Liam-don said:
I want to like those, but the writing is so. damn. rushed!
It's like you're desperately trying to pin the story on paper before it vanishes.
Good Self Inserts/OC's?
- Thread starter DoWnEr
- Start date
Hmm. That may be true. I've been trying to balance storytelling with brevity, as it used to be a fairly large issue that fanfiction authors would try to recreate an entire work with just the additions or change. And really, reading a half a dozen times about Harry Potter getting his owl with the exact words (or close as can be) from the original books is not writing, IMO.
From being a 'fan' of several self inserts. I can tell you that the best self inserts are still fantastical and interesting, with some element that makes them 'unique' to some degree. Reading about person xyz as he goes to his job every day and eats toast, walks his dog etc while being in the bubblegum crisis universe is STILL BORING.
Its also boring when they follow the plot basically uniterupted, since they don't even really exist as a character in that case, if they arent accomplishing or doing ANYTHING. Its like reading canon with an annoying voice commenting on events sometimes, really boring and pointless.
Reading about person zyx who has godlike powers, omnipotence and is beyond arrogant about it is boring too..
There's a comfortable medium. Hell, I can enjoy fics that stretch that medium either way if extremely well written, as with Enigmatic Magus's stories.
Give me a super powerful character, who can't always access his power, or doesnt use it for whatever reason, stick him in BGC, and boom you have a shounen anime. And I like quite a few shounen.
As long as its well written and has a story, it can be good.
I don't hate fics for being cliche's. I can only hate fics that arent written well, and I don't mean gramatically or Spelling or even just plot. I mean fic that isnt a telling a story.
Take for example... Perfect Lionheart.
He doesnt write stories. There is no story, the plot is loose, even he doesnt know what he wants, characters are confused and written badly, and there is no sense of anything really trying to be accomplished. He may be gramatically and linguistically fluent, but that means nothing on its own.
Compare that to say....
'Embers' By Vathara.
Vathara is another love/hate author, she writes fics that are blatantly influenced by a female mindset, the language and attitude of characters is generally flowery and pretty. There's a lot of focus on feelings and emotions over actions, and a lot of her fics include male/male relationships among men who have nothing but platonic friendship between them in canon.
That said, Embers is telling a story, and it draws me in, and I want to find out more, I want to see where its going, I want to be told the tale, and have it ignite my imagination.
Its a very distinct difference to me, and it makes or breaks a fic.
The relative power of characters means nothing, a good fic needs, conflict, a purpose, and a resolution.
Imo, contrary to populat belief, conflict doesnt need to come from people being on the same power plane, you can have the most powerful character in the universe struggling to choose between his power and his love, or perhaps he's lost on the way to the grocery store, or maybe he doesnt want to use his power for moral reasons, and his conflict is with himself.
The bad self inserts have no real conflict, their insert owns everything through either knowledge or power, and is secure in his belief that he's perfect the whole way through. They have no purpose, beyond the author wanking on paper, they arent leading anywhere except to the character predictable owning everything. And they have no resolution, since all they're gonna do is continue till the author is bored defeating that entire universe.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway rant over, I'll add some fics that I've quite liked that in this genre.
<a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/u/77142/Foxboy' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Foxboy</a>
Foxboy has written some good fics in his time, his primary 40k+ words self insert is one of the best in the genre in my opinion.
<a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/u/100997/Enigmatic_Magus' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Enigmatic Magus</a>
Enigmatic Magus is a very active self insert writer. Many of his inserts are ridiculously powerful or have some Deus ex machina that makes them inherently 'better' than their inserted universe, but despite that he writes solid stories, purpose, conflict and interesting dialogue. Not to everyones taste I imagine, but definitely enjoyable to me.
<a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/u/945708/Dartz_IRL' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Dartz</a>
A common poster on this board, where you can read snippets and early chapters not yet published on ff.net, Dartz is my current fave Author, he balances a prolific writing habit with interesting plots, very enjoyable characters, and good writing all over. I'm especially a large fan of his current BGC SI.
Those are the major ones that stick out to me,
Hybrid theory deserves an honorary mention, but I'm not a fan myself, it manages to have everything required for a good fic, but its too long and too many characters are involved, to the point that trying to maintain interest in any is too much work.
I'm sure I have more on my list, but right now they elude me.
Its also boring when they follow the plot basically uniterupted, since they don't even really exist as a character in that case, if they arent accomplishing or doing ANYTHING. Its like reading canon with an annoying voice commenting on events sometimes, really boring and pointless.
Reading about person zyx who has godlike powers, omnipotence and is beyond arrogant about it is boring too..
There's a comfortable medium. Hell, I can enjoy fics that stretch that medium either way if extremely well written, as with Enigmatic Magus's stories.
Give me a super powerful character, who can't always access his power, or doesnt use it for whatever reason, stick him in BGC, and boom you have a shounen anime. And I like quite a few shounen.
As long as its well written and has a story, it can be good.
I don't hate fics for being cliche's. I can only hate fics that arent written well, and I don't mean gramatically or Spelling or even just plot. I mean fic that isnt a telling a story.
