Metafiction

[lovecraft68]

There's a comic inside of The Watchmen.

But my favorite metafiction will probably always be Tusk Love, with honorable mention to the Lusty Argonian Maid.

Right, the pirate story the kid was reading. I haven't thought about that in years

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Right, the pirate story the kid was reading. I haven't thought about that in years

I'm not sure that's metafiction. Comics existing in the alternate history of Watchmen isn't that meta. The fact that pirate comics dominate, because superhero comics aren't fantastical enough in that world, is a very good joke by Moore, but not meta.

Now, in 1974 Cary Bates wrote an issue of Flash in which Cary Bates appears as a character, using his "plotting power" to, well, control the plot. Lots of other writers (my favorite being Grant Morrison, and then John Ostrander riffing on Morrison's story) riffed on this idea over the decades since.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'm not sure that's metafiction. Comics existing in the alternate history of Watchmen isn't that meta. The fact that pirate comics dominate, because superhero comics aren't fantastical enough in that world, is a very good joke by Moore, but not meta.

Now, in 1974 Cary Bates wrote an issue of Flash in which Cary Bates appears as a character, using his "plotting power" to, well, control the plot. Lots of other writers (my favorite being Grant Morrison, and then John Ostrander riffing on the Morrison's story) riffed on this idea over the decades since.

I was just replying to the post, I know its not the same thing.

 

[Voboy]

Just last night I wrote a long retrospective section of my WiP, in which I kept on fucking up the verb tense. I'm sure I didn't get it perfect, and I'm just as sure someone will pick up on it.

So. This morning, in that same piece, I wrote a bit of dialogue in which the main character (who talks for a living) is undone... by inadvertently forgetting to use the past tense.

 

[MountainLakes]

Just last night I wrote a long retrospective section of my WiP, in which I kept on fucking up the verb tense. I'm sure I didn't get it perfect, and I'm just as sure someone will pick up on it.

So. This morning, in that same piece, I wrote a bit of dialogue in which the main character (who talks for a living) is undone... by inadvertently forgetting to use the past tense.

The major problem with time travel is grammar, requiring a specialized handbook for navigating complex tense formations, such as describing events in your own past that you avoided by traveling forward, and navigating the complexities of conducting conversations while traveling to potentially become your own ancestor. Adams notes that many readers stop at the "Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional," leading later editions to leave subsequent pages blank. Finally, the guide notes that the term "Future Perfect" has been abandoned because it was discovered not to be. --Goodreads, review of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams (1980)

 

[TheWritingGroup]

https://comicskingdom.com/pluggers/2026-06-07

 

[RetroFan]

I don't know if I'm simply not very bright, but I'm getting more and more confused about what actually constitutes meta fiction.

The Wikipedia article mentions self-awareness of characters that they are in a work of fiction, breaking of 4th walls and narrators addressing audiences directly, but this doesn't sound completely right to me.

For example, in the Narnia novels author CSS Lewis addresses the audience directly at times, shares his opinions, mentions that the story is a book, refers to himself in the first person, but 'he' is not a character directly involved in the story, he isn't for example narrating The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as Peter Pevensie in the first person. So by this definition alone are the Narnia books examples of meta fiction? You normally wouldn't class them at such.

What about self-referential things in movies? For example say there was a new 'Batman' movie made, and in the movie we see brief scenes of a boy reading a Batman comic and of scenes from the old 1960s Batman TV series with Adam West and Burt Ward playing on a television in the background. Is this meta-fiction, or is it an Easter Egg, an inside joke or a paradox?

There's a new He-Man movie out at the moment which I haven't seen, but say there was a scene on Earth where a girl walks by Adam wearing a 'She-Ra, Princess of Power' tee-shirt from back in the 1980s. Again, is that meta-fiction, an inside joke, an Easter Egg or a paradox?

Breaking of 4th walls wouldn't normally count as meta-fiction, at least not on every occasion. As one example in 'Austin Powers - Goldmember' Dr. Evil plans to travel back to 1975 and destroy Austin Powers while he (Powers) is cryogenically frozen. Austin Powers discusses the situation with Basil Explosion, and says that he was cryogenically frozen in the late 60s and revived successfully in the late 90s, so whatever Dr Evil had planned must have failed and then brings up other time paradoxes. To this Basil advises Austin to relax and not worry about this, and then breaks the 4th wall to advise the audience not to worry about time travel paradoxes either, just sit back and enjoy the rest of the movie. This sort of scene is fitting in an Austin Powers movie but I would simply have classed it as comedy, not meta-fiction.

