"I decided. The main character is going to be a samurai."
— Chihaya Ikaruga, Samurai Harem: Asu no Yoichi
Sometimes, when main characters are writers/animators/mangaka/directors, they write/film/draw a story including the main characters from the actual story. Though this is not a common thing, it's still worth the mention.
Compare I Should Write a Book About This.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In the epilogue of Eyeshield 21, Karin becomes a mangaka, and her editor asks her to use her experience in American Football to write a manga about the sport, with the legendary runningback Eyeshield 21 as the main character.
- The epilogue of Golden Kamuy reveals that one of the cast members moved to the United States and made a Hollywood movie based on the events of the manga, with the caveat that the protagonists were looking for Native American gold in the US instead of Ainu gold in Hokkaido. The film bombed hard, but it was at least appreciated as a cult classic decades later.
- Episode 4's after-credits scene from The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated! sees Jahy and Druj working on the The Great Jahy manga, with the landlady as the editor riding herd on them to get the manuscript before deadline.
- The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue of Jaco the Galactic Patrolman reveals that Tights went on to become a sci-fi novelist, with one of her novels being based on the events of the manga. Said book was a total flop.
- Rohan Kishibe from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4 can turn people into books with their thoughts and experiences written on them. He uses his power on Koichi, the First-Person Peripheral Narrator, and gets fascinated with him, which gives him the idea to draw a "manga about the story of a stand user" based on Koichi's experiences. He's stopped, since doing that would imply Koichi's death.
- At the end of Re:CREATORS, Meteora writes down the events and submits it to a Dengeki Bunko novel contest.
- Haruka from Rumbling Hearts desperately wanted an picture book about saying goodbye. This is exactly what she does later.
- As mentioned above, Chihaya's manga is about a samurai. This samurai is surrounded by four girls. Incidentally, Samurai Harem: Asu no Yoichi is also about a samurai surrounded by four girls.
- In Sgt. Frog, Aki uses Keroro and his friends as the inspiration for her latest manga series.
- Toujou from Strawberry 100% writes fantasy novels. At one point, the main character has to choose among some girls. Just as Manaka has to choose. Also, the films they make together differ very little from reality.
- True Tears' main character, Shin'ichiro, is drawing a story about a rooster that tries to fly. This 'flying' aspect is actually the point of the entire anime.
- After Yamada and Shiraishi grow up and marry, one of them (it's not specified who) writes the events of Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches into a picture book.
Film
- In The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Evy had written a novel based on her adventures on the previous movies.
- Near the end of Romancing the Stone, it's revealed Joan's latest romance novel was based on the events of the film, albeit she included a happy ending before she actually got one.
- Son of the Mask ends with the main character, who's been trying to get his break into the animation industry, pitching a series about a dog and baby competing for a father's attention, which pretty much sums up the plot.
- Both the main characters from Throw Momma from the Train do this at the end after the plot is resolved. Billy Crystal's character (the one who is an actual author) is outraged that his former student, played by Danny DeVito, may have beaten him to market with the same story and seems to consider actually murdering the man out of anger; but DeVito's work turns out to be a children's book with a family-friendly ending, and they end up happy for each other and successful.
- In the Novelization of Turning Red, Mei and her friends write a collaborative Self-Insert Fic.
Literature
- Remember Me 2 features the first Remember Me, presented as a story having been written by the resurrected Shari Cooper.
Live Action TV
- The titular character of Bones writes novels about her life as a criminal anthropologist. This is actually Truth in Television - the show is loosely based on the life of Real Life forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, who wrote a series of novels based on her life and career.
- Gilmore Girls A Year In The Life ends with Rory writing a memoir about her childhood with Lorelai, entitled "The Gilmore Girls." Lorelai encourages her to drop the "the" so it sounds cleaner.
- In NCIS, McGee has a successful book series that may be the least well-veiled example in history, with "characters" sharing all but one letter of their names with their real-world counterparts. One character's name doesn't even get that much, being changed from Jimmy Palmer to Pimmy Jalmer.
- In Queer as Folk (US), Michael and Justin write and illustrate their own comic book, Rage, which features Brian as the lead character and tells stories right out of the characters' own lives.
- Seinfeld. The Show Within the Show is about incidents surrounding the main characters' lives. (I.E: yeah, it's about nothing.)
- In Supernatural, a character is chosen to become a prophet of God, and begins having dreams chronicling the adventures of the lead characters. (Basically, he's seeing what the show's audience is seeing.) Not knowing that his visions are true, he proceeds to write them down as books and publish them under a pen name. Needless to say, he's a bit shocked when he finds out the truth, and is flung headlong into his own world filled with demons and monsters. Of course, it is later implied that said character is actually God.
Video Games
- This is the framing device of Dragon Age II - Varric has written a book, The Tale of the Champion, about the exploits of his best friend Hawke. Hawke is on the run from the Chantry, and since he clearly knows everything about Hawke, they figure Varric's the guy to ask about it all. The game unfolds as Varric explains the details of his book to Cassandra Pentaghast.
- Happens again in Dragon Age: Inquisition, during which other characters ask him if he's going to write a book about the Inquisition. He demurs, saying they're not interesting enough; however, by the end of the main campaign, he changes his mind and says he'll call it All This Shit Is Weird: The Inquisitor [Surname] Story. He completes it by the end of the Trespasser DLC, which is set a couple years later, and the player is treated to Cassandra reading excerpts out loud over the end credits, complete with terrible impressions of her friends.
- Gabriel Knight adapts his own supernatural cases into books starring his Author Avatar, Blake Backlash. This only really comes up in The Beast Within, which has Gabriel's book The Voodoo Murders recounting the original game's events.
- At one point in Terranigma you meet a game designer who works at Quintet, who says that he'll make a game with the main character as the hero.
Web Original
- Paradise seems to be just this in itself, though special mention goes to Iris and Gabriel who wrote Perspectives' events from a quarantined Silver City.
Web Comics
- In Kill Six Billion Demons, Cio is caught writing... Fan Fiction of reality?... where she ships herself with the comic's protagonist Allison.
- The Word Weary is written by John Kossler and features a protagonist named John Kossler writing a comic about his life.