Take for example... Perfect Lionheart.
He doesnt write stories. There is no story, the plot is loose, even he doesnt know what he wants, characters are confused and written badly, and there is no sense of anything really trying to be accomplished. He may be gramatically and linguistically fluent, but that means nothing on its own.
Compare that to say....
'Embers' By Vathara.
Vathara is another love/hate author, she writes fics that are blatantly influenced by a female mindset, the language and attitude of characters is generally flowery and pretty. There's a lot of focus on feelings and emotions over actions, and a lot of her fics include male/male relationships among men who have nothing but platonic friendship between them in canon.
That said, Embers is telling a story, and it draws me in, and I want to find out more, I want to see where its going, I want to be told the tale, and have it ignite my imagination.
Its a very distinct difference to me, and it makes or breaks a fic.
The relative power of characters means nothing, a good fic needs, conflict, a purpose, and a resolution.
Imo, contrary to populat belief, conflict doesnt need to come from people being on the same power plane, you can have the most powerful character in the universe struggling to choose between his power and his love, or perhaps he's lost on the way to the grocery store, or maybe he doesnt want to use his power for moral reasons, and his conflict is with himself.
The bad self inserts have no real conflict, their insert owns everything through either knowledge or power, and is secure in his belief that he's perfect the whole way through. They have no purpose, beyond the author wanking on paper, they arent leading anywhere except to the character predictable owning everything. And they have no resolution, since all they're gonna do is continue till the author is bored defeating that entire universe.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway rant over, I'll add some fics that I've quite liked that in this genre.
<a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/u/77142/Foxboy' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Foxboy</a>
Foxboy has written some good fics in his time, his primary 40k+ words self insert is one of the best in the genre in my opinion.
<a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/u/100997/Enigmatic_Magus' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Enigmatic Magus</a>
Enigmatic Magus is a very active self insert writer. Many of his inserts are ridiculously powerful or have some Deus ex machina that makes them inherently 'better' than their inserted universe, but despite that he writes solid stories, purpose, conflict and interesting dialogue. Not to everyones taste I imagine, but definitely enjoyable to me.
<a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/u/945708/Dartz_IRL' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Dartz</a>
A common poster on this board, where you can read snippets and early chapters not yet published on ff.net, Dartz is my current fave Author, he balances a prolific writing habit with interesting plots, very enjoyable characters, and good writing all over. I'm especially a large fan of his current BGC SI.
Those are the major ones that stick out to me,
Hybrid theory deserves an honorary mention, but I'm not a fan myself, it manages to have everything required for a good fic, but its too long and too many characters are involved, to the point that trying to maintain interest in any is too much work.
I'm sure I have more on my list, but right now they elude me.
You are missing:
<a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1690622/1/Dont_Panic' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1690622/1/Dont_Panic</a>
<a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1812394/1/Okay_NOW_Panic' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1812394/1/Okay_NOW_Panic</a>
<a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1811995/1/A_Sues_Story' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1811995/1/A_Sues_Story</a>
Last one is kinda meh (but good anyway)
The "Dont panic" is probably one of the best SI Fic out there
<a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1690622/1/Dont_Panic' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1690622/1/Dont_Panic</a>
<a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1812394/1/Okay_NOW_Panic' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1812394/1/Okay_NOW_Panic</a>
<a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1811995/1/A_Sues_Story' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1811995/1/A_Sues_Story</a>
Last one is kinda meh (but good anyway)
The "Dont panic" is probably one of the best SI Fic out there
I'm kinda surprised no one has mentioned warai kitsune's <a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2329135/1/Chronicles_of_Murphy_Book_1' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Chronicles of Murphy</a>. It's one of the first SI's I ran across. It was a pretty decent Record of Lodoss War fic. I say was because it hasn't been updated in over 3 years.
I started reading when he writing "actively" when he was around chapter 12 or 13. I still have it in my bookmarks... watching... waiting.
I like the story because the SI actually went against the "canon" events as much as possible. He gets rewarded for doing so. When he tries to "go with flow", he gets punished. That's what I took from the story anyway. Too many SI's just stick to canon and don't even really affect the storyline.
But enough ranting, this isn't the rant section.
~TheEcchiSessha
I started reading when he writing "actively" when he was around chapter 12 or 13. I still have it in my bookmarks... watching... waiting.
I like the story because the SI actually went against the "canon" events as much as possible. He gets rewarded for doing so. When he tries to "go with flow", he gets punished. That's what I took from the story anyway. Too many SI's just stick to canon and don't even really affect the storyline.
But enough ranting, this isn't the rant section.
~TheEcchiSessha
<a href='http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SelfInsertFic' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>I'm sure there're a few decent ones on here too</a> if you're willing to go wading and read the descriptions to get a feel for things.
Also...3K wouldn't be interested in a Largo killing railcannon, would they? Guaranteed to work... (And tested successfully).
Also...3K wouldn't be interested in a Largo killing railcannon, would they? Guaranteed to work... (And tested successfully).