A SI, or self-insert, fic is a fic where you put yourself in a fictional world and live out adventures there. Related terms are Friend Inserts, Isekai, and presumably there's more variations that I'm not aware of.

My question is, at what point are you writing an original character based on you instead of you as you are? Where do you, personally, put the limit between "you" and "someone based on you"?

 

The short answer is - as with pornography, you know it when you see it.

The long answer is - apply this test: can you humiliate this character if you had to, for the good of the story you are trying to tell? If not, it's a SI.

 

Unless the author gets off on humiliation. Checkmate.

 

Jim Butcher and Harry Dresden. If you want to avoid looking like an SI, just do the opposite of Butcher.

 

In a fanfiction sense, I tend to think there are two types of SIs (and obviously you can blur between them). One is literally *you* inserted into the story. Those tend to be the more wanky sort of fics in general. The other tends to use "SI" as a shorthand for 'someone from our world'.

I like writing SI fanfiction. But mine, at most, would be what Halt said. Maybe a few characteristics from me. Probably not more than any other character of any other author (since you can really only draw on your own experiences). Instead, maybe incorrectly, I use SI as a shorthand to explore an 'average person' from modern western society stuck in a fantasy realm.

 

When it's something obvious like HPMOR, otherwise I don't care. Because of this trope, however, I have to limit my writing to where I can't write any flawless characters, not that that's much of a loss. If I write a character who seems to be succeeding at most things, I usually just knock him or her down a few notches to keep people from thinking I'm self-inserting.

 

When I first started writing my book, I "based" the Protagonist on me.

Except over the years (Yes, I'm still working on the same book), he's evolved.

I'm not confident myself so I gave him confidence and I gave him a back story for having that level of conversation. Except I overshot it and it ended up looking like arrogance.

At first, I made him a genuinely nice person who makes a joke every now and then. His jokes got harsher and harsher though and he started just insulting other people and it was hard to see his "good side".

I made him smart and clever but it was hard to actually show that cleverness. Eventually, I had him blackmailing characters using information that he'd dug up.

In the end, my "SI" went from a misunderstood/framed Secret Agent to a terrorist who had done everything that he was being accused. And truth be told, I think the story is better because of it.

So in my opinion, after any amount of time, a SI will eventually stop being an SI and just turn intoaa regular OC. Either because the SI has evolved (Due to actions taken in the story or due to the author making chanhed) or because the author themselves has evolved and is no longer the person they were when they first wrote the fic.