Authors who write themselves into the book

Cafe Society
1

The late Clive Cussler did this a lot. At first he just described the character, or gave his “CC” initials, but eventually he outright named himself. His character always came out of nowhere – a sort of * Cussler ex machinus* – and gave whoever that novel’s hero was some crucial piece of help or information he needed. Or at least a chance to rest and eat. Then he disappeared from the story as effortlessly as he entered, avoiding whatever Bad Guys were chasing the hero. One time Cussler even brought his wife in. These were pretty clearly sheer indulgence. You could cut the pisodes out altogether, finding some other way for the hero to find that particular McGuffin if need be, and the story wouldn’t be changed.

Philip Jose Farmer did almost the same thing. In two of his series he introduced characters who shared his PJF initials. In his World of Tiers series it was Paul Janus Finnegan, and in his RiverWorld series it was Peter Jairus Frigate. In The Lavalite World, part of the World of Tiers series, he implies that Finnegan is the great grandson of Phileas Fogg, the hero of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. That’s interesting, because Fogg’s initials are “PF”, as in Philip Farmer. I wonder if Farmer thought of himself as Fogg when he wrote The Other Log of Phileas Fogg. Sort of an extreme example of Mary Sue.

I couldn’t think of any more examples, but the Wikipedia page on “Author Surrogate” gives the examples of

– Steve Gerber and Chris Claremont both introducing themselves in Man Thing, saving the universe.
– Grant Morrison put himself in Animal Man as the omnipotent author.
– Gabriel Garcia Marquez – a Nobel laureate, no less! – put himself in at the end of One Hundred Years of Solitude

In fact, come to think of it, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby used to put themselves in some early issues of Fantastic Four[. I think the last time they did it was in FF Annual #3 when they got turned away from the wedding of Reed Richards and Susan Storm. Sort of a precursor to all of Stan Lee’s MCU cameos.

I’m sure Dopers can come up with other cases. I’m not looking for shout-outs to other characters or real people in worlds, or mere cameos. I’m looking for cases where the author or director placed themselves, as themselves, in their work for a short "speaking role.*

*It’s not really the same thing, but Danny deVito created a character that he could play as a confidante of Jimmy Hoffa in the movie Hoffa, that he directed. Spike Lee did the same with himself in the movie X. But in neither case was the character supposed to be the actual director

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Stephen King was a character in the latter books of the Dark Tower series (in ways that I thought worked well and made sense, but not everyone agrees).

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Philip K. Dick put himself in Valis with the pseudonym of Horselover Fat, a translation of his name (“Philip” = lover of horses in Greek, “Dick” = Fat in German). It was the main character.

John Barth included himself in Letters as one of the seven letter writers that make up the main characters in the novel. He also showed up in Chimera, a small but crucial role in “Dunyazadiad,” where he suggests a solution to the characters.

4

Isaac Asimov, Murder at the ABA (American Booksellers Association convention). One of his first books I ever read and the one that prompted me as a twelve-year-old to write to him (after finding his home address listed in Who’s Who in the school library). He is a character in the novel and the main character is modeled on Harlan Ellison.

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I mean, don’t forget Kurt Vonnegut. First one I thought of.

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Niven and Pournelle did it - under pseudonyms - in Footfall.

Heinlein did it in Number of the Beast.

Dave Sim - author of Cerebus the Aardvark - put himself in the comic as the omnipotent author who explains what he’s doing to his main character. It was weird.

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To my mind, the most interesting author cameos in comics have always been the Rutland Halloween Parade issues. Rutland is a town in Vermont, which held (and still holds, I believe) a costume parade every Halloween. In the early 70s, a lot of the participants would dress as superheroes (this being the days before superhero cosplay really became a thing, that was considered a bit unusual). Some comic writers and artists got wind of this, and started attending. In 1972, writers Steve Englehart, Gerry Conway, and Len Wein wrote themselves (and Wein’s then-wife, Glynis Wein, who was a colorist) into a storyline that ran through two Marvel and one DC book, featuring the four of them attending the parade and getting caught up in superhero shenanigans.

Other writers, including Roy Thomas in Avengers, put themselves into the Rutland Halloween Parade later, but this was the first. This blog post reprints the relevant panels.

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Ben Bova in The Starcrossed. Despite its SF trappings, it’s about the production of the failed TV series, The Starlost. Bova was a technical advisor on the show, and is the main character of the novel.

