Self-insertion is a
literary device
A narrative technique (also, in fiction, a fictional device) is any of several storytelling methods the creator of a story uses,
thus effectively relaying information to the audience or making the story more complete, complex, or engaging. Some ...
in which the author writes themselves into the story under the guise of, or from the perspective of, a fictional
character (see
author surrogate). The character, overtly or otherwise, behaves like, has the personality of, and may even be described as physically resembling the author or reader of the work.
In
visual art
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and texti ...
, the equivalent of self-insertion is the inserted self-portrait, where the artist includes a
self-portrait
Self-portraits are Portrait painting, portraits artists make of themselves. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, the practice of self-portraiture only gaining momentum in the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century ...
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 their 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
Suspension of disbelief is the avoidance—often described as willing—of critical thinking and logic in understanding something that is unreal or impossible in reality, such as something in a work of speculative fiction, in order to believe i ...
. The reader, referred to in the second person, is depicted as interacting with another character, with the intent to encourage the reader's
immersion
Immersion may refer to:
The arts
* "Immersion", a 2012 story by Aliette de Bodard
* ''Immersion'', a French comic book series by Léo Quievreux
* ''Immersion'' (album), the third album by Australian group Pendulum
* ''Immersion'' (film), a 2021 ...
and
psychological projection
Psychological projection is a defence mechanism of alterity concerning "inside" ''content'' mistaken to be coming from the "outside" Other. It forms the basis of empathy by the projection of personal experiences to understand someone else's su ...
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
Fan fiction or fanfiction, also known as fan fic, fanfic, fic or FF, is fiction typically written in an amateur capacity by fans as a form of fan labor, unauthorized by, but based on, an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted ...
, in which the reader is paired with a fictional character, often in an intimate setting.
Examples
*''
Money
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are: m ...
'' by
Martin Amis
Sir Martin Louis Amis (25 August 1949 – 19 May 2023) was an English novelist, essayist, memoirist, screenwriter and critic. He is best known for his novels ''Money'' (1984) and '' London Fields'' (1989). He received the James Tait Black Mem ...
* ''
The Razor's Edge'' by
Somerset Maugham
* ''
Slaughterhouse-Five
''Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death'' is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut. It follows the life experiences of Billy Pilgrim, from his early years, to his ...
'' by
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut ( ; November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American author known for his Satire, satirical and darkly humorous novels. His published work includes fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfict ...
* ''
Breakfast of Champions'' by
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut ( ; November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American author known for his Satire, satirical and darkly humorous novels. His published work includes fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfict ...
* ''
The French Lieutenant's Woman
''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' is a 1969 Postmodern literature, postmodern historical fiction novel by John Fowles. The plot explores the fraught relationship of gentleman and amateur naturalist Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff, the for ...
'' by
John Fowles
John Robert Fowles (; 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others.
After leaving Oxford Uni ...
*
Stan Lee
Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber ; December 28, 1922 – November 12, 2018) was an American comic book author, writer, editor, publisher, and producer. He rose through the ranks of a family-run business called Timely Comics which later bec ...
is depicted as himself in different
Marvel
Marvel may refer to:
Business
* Marvel Entertainment, an American entertainment company
** Marvel Comics, the primary imprint of Marvel Entertainment
** Marvel Universe, a fictional shared universe
** Marvel Music, an imprint of Marvel Comics ...
comic books and
movies
A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, since ...
.
*
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
''The Five Books of the Lives and Deeds of Gargantua and Pantagruel'' (), often shortened to ''Gargantua and Pantagruel'' or the (''Five Books''), is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It tells the advent ...
'' by
François Rabelais
François Rabelais ( , ; ; born between 1483 and 1494; died 1553) was a French writer who has been called the first great French prose author. A Renaissance humanism, humanist of the French Renaissance and Greek scholars in the Renaissance, Gr ...
, 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
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...
is said to depict himself in the novel ''
Milton: A Poem in Two Books''.
* The ''
Divine Comedy
The ''Divine Comedy'' (, ) is an Italian narrative poetry, narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of ...
'' by
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...
features the poet Dante himself as a character, visiting
Hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and I ...
through
Heaven
Heaven, or the Heavens, is a common Religious cosmology, religious cosmological or supernatural place where beings such as deity, deities, angels, souls, saints, or Veneration of the dead, venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, ...
, where he meets people he does not like being punished, and his friends and famous historical heroes having eternal rest.
* In ''
Don Quixote
, the full title being ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'', is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and is of ...
'', by
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( ; ; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelist ...
, the novel ''
La Galatea'' by Cervantes himself is mentioned among the books in Don Quixote's library; then, one of the characters adds "that Cervantes has been for many years a great friend of mine."
*
Randolph Carter adds himself as a character in several spin offs of
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Born in Provi ...
's
Cthulhu Mythos The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American Horror fiction, horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, t ...
.
* In the ''
Rush Revere'' series of books, authored by
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( ; January 12, 1951 – February 17, 2021) was an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative political commentator who was the host of ''The Rush Limbaugh Show'', which first aired in 1984 and was nati ...
, Limbaugh uses himself as the narrator, who is exploring various American historical settings and concepts and explaining them to readers.
