Social:Self-insertion

Short description: Literary device where the author writes themself into their fictional story

Sandro Botticelli's painting of the Adoration of the Magi has an inserted self-portrait at the far right: the position in the corner and the gaze out to the viewer are very typical of such self-portraits.

Self-insertion is a literary device in which the author writes themselves into the story under the guise of, or from the perspective of, a fictional character. The character, overtly or otherwise, behaves like, has the personality of, and may even be described as physically resembling the author of the work.

In visual art, the equivalent of self-insertion is the inserted self-portrait, where the artist includes a self-portrait in a painting of a narrative subject. This has been a common artistic device since at least the European Renaissance.

Among professional writers, the intentional, deliberate use of first-person and third-person self-insertion techniques are commonly considered to be an unoriginal action on the author's part, and represents a paucity of creative thought in his writing.

Literary forms

Similar literary devices include the author doubling as the first-person narrator, or writing an author surrogate in the third-person, or adding in a character who is partially based on the author, whether the author included it intentionally or not. Many characters have been described as unintentional self-insertions, implying that their author is unconsciously using them as an author surrogate.

Self-insertion can also be employed in a second-person narrative, utilizing the imagination of the reader and his suspension of disbelief. The reader, referred to in the second person, is depicted as interacting with another character, with the intent to encourage the reader's immersion and psychological projection of himself into the story, imaging that he, himself, is performing the written story. While examples in published fiction of second-person self-insertion are rare, the use of such is common in fan fiction, in which the reader is paired with a fictional character, often in an intimate setting.

Examples

• Money by Martin Amis
• The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
• The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
• Stan Lee is depicted as himself in different Marvel comic books and movies.
• Clive Cussler, author of Dirk Pitt novels, has inserted himself as a deus ex machina character in several of his books.
• In Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais, Rabelais takes over the narration of the story and personally describes the enlarged tongue of one of the protagonists as if he was physically in the story.
• William Blake is said to depict himself in the novel Milton: A Poem in Two Books.
• The Divine Comedy including Inferno, by Dante Alighieri, feature the poet Dante himself as a character, visiting Heaven and Hell, where he meets people he does not like being punished, and his friends and famous historical heroes having eternal rest.
• Randolph Carter adds himself as a character in several spin offs of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.
• In the Rush Revere series of books, authored by Rush Limbaugh, Limbaugh uses himself as the narrator, who is exploring various American historical settings and concepts and explaining them to readers.
• In the Twilight novel series by Stephenie Meyer, Bella Swan is argued to either be Meyer herself or a blank slate on which the reader is expected to project.
• Rayford Steele and Buck Williams make cameos as themselves in the Left Behind novel series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.
• The title character of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is accused of being a self-insertion.
• I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak.
• Andrew Hussie used himself as the protagonist of his visual novel, Homestuck.
• JPod by Douglas Coupland is said to employ the author as a character.
• A character in The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah, by Stephen King, is thought to be directly based on King himself.
• Handbook for Mortals by Lani Sarem
• A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
• The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq
• Frank Owen in The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
• Robert Langdon in the Robert Langdon book series by Dan Brown
• John Barth in the Dunyazadiad segment of John Barth's novel Chimera.
• Rohan Kishibe in Diamond Is Unbreakable by Hirohiko Araki
• Louis, a student enrolled in Wayside School, is based on author Louis Sachar.
• Rudyard Kipling writes himself a cameo in The Man Who Would Be King.
• The Thin Clergyman in The Railway Series, written by Reverend Wilbert Awdry, is said to be based on the author himself.
• In one of the most infamous examples of a self-insertion in twenty-first century popular media, Mindy Kaling was accused of using self-insertion in her roles, with her interpretation of Velma Dinkley, a protagonist from the Scooby Doo franchise, being universally panned as a blatant manifestation of Kaling, in both mannerisms and appearance.

See also

• Cameo appearance
• Self-parody
• Self-reference
• Mary Sue