Advice for book writing.

[Benny The Miraj]

That's the thing, though. As a mascot, they represent you. By placing them in your graphic novel, you are placing a representation of yourself in the game. Self-insertion.

Honestly, I almost feel like Benny's the opposite of me at times. He's calm, optimistic, friendly, and tries to be nice even when a person is being an ass, often times going to the point of being passive and overly forgiving, where I feel I can be a pessimistic rageaholic at times who has a hard time opening up to people and doesn't hesitate to lash out if I feel people are going out of bounds. ...That's how I feel at times, anyway, but I can be pretty nice when I want to be.

...But then again, I suppose a polar opposite can still be a self-insert, now that I think about it.

I feel like everytime someone brings up some critism you try to justify it by using lore from the story, I'm sorry to say. This makes the discussion very assymmetrical in the sense that we raise these points without having that information. Rather than trying to justify it by using lore, try to take notes of what some people are saying and use it to improve your story.

My first point of advice is to flesh out Benny as a character, since you want the story to revolve around him. From the bits of information you've given us so far he sounds like a really flat Friend to All Living Thing Mary Stue kind of character. Give him some flaws, make him a bit bitter about his excistance as a hobo or so. Put him in situations or have him meet characters that he's not comfortable with (quoting the Pixar storytelling philoshopy; "Characters become interesting and develop when they are put into situations they don't like").

Sorry if it's coming off that way. Actually, I'm trying to take your advice to heart. In fact, with the advice given in this topic, I going to be making a LOT of changes to this book. It's hard for me to defend "lore" when it's a bit on the nonsensical side. I wasn't trying to justify any sort of lore when I said Benny wasn't a self insert, I was just kind of asking what in particular made him a self insert.

Yeah, another big concern I have with Benny is "is he too nice." I've been trying to avoid going too far with it, and even tried to use it as a flaw, like how he's often times passive around danger, which causes poor judgement. The "being bitter about being a hobo" actually would make sense, so there's something I could add to his character too. He could also be the kind of character that tends to fixate on bad situations.