I’ve mentioned before how twitchy I get while seeing the dreaded ‘Original Character’ tag in fanfiction. (While I have read killer examples, they are rare.) Too often that tag is a warning sign for Mary Sue Alerts, and all the bad writing those seem to include.
Well, I’ve found a category of even scarier story tags on my current favorite fan sites: a fresh batch of reader-insert stories, which generally seem to be from very new authors.
I understand the temptation for new authors. We *all* put pieces of ourselves into our writing, be it original or fan work. Usually, we do it with the obvious clues filed off.
In twenty-four years of reading fanfiction, I think I may have seen three or four Reader-as-Character pieces that were worth going beyond the first page. And I’m generally up for most kinds of literary wanking…provided it has style.
While reader-insert stuff shows up in lots of early Trek and LotR fandom, why does it seem to be happening more often now? I blame ‘Twilight’. Bella as a character was so flat she was a perfect mirror for readers to insert themselves. The demographics of certain fan writing sites seem to skew toward younger and less-experienced writers.
I am torn between wanting fanfiction to be a safe place for new writers to explore their craft, and a crotchety fan reader who just wants good, solid stories.
There’s room for both…as long as the writers properly tag works ‘Character/Reader’, so I can just avoid the misery and skip them.