, but on the circumstances of the novel instead of your normal circumstances. So, like Sailus said, your reactions, morals, beliefs and whatnot would always be present in the character... There isn't much harm in doing a self-insertion novel tbh, for as long as the characters/plot are still interesting that is, but you should avoid it in Roleplays for the sake of not confusing things aimed at your character as things aimed at you (and vice-versa), which can be... Messy.

Partial self-insertions are more common, like... A character may look similar to you... Or maybe they have the same morals as you, or maybe they resemble you back when you were a child, or maybe they share your view on religion, or maybe they have the same life goals as you, or maybe they just react to unusual situations in the same way you do. There are lot of ways of putting a part of you in a character without letting too much of yourself bleed into them~
 

CupcakeNinja

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Do you do it?
Do you insert people you know?
How do you feel about it?

This inspired me to make this thread:

For those who read my story, it is absolutely self-insertion and wish fulfilment.
...Hmmm/

.......My characters may be more extreme versions of myself. Not a self insert, I don't identify with them. But my personality, my values, can shine through with some of them. Not all of them, I make characters that can have totally opposite thoughts and opinions of my own.

But I know three characters throughout all my stories that do, in fact, mimick my personality and values. However in a more extreme way. What do I mean by that?

Well lets say you got cheat on by four different women or men. At that point, I would say, "well damn, what happened" but I wouldn't go, "well at that point its obviously your fault."

One is more polite, the other is straight up telling you the whole thing is on you. Because once or twice can just be a bad hand, but four times? No, fuck you, you PROBABLY did something to cause it. Either you chose bitches who would cheat on you anyway, or you did something that caused them to cheat on you where they otherwise wouldn't.

In real life, I can be nice about things. Online, I'm more frank and I don't give a fuck if you think I'm being mean. I just call it like I see it, cuz despite what people like to think, sometimes it IS their fault. And we gotta be responsible for ourselves, eh?

Thats what I mean. My characters are more like my online self, because they WILL tell you what the situation is like. They wont bullshit you. They wont sugar coat shit to save your feelings. They will ask questions. They will go, "well did you ever consider you may be a shitty person?"

Because lying to you, trying to be polite, wont help you. In real life, I like my current relationship so I obviously wont be too harsh and too honest. But my characters don't care about things like that and don't need other people to survive, so yeah. They can be more open.

This means they're kinda dicks, but they are helpful dicks.
 

Legi0n

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That would require me knowing who I am.
Honestly It Is not a question I would like to ask myself.

However, I concur with previous reply: through characters you can express in ways you normally would not do. Mainly because real world social dinamycs are often different from fantasy (in my storia) ones, or because you are writing a villain. It's kinda refreshing to not have to politically correct everything.
 
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D

Deleted member 45782

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For some story ideas, perhaps a bit of self is in there be it a few thoughts/personality traits but the character(s) as a whole is different, bc mixed in so many different characteristics and things in there as well. So they become different characters and different personalities as a whole; that is something I prefer - sort of like a quiet bystander/outlook into the story but not directly involved with the story. Don't want to self insert completely, because don't want to go through what the characters may go through such as tragedy/horror bc that can be very drastic and vary depending on the story trying to write and they may or may not have a happy ending. So I prefer to distance myself a bit from my stories - what are stories stay as stories and I don't want to really self insert there, at least for some stories or characters (this is excluding fluff and daydreams and worst scenarios in head). I do think that what I want to write and is more likely to write may be based off stories and experiences from other ppl irl thu (vaguely and distant stories in a way, or distant ppl), as well as inspired by story character types that I've read, as well as certain topics/issues or perhaps about different times. Don't really want to write about others around me completely into the story either bc similar thing as mentioned above. That, and have to adjust to put it into a story cause some experiences too small to write whole novel on, or been so long, maybe missing few details.

So influenced by irl? Perhaps a few things, but as whole self-insert or insert ppl directly know irl completely into the story exactly as they are/were? No. Prefer to mix it and make them more different.
 
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ArcadiaBlade

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I sometimes insert myself into my own novel as a side character but readers tend to believe that the character is so unrealistic that it is clearly a made up character which they got surprise at how original I made him.

Whenever that happens, I turn to the mirror and started to cry since people think I'm weird and basically don't do self-insert anymore.
 

K5Rakitan

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...Hmmm/

.......My characters may be more extreme versions of myself. Not a self insert, I don't identify with them. But my personality, my values, can shine through with some of them. Not all of them, I make characters that can have totally opposite thoughts and opinions of my own.

But I know three characters throughout all my stories that do, in fact, mimick my personality and values. However in a more extreme way. What do I mean by that?

Well lets say you got cheat on by four different women or men. At that point, I would say, "well damn, what happened" but I wouldn't go, "well at that point its obviously your fault."