If someone could explain it to me and what I am not getting that would be great please.

 

[XerXesXu]

f someone could explain it to me and what I am not getting that would be great please.

Construct theory. Along with many other things, 'reality' has become discussed as a construct. 'Fiction' also constructs a reality into which the reader enters - immersion. Metafiction is a play on intermixing rival 'realities' and the persons present in them.

 

[NotWise]

If someone could explain it to me and what I am not getting that would be great please.

You can have meta elements in the story without making the story metafiction. A lot of the cases you mention are self-referential elements in stories that aren't otherwise metafiction.

I read the Wikipedia article a couple times, and I'm ready to walk away from metafiction as a concept. The article reads like some hipster type trying to make an argument that post-modern philosophy has actually made some kind of social contribution.

Use narrative techniques like telling a story in a story. Break the fourth wall, include yourself in your story. Do all of those things any time you think it's a good way to tell your story, but I don't think anything is gained by lumping a lot of unrelated writing methods under an obscure literary term.

 

[MountainLakes]

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." - Anton Ego 'Ratatouille' (2007)

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Like almost everything bigger than a subnuclear particle, there's no easy binary classification method for metafiction or not metafiction. Some meta is more meta than other meta. It's a spectrum.

 

[Britva415]

Like almost everything bigger than a subnuclear particle, there's no easy binary classification method for metafiction or not metafiction. Some meta is more meta than other meta. It's a spectrum.

It's a spectrum with only one endpoint. The "not metafiction" endpoint is well defined, but I don't think there is any piece of work out there which is "a metafiction."

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I'm willing to put stories where characters talk to their creators in that category, e. g. https://www.cbr.com/meta-messages-grant-morrison-meets-animal-man/

 

[StillStunned]

It's a spectrum with only one endpoint. The "not metafiction" endpoint is well defined, but I don't think there is any piece of work out there which is "a metafiction."

Perhaps it's safer to say "a story can contain metafiction elements", rather than trying to create an entire story that's metafiction.

 

[crookedletter]

I'm on board with meta as a spectrum; I'm a little dubious about the inclusion of frame stories as examples of metafiction. I suppose it could be argued they're referencing fiction as a general concept. But so too are any stories with writers appearing at all. Or books, for that matter.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I'm on board with meta as a spectrum; I'm a little dubious about the inclusion of frame stories as examples of metafiction. I suppose it could be argued they're referencing fiction as a general concept. But so too are any stories with writers appearing at all. Or books, for that matter.

I think any story that draws attention to the process of writing fiction has meta elements (to quote @StillStunned). If you want to call it metafiction it would be up to you. See, oh, Misery by Stephen King, which in my head is most assuredly metafiction.

 

[StillStunned]

I think any story that draws attention to the process of writing fiction has meta elements (to quote @StillStunned). If you want to call it metafiction it would be up to you. See, oh, Misery by Stephen King, which in my head is most assuredly metafiction.

The Pyrates by George Macdonald Fraser is a tribute to all the great pirate stories and moves the author grew up with. And it's explicitly told as the writer telling a completely imaginary tale, with commentary and anachronisms and admissions of everything that's implausible or downright impossible.

For example, the scene is set with a description of Restoration England, plus notes on how the reality was a far cry from the romantic view of the period, with references to entries from Samuel Pepys's and John Evelyn's diaries, "and anybody checking these entries will notice that they are in fact years apart, which will give the reader some idea of what kind of book this is."

 

[Britva415]

any story that draws attention to the process of writing fiction has meta elements (to quote @StillStunned). If you want to call it metafiction it would be up to you

If the meta elements weren't metafictional elements, what else would you call them?

*playing dumb, don't get mad*

 

[RetroFan]

You can have meta elements in the story without making the story metafiction. A lot of the cases you mention are self-referential elements in stories that aren't otherwise metafiction.

I read the Wikipedia article a couple times, and I'm ready to walk away from metafiction as a concept. The article reads like some hipster type trying to make an argument that post-modern philosophy has actually made some kind of social contribution.

Use narrative techniques like telling a story in a story. Break the fourth wall, include yourself in your story. Do all of those things any time you think it's a good way to tell your story, but I don't think anything is gained by lumping a lot of unrelated writing methods under an obscure literary term.

