#truly a horrific amount of semi-coherent babbling under the cut

[cannibalisticskittles]

@amphyn

fully, fully willing to be the internet's reader insert clippy in this regard if it means it's stop fuckin happening, please

@crytalstellar

there's like, a SPECIFIC way that third-person fics can work, and that's when there's a character thinking about 'you' but tbh it's damn tricky to do and i haven't seen it done very often, let alone done effectively. but first person? never. never ever.

@wasserplane

OKAY SO the thing about writing advice for reader insert stories is that the vast majority of advice falls under general writing advice. if you are a good writer, you will probably write decent-to-good reader inserts. if you are not a good writer (yet! we all start somewhere), then reader insert tips will help you write more accurate reader insert stories, but not necessarily good ones. but! that's obvious. actual tips would be.... hmm...........

this is not an exhaustive list and it's very rambly so i'm gonna put this under a cut, but --

don't feel like you have to make your reader insert character a total blank slate. it Can Be Done, but it is tricky, and personally i find it less fun! i'm sure some people prefer blank slate protagonists/reader inserts, but i think reader insert stories are best when there are (at least) some establishing details abt what 'you' DO and who 'you' ARE.

now, don't make things hyper-specific! don't talk about the color of your hair or eyes or even abt the style of your clothes, unless that serves a purpose (another character provided 'you' with a change of clothes, you're in disguise or in uniform, etc). but -- give 'you' a job! or mention the possibility of one! some friends, even if obliquely! it's great for character-building! scene-setting! plot devices! why not! you can do it in a way that's vague enough to be relatable to a bunch of people, and also not be so specific that it's offputtingly unrelatable to the rest of your readers! just maybe don't insist that 'you' work as the world's premier parakeet trainer instead of, like, working in the zoo gift shop or at a mall kiosk. or, as i most often find myself writing, at some unspecified-but-probablly-minimum-wage-job since swapping shifts was mentioned at one point.

also, remember that not everyone looks like you/a certain way! kind of obvious, right? and a lot of this is very easy to avoid. but you'd be surprised -- i've seen people write a description that mentions 'your pale skin' like 3 or 4 times in fics????? not that much, i guess, but still odd to realize the specific way an author is visualizing 'you.' and that's just in fics that i, personally, have stumbled across and read. all you gotta do to avoid that one is...... not do that. not assume all your readers have light skin. easy-peasy. (and this is kind of a dumb example, but similarly, while everyone can blush, not everyone blushes so visibly with their skin tone. 'you redden/your cheeks turn pink' may not be the most relatable way of conveying embarrassment or being flustered -- tho it's also not 100% definitely gonna be alienating -- but, like. even so. 'your face warms' and other such phrasings are options.)

other things are a touch less obvious, but still not all that hard to do, you just have to consider what may or may not be relatable to people. if a character "runs a hand through your hair" then 'you' must have hair long enough to run a hand through... and that you are willing to let someone touch like that. if 'you' duck to get through a doorway, 'you' must be pretty tall (or the doorway is particularly shirt!) and if 'you' have to climb onto something to reach an object, 'you' must be short enough to justify it.

there was a comment on a fic of mine once in regards to a scene where 'you' sat on someone's lap, and it was something like 'aw, i wish i could do that, but i'm fat, so i'd probably crush him, lol.' and that's stuck with me!! i failed that reader of mine by relying on skinny bitch privilege and that made my writing less effective and less fun for someone! jolting someone out of a scene they would otherwise enjoy is not something i wanted to do!!!

ever since that, i've really tried to consider the physicality of the actions i write -- to make sure that whatever 'you' do, it's written in such a way that it's believable for all my readers, whatever their height or weight or build might be. and you'd better fuckin believe that the next time i had 'you' sit on that character's lap, i tried to make it happen in a way that that original commenter would've been able to see themselves in.

and, like, listen. implying/maybe even outright stating that the reader insert character has hair that someone can run a hand through, or is kinda short or whatever, is not inherently bad.

you are not going to be able to create a reader insert that 100% of readers relate to 100% of the time -- at least, not for longer stories. it's easier for drabbles, lmao. but for longer stories or for a series, there will almost certainly be something that doesn't grok with someone, whether that's 'i wouldn't do that' or 'i wouldn't say that' or 'i wouldn't react like that' or any number of other points that are dissonant to someone reading. and aiming to be 100% relatable, 100% of the time is not only futile, it also tends to result in.... characters who are so firmly middle-of-the-road and blank that the stories are no fun to read.

but. as with anything else, people are willing to suspend their disbelief. give them enough things that they can relate to that if/when you slip up, they're willing to keep going anyway.

on that note, returning to the not-a-blank-slate idea, you can -- and i think you should -- give 'you' some personality!

i struggle to describe how i view this, but like......... you can justify most types of personalities. you can make it make sense. you can make it feel natural. you write the story, and if you want the reader insert character to be anxious, add moments in the story where that makes sense, where people nod along and say 'oh, yeah, for sure, i would react anxiously too if that happened.' bam! however you want the reader insert character to act, just keep weaving in justifications, scenarios that would draw out the desired behavior from a lot of people.

also maybe this is a cheat, but heaping on more personality in the narration than in the dialogue is a possibility! people are often more open in their thoughts and impulses than in the things they say! so then you can write weird shit and have people still relate!

"Oh, I'd love to chat, but I..." You readjust your bag and shuffle back a half-step, using the motion to buy yourself time to think of another excuse. "I really can't stay, sorry; my coworker needs me to cover her shift." It's not a lie, exactly. More like... two unrelated pieces of information. You really do have to go -- if you spend one more minute being ogled by some chucklefuck with no concept of personal space, you are really, truly, going to burst. And your phone has been pinging all day with frantic requests to please, please, please cover this shift, just this once, she thought she'd requested it off ages ago, honest, and the tickets were so expensive and they're nonrefundable, and you're the only one not already on the schedule, so please? He doesn't need to know that the shift isn't until Saturday.

not the best example, but you get the idea.

above all, all else, make it fun. seriously!

i got... a lot of comments about the reader insert character in my saeran fic. positive ones! really positive ones! some could relate to the reader insert, but others just liked them. thought of the reader insert as a well-developed character. does that mean i failed at writing a good reader insert? .........................well, maybe? or... maybe not? people had fun reading it and i had fun writing it, in the end. and a lot of people mentioned that the reader insert character did a lot of things they wished they could do RE: the plot or a character, so it still scratched that itch of wish fulfillment that reader inserts are designed to do, lmao. so maybe it didn't end up being The World's Most Relatable Reader Insert. but would it have been as fun for everyone if it was?

.........yknow what, maybe a lot of this is not actually the most helpful for writing reader inserts, actually. uh, if you want advice on fitting a reader insert into the world they're dropped in/among the characters they're now interacting with, or. like. any other coherent, salient writing advice, lemme know and i'll babble abt that another time but i've been rambling for an hour and i still have homework i need to do, oh my god