One is more polite, the other is straight up telling you the whole thing is on you. Because once or twice can just be a bad hand, but four times? No, fuck you, you PROBABLY did something to cause it. Either you chose bitches who would cheat on you anyway, or you did something that caused them to cheat on you where they otherwise wouldn't.

In real life, I can be nice about things. Online, I'm more frank and I don't give a fuck if you think I'm being mean. I just call it like I see it, cuz despite what people like to think, sometimes it IS their fault. And we gotta be responsible for ourselves, eh?

Thats what I mean. My characters are more like my online self, because they WILL tell you what the situation is like. They wont bullshit you. They wont sugar coat shit to save your feelings. They will ask questions. They will go, "well did you ever consider you may be a shitty person?"

Because lying to you, trying to be polite, wont help you. In real life, I like my current relationship so I obviously wont be too harsh and too honest. But my characters don't care about things like that and don't need other people to survive, so yeah. They can be more open.

This means they're kinda dicks, but they are helpful dicks.
I sometimes insert myself into my own novel as a side character but readers tend to believe that the character is so unrealistic that it is clearly a made up character which they got surprise at how original I made him.

Whenever that happens, I turn to the mirror and started to cry since people think I'm weird and basically don't do self-insert anymore.
I can see that. In a few ways, my MC is more extreme, but in other ways, I toned her down because I didn't think people would believe that a person like her exists.
 

DubstheDuke

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There is nothing more compelling in a character than for that character to exist in real life.
 

Biggest-Kusa-Out-There

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You are basically making yourself an MC of your own story. MC reacts as how you would react, has the same ideas and beliefs, and other stuff like that. It's like you are living a different life through the MC.
There are different degrees of self-insertion. In Roleplays we usually refer to this as about how much of the author bleeds into the character~ (and how much of the character bleeds into the author, but that's another thing altogether, let's ignore that part)

An all-in self-insert is basically having your character be yourself, but on the circumstances of the novel instead of your normal circumstances. So, like Sailus said, your reactions, morals, beliefs and whatnot would always be present in the character... There isn't much harm in doing a self-insertion novel tbh, for as long as the characters/plot are still interesting that is, but you should avoid it in Roleplays for the sake of not confusing things aimed at your character as things aimed at you (and vice-versa), which can be... Messy.

Partial self-insertions are more common, like... A character may look similar to you... Or maybe they have the same morals as you, or maybe they resemble you back when you were a child, or maybe they share your view on religion, or maybe they have the same life goals as you, or maybe they just react to unusual situations in the same way you do. There are lot of ways of putting a part of you in a character without letting too much of yourself bleed into them~
I see, thanks for explaining!
 

AliceShiki

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For some story ideas, perhaps a bit of self is in there be it a few thoughts/personality traits but the character(s) as a whole is different, bc mixed in so many different characteristics and things in there as well. So they become different characters and different personalities as a whole; that is something I prefer - sort of like a quiet bystander/outlook into the story but not directly involved with the story. Don't want to self insert completely, because don't want to go through what the characters may go through such as tragedy/horror bc that can be very drastic and vary depending on the story trying to write and they may or may not have a happy ending. So I prefer to distance myself a bit from my stories - what are stories stay as stories and I don't want to really self insert there, at least for some stories or characters (this is excluding fluff and daydreams and worst scenarios in head). I do think that what I want to write and is more likely to write may be based off stories and experiences from other ppl irl thu (vaguely and distant stories in a way, or distant ppl), as well as inspired by story character types that I've read, as well as certain topics/issues or perhaps about different times. Don't really want to write about others around me completely into the story either bc similar thing as mentioned above. That, and have to adjust to put it into a story cause some experiences too small to write whole novel on, or been so long, maybe missing few details.

So influenced by irl? Perhaps a few things, but as whole self-insert or insert ppl directly know irl completely into the story exactly as they are/were? No. Prefer to mix it and make them more different.
>.>
<.<

Meanwhile, I basically can only write while entering my characters... Sometimes I cry while writing because I'm feeling the pain that my character is feeling... >.>

It's fun! ^^)/
 
D

Deleted member 45782

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>.>
<.<

Meanwhile, I basically can only write while entering my characters... Sometimes I cry while writing because I'm feeling the pain that my character is feeling... >.>

It's fun! ^^)/
Yes. Guess it depends. Self inserting to daydreams funny/fluff/romance is fun.

Self insert into horror/tragedy is not so fun.
 

DarkeReises

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I sometimes insert myself into my own novel as a side character but readers tend to believe that the character is so unrealistic that it is clearly a made up character which they got surprise at how original I made him.

Whenever that happens, I turn to the mirror and started to cry since people think I'm weird and basically don't do self-insert anymore.
There's nothing wrong with being weird, weird is good. Let's be honest here, there's gotta be a huge amount of people in this community and similar ones that could be considered weird to "normal" people. I know for sure I am, and I've met plenty of other weird people here too.
 
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