Metafiction

The art of writing fiction about writing fiction.

Yeah I know!

Wikipedia says that ‘metafiction is a form of fiction that emphasises its own narrative structure in a way that continually reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. ‘ If there’s a wikipedia page on Wikipedia, would that be classed as metafiction?

Anyway, I digress.

If we consider the tone and style of a story as an echo of the writer’s voice, some forms of metafiction go one step further and put their writer into the book. There, fully embedded, the writer-as-a-character is as free to express themselves as every other character and the distance between themselves, the story, the characters and the reader is eliminated. This closeness, particularly when used with a first-person POV, blurs the lines between the fictional author and the actual author potentially giving the audience a look ‘under the veil’.

However, I wonder if this raises questions about the true relationship with the reader and the ‘real’ author?

Are you still with me? Good. Now DON’T PANIC!

For me, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Adams, 1979) is one of my favourite works of metafiction.

In the prologue we are told that this is a book about a book.  A wholly remarkable book.  We then learn that Ford is actually an alien journalist acting as field researcher for the Guide itself (writer-as-character). Adams calls us back to the fact that it’s a book with a ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say about towels.‘ (book-as-character) and in the version I have from Pan publishers, all the book extracts are in italic so you immediately know that you have switched into book speak.  

The book itself is used as an artefact within the story interacting the the characters and references other fictional texts thus further propagating the idea of it’s own fictional authenticity which is clearly bonkers. 

As a young reader I don’t think I understood how unusual this was, as he often breaks the fourth wall without actually saying ‘Dear Reader’ but you are complicit in this adventure and, to a certain extent, the revision of the Guide.

Metafiction is, by and large, a self-conscious literary style often invoked with a sense of parody. ‘This is ludicrous’, it seems to say with knowing, comic exaggeration, ‘but at least I know it’s ludicrous too.’

So when is fiction metafiction?

Disclaimer: This is by no means a definitive or even remotely academic list

1. ‘Dear Reader’ – the writer-as-a-character eliminates the boundaries between themselves and their readers.
2. A self-conscious narrative that draws the reader’s attention away from the main story into their own private world, as if the reader is there for them alone.
3. Questioning of the main narrative’s authenticity within the book itself by characters within the book.
4. Details on how to write a story within the prose.
5. A departure from realism where the plot is used as a vehicle for a different kind of narrative.

So now what (I hear you ask)?

Metafiction is an interesting style that exposes the artifice of fiction and allows us to question the very foundations upon which we build our stories. It is self-referential and self-conscious. It unbinds us from the hero’s journey and allows us to explore all those unanswered author-y type questions about why we write what we write within the things that we write.

Is it for me? Hmmm, I wonder what the Guide says…