* In the ''
Twilight
Twilight is daylight illumination produced by diffuse sky radiation when the Sun is below the horizon as sunlight from the upper atmosphere is scattered in a way that illuminates both the Earth's lower atmosphere and also the Earth's surf ...
'' novel series by
Stephenie Meyer
Stephenie Meyer (; Morgan; born December 24, 1973) is an American novelist and film producer. She is best known for writing the vampire literature, vampire romance series ''Twilight (novel series), Twilight'', which has sold over 160 million ...
,
Bella Swan is argued to either be Meyer herself or a
blank slate
''Tabula rasa'' (; Latin for "blank slate") is the idea of individuals being born empty of any built-in mental content, so that all knowledge comes from later perceptions or sensory experiences. Proponents typically form the extreme "nurture" ...
on which the reader is expected to
project
A project is a type of assignment, typically involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a specific objective.
An alternative view sees a project managerially as a sequence of events: a "set of interrelated tasks to be ...
.
*
Rayford Steele and
Buck Williams make
cameos as themselves in the ''
Left Behind'' novel series by
Tim LaHaye
Timothy Francis LaHaye (April 27, 1926 – July 25, 2016) was an American Baptist evangelical Christian Minister of religion, minister who wrote more than 85 books, both non-fiction and fiction, including the ''Left Behind (series), Left Behind ...
and
Jerry B. Jenkins.
* The title character of ''
Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The firs ...
'' by
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Nicholls (; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855), commonly known as Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ), was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë family, Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novel ...
is accused of being a self-projection.
* ''
I Am the Messenger'' by
Markus Zusak.
*
Andrew Hussie used himself to recap story beats of his
webcomic
Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or ...
, ''
Homestuck''.
* ''
JPod'' by
Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland (born 30 December 1961) is a Canadian novelist, designer and visual artist. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller '' Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture'', popularized the terms Generation X and McJob. He ...
is said to employ the author as a character.
* A character in ''
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah'', by
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror novels and has also explored other genres, among them Thriller (genre), suspense, crime fiction, crime, scienc ...
, is thought to be directly based on King himself.
* ''
Handbook for Mortals'' by Lani Sarem
* ''
A Series of Unfortunate Events
''A Series of Unfortunate Events'' is a series of thirteen Children's literature, children's novels written by American author Daniel Handler under the pen name Lemony Snicket. The books follow the turbulent lives of orphaned siblings List of A ...
'' by
Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket is the pen name of American author Daniel Handler and a fictional character of his creation. Handler has published various children's books under the name, including ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'', which has sold over 60 millio ...
* ''
The Map and the Territory'' by
Michel Houellebecq
Michel Houellebecq (; born Michel Thomas on 26 February 1956) is a French author of novels, poems, and essays, as well as an occasional actor, filmmaker, and singer. His first book was a biographical essay on the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. H ...
* Frank Owen in ''
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists'' by
Robert Tressell
*
Robert Langdon in the ''
Robert Langdon'' book series by
Dan Brown
Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his Thriller (genre), thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon (book series), Robert Langdon novels ''Angels & Demons'' (2000), ''The Da Vinci Code'' (2003), '' ...
* 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
Louis Sachar ( ; born March 20, 1954) is an American young-adult mystery-comedy author. He is best known for the ''Wayside School (book series), Wayside School'' series and the novel ''Holes (novel), Holes''.
''Holes'' won the 1998 U.S. Nationa ...
.
*
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...
writes himself a cameo in ''
The Man Who Would Be King''.
* The
Thin Clergyman in ''
The Railway Series
''The Railway Series'' is a series of British books about a railway known as the North Western Railway, located on the fictional Sodor (fictional island), Island of Sodor. There are 42 books in the series, the first published in May 1945 by Wi ...
'', written by
Reverend Wilbert Awdry, is said to be based on the author himself.
* Mandy from ''I Am Not Starfire'' and Kimberely Keiko "Skim" Cameron from ''
Skim'' by
Mariko Tamaki
*
Velma Dinkley
Velma Dinkley is a fictional character in the ''Scooby-Doo'' franchise. She is usually seen wearing a baggy orange turtleneck sweater, a short red pleated skirt, knee high socks, Mary Jane shoes, and a pair of black square glasses, which she ...
from the animated television series ''
Velma'' has been cited as a self-insertion of
Mindy Kaling, due to the character's mannerisms and appearance.
* Protagonist
Jake Wheeler from ''
Chucky'' is based the experiences of franchise creator
Don Mancini as a gay teenager.
* Peter Marlowe in
James Clavell
James Clavell (born Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell; 10 October 1921 – 7 September 1994) was a British and American writer, screenwriter, director, and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. Clavell is best known for his ''Asian Saga'' nov ...
's ''
Asian Saga
The ''Asian Saga'' is a series of six novels written by James Clavell between 1962 and 1993. The novels all centre on Europeans in Asia, and together explore the impact on East and West of the meeting of these two distinct civilizations.
Over ...
''.
See also
*
Cameo appearance
A cameo appearance, also called a cameo role and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief guest appearance of a well-known person or character in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking on ...
*
Self-parody
*
Self-reference
Self-reference is a concept that involves referring to oneself or one's own attributes, characteristics, or actions. It can occur in language, logic, mathematics, philosophy, and other fields.
In natural or formal languages, self-reference ...
*
Mary Sue
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Self-Insertion
Self-portraiture
Narratology