Subject: Re: Authors in their own stories
From: Andy Skuse
Date: 6/23/1996, 11:55 PM
To: fanfic@fanfic.com

At 08:40 PM 6/23/96 -0500, Richard Lawson wrote:

Yeah, but I'm trying to avoid getting my characters too 
powerful, or become heroes or solve all the original 
character's problems and people are saying my story sucks.

<snip>
I think that is the problem I - and some other people - have against 
fanfics that star the authors.  The pure hubris involved in writing such 
a story is repulsive.  

Hmmm. I have been following this thread, and have heard the argument many
times that inserting yourself into your fanfic is an ego-feeding exercise.
For some of the authors whose fanfics have been based on the "insertion"
format, this may be true. But speaking from experience, inserting yourself
into a story can be done successfully if you write with the understanding
that you must "convince", and one very good way to do that is to give your
avatar flaws. When an author's avatar enters a lengthy battle against
overwhelming enemies using dangerous weapons, and leaves the same battle
unscathed, there'd better be an amazing suit of armor on that character. And
when a character from an anime cast manages to fall in love with an author's
avatar, there'd better be a pretty strong foundation to back up the anime
character's feelings or no-one's going to buy it. 

IMHO, and admittedly limited reading experience, one author comes to my mind
who seems to have these concepts always in the back of his mind and that's
Bert Van Vliet. His avatar in BGZone makes more mistakes, and
gets beat up more often than the main characters themselves, and his
relationships with the main anime cast have all been carefully developed and
founded well before they develop into relationships of a more intimate
nature. He seems to have jumped across the pit trap that the "insertion"
fanfic intially lays at the feet of an aspiring fanfic author, and all it
really took was a little thought about what would "really" happen if he were
to show up in MegaTokyo (keeping in mind that MegaTokyo is somewhat surreal
itself), and the dedication and patience to create solid foundations for the
characters around him to feel the way they eventually do.

There is another way to insert yourself into a fanfic and avoid the pit trap; do
so with a sensitivity to subtlety. As an example, my original character
"Blackie" *is* my avatar, even though in the past I had told two people that
he most definitely was not. I told them that because at the time I believed it.
I now see that he is indeed an avatar, but of a differing nature than Bert's.
I don't look like him, and I don't act like him. But he is the manifestation of
that part of me that wishes to journey to fantastic worlds and meet amazing
people. Like Bert's character from Zone he has flaws. Largely based on the
replicants of the movie Blade Runner, Blackie is a cyborg who represents the
cutting edge of technology from a time that has now passed into history. And
the embryonic state of the technology that created him has already begun to
reveal its lack of foresight. He also has personality flaws, being naive,
erratic, paranoid and neurotic. 

Add a lengthy setup for Blackie's relationship with one of the main
characters (after 71 pages and 12 chapters he hasn't even kissed his main
love interest)
and Blackie hopefully fulfills the main requirements to avoid the "pit
trap". So what's different about him? Changing the avatar's name and appearance,
and altering his/her personality can bolster the two "F"'s, creating a character
that can still be construed as an avatar of the author, but do so in a way
that most people will overlook because there's little to indicate that the
character is your avatar.

Flaws, Foundation and Formation.

I tend to think that many of the characters we read about or see in movies
were, or are, some writer's avatar, but we couldn't tell because of an
elaborate disguise or careful manipulation of perception. Why shouldn't they
be? Wouldn't you like to be someone else for a while if you had the power?
The trick is, not to abuse it.

Panda

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"The Dragon's Tower"
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