Metafiction

[EmilyMiller]

I assume that this is relevant to the thread:

https://forum.literotica.com/thread...-meeting-your-characters-apr-17-2026.1653644/

 

[ChuckWolf]

In some of my current and future stories I do a little bit of this, referencing fictional TV shows & movies like, Jack & Jills, Tommy Future and Supernatural Sorority.

 

[Britva415]

The princess merely acknowledges credit cards do not exist. An anachronism. Nothing suggests that she is breaking character.

A princess who knows that something which doesn't exist will exist in the future or some other universe. If that isn't breaking character, then she is, what, a psychic character?

If you establish her as psychic in this way, her psychic powers must be fired by the third act.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

If you establish her as psychic in this way, her psychic powers must be fired by the third act.

Oh, come on. Her powers didn't do anything to deserve firing. Maybe a written warning.

 

[MountainLakes]

I can say "flying cars don't exist yet." or "intergalactic space travel doesn't exist yet." And in saying either or both I am not demonstrating that I am merely a character in a piece of fiction. A figment of @Britva415 's imagination.

Wait! What? I'm just a figment of @Britva415 's imagination!?!

 

[Britva415]

I can say "flying cars don't exist yet." or "intergalactic space travel doesn't exist yet." And in saying either or both I am not demonstrating that I am merely a character in a piece of fiction. A figment of @Britva415 's imagination.

Wait! What? I'm just a figment of @Britva415 's imagination!?!

But in a story there really should be a reason for saying such a thing. Reasons could be 100% in-universe, or, they could be meta reasons.

@RetroFan presented 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."

That is obviously a setting where it's really not possible to anticipate plastic, magnetic stripes and RFID cards, personal lines of credit, digital connectivity, or any of the other million modernities which would be required innovations for "a credit card" to make any sense at all.

Would your Medieval or even Renaissance princess anticipate "intergalactic space travel?" You can make her say it, but doing so makes it either a fourth wall break or a fantasy story, because in the non-fantasy version of that setting, they didn't know about, and couldn't reasonably anticipate, space travel or even galaxies in those times.

It's anachronistic if it's totally by accident. If the author is ignorant enough to not see how anachronistic it is. So if the author does it deliberately, it's either a signal that this setting is fantastical, in which case they had better follow through on that and make the anachronistic comment meaningful in the plot or else make the rest of the setting fit the same conceit, or else it's a fourth wall break for comic effect, which was what RetroFan's example was demonstrating.

Pick one of three: Either it's an ignorant anachronism that's just an author's mistake, or it's a realistic thing a realistic character could realistically say in a particular in-universe setting, or it's a self-conscious acknowledgement that "this is a fiction" on the character's part or the author's part.

In the "that hasn't been invented yet" example given, it's very very clear which of the three it is.

 

[Voboy]

Wait! What? I'm just a figment of @Britva415 's imagination!?!

Now that is meta.

 

[MountainLakes]

But in a story there really should be a reason for saying such a thing.

Stories do not have to be logical. People are not always (some will say often) logical.

Reasons could be 100% in-universe, or, they could be meta reasons.

True.

@RetroFan presented 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."

That is obviously a setting where it's really not possible to anticipate plastic, magnetic stripes and RFID cards, personal lines of credit, digital connectivity, or any of the other million modernities which would be required innovations for "a credit card" to make any sense at all.

Ah, you are caught in the "this is how it developed so this is how it must be" trap.

There were "personal lines of credit," in pre-biblical times.

And there were stores.

And stores gave credit.

Then somebody used numbers to organize the giving of credit ... all of this happened well before the Renaissance.

Then someone introduced the use of embossed plastic to speed the process.

Years later, King George VI might have said to Princess Elizabeth, "I hope you have not been overspending on your Royal credit card again." And he might have said it at a "Christmas pantomime."

Magnetic strips, RFID, digital connectivity all came later, but they were not "needed" for the credit card "to make sense."

Archimedes, Hero of Alexandria, and da Vinci came up with many a concept centuries before they could be built.