To many, "Hands" seems like just another parody or satire of Human in Equestria (HiE) stories. However, it is not and I never intended it as such. Rather, like many of my stories it is trying to do an idea commonly done badly right.

A satire, according to Wikipedia is thus: "In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon."

If you want to take Hands as constructive social criticism regarding the Brony community, you may. It's a stretch and even I don't dare go that far but you could. However, that was not my intent with Hands.

A parody, also courtesy of Wikipedia is defined as "an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialize an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation." Before writing Hands, I had never read a single HiE fic. I'd merely heard of them. Naturally you don't necessarily need to know anything about the subject you are parodying (just look at Saturday Night Live) to parody it, but in my case the motivation was very simple:

"I want to write a Human in Equestria story the way I think it should be written."

The idea in of itself is not bad. A self-insert is not bad in of itself: Indeed, the James Bond series is based extensively on Ian Fleming's own experiences as a spy during World War II. Ernest Hemmingway was a wartime journalist who put his experiences into A Farewell to Arms and other works. The point of a self-insert is to know yourself and to use your own foibles, flaws and history to create an interesting character. You start as the base.

A bad self-insert is when you start by eliminating any flaws, foibles or really anything interesting about your character and make the story all about catering to his/her wants and needs. Your characters always save the day, your character never has trouble in their relationships, your character never has any trouble save when it is to further give themselves more honor and glory. In other words, the story is a selfish expression of your own desires without the least consideration to anything other than making yourself look good.

Admittedly, there is a bit of wish fulfillment involved in Hands and indeed, any self-insert story. That's the way it goes and it's nothing to be ashamed of. The problem is when the story is all about your own wish fulfillment at the expense of the story. An interesting story is not "Your character is invincible and everypony loves him/her and nothing bad happens that cannot easily be resolved". The problems the characters face must grow organically, either from the story, their own characters or both. A person whining about his love life is not interesting. Using his whining to forward the story in some way is.

In short, it doesn't matter what idea you are writing: If you want to tell a good story, tell a good story. That is first and foremost why we are here.

i always love your insight!
its very insightful :D

I see...

Well said. Indeed.