I understand self inserting when it's a completely new story but self inserting when you have a cast of amazing characters that fit every role you're trying to shove the y/n into is so sad.

pictured: the ghost of Peter Lorre dictating my next work of fiction

Peter: "yeees, you should start those three different stories all at the same time. It won't be at all difficult! You can trust me." me: yessir. I just need another year or several. :3

Somewhat off topic but there's something I have wanted to say about writing and my own opinions of modern storytelling for a while, but I realize it's going to be a whole load of irrelevant waste for most, so behind a cut it goes:

I realize that I write for a pretty niche audience, namely, the Peter Lorre megafan community (hi there, all ten or twelve of y'all 😉). But in doing so, I'm not only trying to create worlds and stories well-suited to our boy's talent, even so many years after his death. I'm also attempting to keep a tradition of older storytelling alive.

What do I mean by this? Mostly it's my own irritation at almost all visual media (at least American media; I can't speak to everything in this world) made in the last 15-20 years or so, which seems designed to stifle anything that might be the least bit interesting or fresh. Or even the fact that "normal" dramas and slice-of-life stories that were commonplace in film as recently as 30 years ago, would never in a thousand years be considered for production today. And what is it replaced with? A lot of sloppy, unfocused, really bloated franchises that go nowhere and say even less in two and a half hours (??!!) than most older films and TV could convey in the average 30-60 minutes. You cannot tell me with a straight face that the kids today find older movies too "boring" or "unappealing" when absolute fuckall is happening in whatever bland shit is currently overstaying its welcome.

And maybe t'was ever thus, and mass entertainment has always been stupid, and niche voices from the past always fade into obscurity. But the loss of gold-standard, very tried and tested methods of storytelling on a really fundamental level feels especially keen to me now. It really does feel like so many screenwriters have thrown all history of good writing out the window in favor of... I dunno, the random STUFF ping-ponging around in their heads without rhyme or reason or motivation or setup, or an endless parade of unfunny jokes, or a lack of compelling characters, or a general lack of anything that made me care about writing in the first place. I first ran into this problem as a college student in a very disappointing creative writing course almost 20 years ago, and it hasn't gotten any better since.

I am not a professional. I am not here to write what is profitable. But I am highly influenced by the storytelling techniques of the past, which is why I have gotten more than one cherished comment from readers telling me that my stories "feel like movies." That is deliberate. I always said that I am a thief; I steal from many sources. At the end of the day, I am here to write the stories I want to read, as strange and niche as they may be, and share them for free with anyone who cares to remember when strong writing and well-crafted stories really meant something. I can only hope I live up to that legacy in a day and age I cannot keep up with, in my own small and extremely insignificant way.