On Fri, 18 Dec 1998, Christopher Angel wrote: 

Every couple of months, someone writes one of these silly Essays.  So, upon
seeing this one, the following thought crossed my mind: "Here we go again."

Far from being silly, I felt that Sebastian made some very good points. It
was a nicely-put commentary on fanfic writing, and I personally feel that
new or beginning writers would do well to read and consider it.

While all the points were somewhat valid, I think that anyone thinking of
writing an SI must realize that a self-insertion MUST BE WRITTEN JUST LIKE
ANY OTHER STORY.  That means that above and beyong ANYTHING else you
consider, you have to take a good long look at the story you're writing.  If
your story "sucks" AS A STORY, then it's going to "suck" as a
self-insertion.

Certainly. However, SIs tend to be more prone to certain kinds of
'suckiness' than other fics. Sebastian did an extremely good job, IMHO, of
pointing out some of the more common plot and character flaws that detract
from the enjoyment of a story.

That's it people.  Everything else is just window dressing on the above.

I rather doubt you can sum up good writing practices in a single
paragraph.

Now can we avoid these threads in the future?

I hope we _do_not_ avoid such threads. Sebastian's essay was a valuable
tool for the prospective SI writer, and I applaud him for writing it.

-Mike Loader

--
Christopher Angel
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http://www.geocities.com/~ca_godboy
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