Thanks NotWise, I agree with this. I'd always associated the word 'Meta' with large IP's like DC and Marvel and their interconnected fictional universes. I really think things that are classified as 'Meta' like breaking the 4th wall, self referential scenes, narrators not actually involved in the action but referring to themselves in the first person, characters being aware they are fictional, Easter Eggs and paradoxes are different tropes and should be treated accordingly.

For example, if you went to a Christmas pantomime in which the character of the King admonishes the Princess by saying 'I hope you have not been overspending on your Royal credit card again' to which the daughter replies to her father 'Don't be ridiculous father, credit cards haven't been invented yet' you would hardly call it 'Meta', yet according to some it would be.

 

[CalBishForNow]

Metafiction: characters supposedly interact with the writers, the story they're in, or other real-world elements. Fiction where the fact that it's fictional is a plot point. Named for the Greek prefix meaning "more comprehensive" or "transcending" as applied to fiction. Fiction about fiction.

Breaking the Fourth Wall: characters address the reader, writer, or otherwise acknowledge that they're fictional characters. This doesn't necessarily have plot relevance, and addressing them doesn't necessarily mean interacting with them. Named for the phenomenon in stage productions when characters will mostly interact with each other and their surroundings as if they were in a real space with four walls, but sometimes will talk to empty space or explicitly to the audience as if they can see through the invisible wall between the stage and them.

They can overlap, but don't have to. A fourth wall break where characters give a soliloquy to talk about how horribly tragic their situation is doesn't qualify as metafiction if it has no connection to the plot, if it's just a way to comment on their situation. A character coming to the "real world" and meeting their "author" is metafictional but not a fourth wall break if the "real" world in the narrative is still clearly different from the real world the readers/viewers are living in. In Last Action Hero, Jack Slater meets Arnold Schwarzenegger, so it's metafictional, but the characters never turn to talk to the camera.

Discworld is often metafictional. Characters are aware that the Theory of Narrative Causality makes things happen in their world and narrativium is useful. As far as I know it never breaks the fourth wall, though. No one ever talks to Terry Pratchett or the reader. (The scene where Rincewind winds up on an airplane could have gone in that direction, as does the Roundworld stuff in The Science of Discworld, but ultimately doesn't go all the way to Discworld people meeting Terry Pratchett or seeing books with Paul Kidby's art on the cover, as far as I know. Can't be sure, didn't read the last two Science of Discworld books.)

Deadpool often breaks the fourth wall. He's aware that he's a comic book character, is aware of the color of his caption bubbles, and sometimes seems to know what they say. He's rarely metafictional, though. His conflicts are in-universe conflicts and are resolved in in-universe ways. If other characters notice his fourth wall breaks at all, they generally dismiss it as just another part of his annoying insanity.

 

[MountainLakes]

For example, if you went to a Christmas pantomime in which the character of the King admonishes the Princess by saying 'I hope you have not been overspending on your Royal credit card again' to which the daughter replies to her father 'Don't be ridiculous father, credit cards haven't been invented yet' you would hardly call it 'Meta', yet according to some it would be.

That would be anachronistic or an anachronism. An error or an artistic choice where an object, event, or custom is featured in a time period where it does not belong.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

That would be anachronistic or an anachronism. An error or an artistic choice where an object, event, or custom is featured in a time period where it does not belong.

The two sets are not disjoint. A deliberate anachronism can force the reader to think about the fact that they are reading a story someone made up.

Of course, this breaks immersion, which many of us try to create.

 

[Britva415]

if you went to a Christmas pantomime in which the character of the King admonishes the Princess by saying 'I hope you have not been overspending on your Royal credit card again' to which the daughter replies to her father 'Don't be ridiculous father, credit cards haven't been invented yet' you would hardly call it 'Meta', yet according to some it would be.

It's certainly breaking the fourth wall, which you said was meta.

Granted, it would be more meta if she said something like "this isn't an alternative-history piece where credit cards exist in 0 AD," because that has her directly referencing the fiction she's in. And it's still a fourth wall break.

 

[Britva415]

That would be anachronistic or an anachronism. An error or an artistic choice where an object, event, or custom is featured in a time period where it does not belong.

It's not just anachronism, though. It's not even just deliberate anachronism, here. It has the characters acknowledging the anachronism, and that's what's meta.

 

[MountainLakes]

To me, meta requires breaking character. Being aware that one is an actor. The princess merely acknowledges credit cards do not exist. An anachronism. Nothing suggests that she is breaking character.

Deadpool, OTOH, has to work to stay in character.