In “Flash of Two Worlds,” Gardner Fox wrote how Gardner Fox had dreams of the Flash of Earth-2, from which he based in Golden Age Flash stories.

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Edmund Morris wrote himself into a “biography” of Ronald Reagan Dutch, which had additional fictionalized parts and generally was complete mess.

Charlie Kaufman wrote himself into the screenplay for Adaptation, which tells the story of his attempt to adapt The Orchid Thief into a screenplay. It’s very meta.

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Tom Robbins was a character in Even cowgirls Get the Blues. If I remember right, he was a hapless psychiatrist who worked with the main character, had a hopeless crush on her and gave her no real help.

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Jehovah allegedly wrote himself into some old texts. Kerouac changed his and others’ names in his slightly fictive books. IMHO any poet or songwriter who speaks of “I” has inserted themself. A little searching finds the wiki entry on self-insertion with a list of examples, some of which are mentioned above:

  • The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham.
  • Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  • Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
  • The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
  • Stan Lee in different Marvel comic books and movies
  • Clive Cussler, author of Dirk Pitt novels, has inserted himself as a deus ex machina character in several of his books.
  • Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais, in the chapter “How Pantagruel with his tongue covered a whole army, and what the author saw in his mouth”
  • Milton: A Poem in Two Books by William Blake
  • The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
  • Randolph Carter in H.P. Lovecraft tales
  • The title character of the Rush Revere series by Rush Limbaugh
  • Bella Swan in the Twilight novel series by Stephenie Meyer
  • I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
  • Homestuck by Andrew Hussie
  • JPod by Douglas Coupland
  • The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah by Stephen King
  • A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
  • The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq
  • Luke Skywalker in Star Wars by George Lucas

I think a few smut authors cast themselves in their [del]lurid fantasies[/del] stories. Remember, writers are liars with keyboards.

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Herald Myste in the Valdemar books is Mercedes Lackey’s author avatar.

Lackey’s nickname is “Misty”, and she once wrote a funny short story where her characters confronted her over what she’s put them through at the end of which it was mentioned that Myste is her.

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I did not see Kinky Friedman on that list. I believe most of his mystery novels starred Kinky Friedman, who sounded a lot like the author.

I could not swear that Jimmy Buffett doesn’t appear in Jimmy Buffett novels either, but I can’t prove it. These musicians.

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He also refers to himself in. The Tommyknockers, as well. Not by name, but he refers to himself as something along the lines of “that other writer from down Derry who writes all those scary books.”

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A thinly-disguised Rudyard Kipling is the narrator and journalist in Kipling’s story, “The Man Who Would Be King,” which was originally published in the collection, The Phantom Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales.

It may not be what the OP is looking for, but Dorothy Parker often wrote poetry in the first person, and given her stormy marriages and relationships, it is hard not to believe that she was writing about herself. A sample:

By the time you swear you’re his,
Shivering and sighing.
And he vows his passion is,
Infinite, undying.
Lady make note of this –
One of you is lying.

– Dorothy Parker, “Unfortunate Coincidence.”

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Paul Auster wrote himself into City of Glass.

Woody Allen wrote himself into one of his plays, I think it was God, one of the characters phoned him from the stage and he answered with a pre-recorded message.

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Missed the edit window. To complete the bibliographical information:

Dorothy Parker, “Unfortunate Coincidence,” Enough Rope, (New York, Boni & Liveright, 1926), p. 51.

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Buffalo Bill Cody is credited as the author of some utterly fictional stories about himself. It’s unclear which, if any, of these he actually wrote.

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There were a series of pulp novels written by “Nick Carter” about the adventures of Nick Carter. Carter was a house name, used by many authors who wrote the hero.

Robert Heinlein referred to himself (as “the original hermit of Hollywood”) in the opening paragraphs of “…And He Built a Crooked House,” establishing the protagonist as living across the street from him, though it bears little relevance to the story…

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In the 1980s, at least, it was official Marvel Comics canon that Marvel Comics existed in-universe. The conceit was that our fictional super hero comics are actually “real life adventure” comics from the Marvel Universe.

Marvel characters would occasionally visit the Marvel comics offices, especially in “special” issues that weren’t quite in the normal continuity, such as annuals and “Assistant Editors Month” issues. They would interact with various writers, artists, editors, and other staff.

I’m willing to bet that the majority of long-term Marvel writers, artists, and editors appeared in at least one of their own books during the 1980s.