12 KiB
[Challenge Companion] Metafiction
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Author: u/alexanderwales Time flies like an arrow*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/6udiz8/challenge_companion_metafiction/
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Score: 8
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Created: 2017-08-17T22:19:56
Post:
tl;dr: This is the companion thread to the biweekly challenge, post recommendations, discussions, chit-chat, or ideas below.
I think metafiction borders on being an overly broad prompt, and certainly encompasses a wide range of ideas and techniques, including some that we've done before.
Generally speaking, I think of metafiction as existing on a sliding scale from 0 to 10, where 1 is "people within the work have read other works like it and are culturally aware" and 10 is "people within the work are fully aware that they are fictional characters and the internal reality of the work becomes unglued".
So I like it when people in zombie movies have actually heard about zombies, or when someone in a vampire book goes to Google to read up on vampire myths, or the protagonist speaking at the fourth wall for a bit, but (for me) there comes a point when you can break out of the work too hard and get nonsensical prose that's unsatisfying on any literary level.
But that's me, and my vote for the challenge counts just as much as anyone else's. I'd be interested in hearing where people place their limits on metafiction, or some examples from the extreme end where things have been done right.
Comments:
u/trekie140 [+5] (17 hours later)
Westworld has inspired me to look at this idea from a different angle. I'm picturing a world where people pay for a virtual reality experience curated as they play. It'd be kind of like hiring Dungeon Masters to build the setting and story for the players to escape into. Everyone knows it's fiction, but roleplay because it's escapist fun and are willing to pay for it.
Another odd idea I have is to combine Let's Plays with Pro-Wrestling. The pro-gamers create fictional personas for their streams and use their commentary to add a narrative to their gameplay. Pro-gamers will meet in multiplayer and perform together to entertain their audience. It's all obviously fake, of course, but people like the vicarious fantasy.
I like to imagine that both of these exist in a transhumanist future setting like Eclipse Phase where people can easily upload themselves into simulations and record full-sensory experiences. I can see them as the logical next step from theme parks and reality tv, people just want to step into fictional worlds to help them deal with the real world. I can see interesting metafiction coming out of these concepts.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+2] Fruit flies like a banana (a day later)
Westworld has inspired me to look at this idea from a different angle. I'm picturing a world where people pay for a virtual reality experience curated as they play. It'd be kind of like hiring Dungeon Masters to build the setting and story for the players to escape into. Everyone knows it's fiction, but roleplay because it's escapist fun and are willing to pay for it.
I think that's an interesting idea, but you then have to weave some kind of meta-narrative into it. The player knows that things are fake and created by the DM, so you have to have an A-story (which is the actual plot of the game) and the B-story (which is a level up and about the player and (possibly) the DM). I am kind-of, sort-of, writing/publishing a similar thing right now.
Also, my entry for the Sherlock Holmes challenge, A Holmes Away From Home is right in that wheelhouse.
u/trekie140 [+3] (a day later)
I originally conceived of it as a premise for an RPG campaign, but I can see it making for a good workplace drama. The job they do is an important part of the plot, maybe following a similar formula to procedural shows, but the character relationships and development are what keep people invested.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+1] Champion of Justice and Reason (6 days later)
You do realize that is a gigantic spoiler for the story you linked right?
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+2] Fruit flies like a banana (6 days later)
The Holmes one? That's sort of unavoidable, given that I either spoil the conceit or risk having people wander in without having seen the thing it references. The story is also tagged in such a way as to spoil it. It's one of the reasons that I'm not terribly happy with it, but I don't really see the way around it.
Edit: If you maybe meant Worth the Candle, I don't think it's a spoiler to say that there's an A-plot and B-plot, the first of which is interacting with the world as it presents itself and the second, up a level, in trying to figure out the mystery of that reality. I'd hope that's obvious by the end of the second chapter, if maybe not the first. (Plus also a background C-plot of Juniper's past, told in a disjointed style, which starts showing up at the start of chapter 4 or maybe a bit before.)
u/Grand_Strategy [+5] (11 hours later)
One example of strong meta fiction that is done really well from comic world is of course Deadpool. Character is fully aware he is in graphical novel. He often talks about it to other characters, who are not aware they are in the comic and creates a lot of comical situations or times where others think he is just crazy.
Deadpool is so aware of the comic reality that he even knows what fonts and ways his thoughts are represented. He speaks to others as if they should also be aware of the reality. I can't find a link right now but for instance Deadpool meets Wolverine and says something like "Logan I haven't seen you since 'X-man issue 62' how have you been?"
On the lesser spectrum there is Spiderman who often has a monologue addressed to the viewer. He is aware of viewer existence but is not aware of whole extend of comic reality. For instance he will refer to yesterday as "yesterday" not as "previews issue of the comic" and he is doesn't know how his thoughts and speech are represented (or at least never suggested otherwise) to the viewer he just know viewer is there.
Then in tv series we have little injections of metafiction. For example in series Supernatural there is good episode where main character stumble into Supernatural fanfic convention. In story one of angels records progress of Sam and Dean and publishes those as books as a "New New Testament". Based on those books whole culture of fan fiction was created in the show itself that is exactly the same as fan fiction of actual movies in real world. It's nice gesture towards the fans I think and good way to introduce meta fiction element to the series without characters being brutally aware that someone is watching them.
Other cool example of metafiction in move is Last Action Hero where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays character who travels from "move" to "real world". He then tries to act like he does in a movies and is shocked to discover things don't work that way. For instance he tries to take out bad guy by punching through closed window and dragging him out of a car and instead glass cuts his whole hand and he starts bleeding quite badly.
Usual problem with meta fiction is that it's very easy to overdo it and just came out forced. If you go that route you need to ride it all the way like Deadpool does and just embrace it.
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u/None [+3] (10 hours later)
Regarding your question, I think Stephen King's The Dark Tower might be an interesting example. General discussion of the Dark Tower, no specific plot spoilers
To me, the most interesting part of a rational metafiction, in particular, is the question of how the metafictional aspects of the setting are discovered. Of course, there's the simple answer that if reality is observed to follow trope logic instead of whatever system was assumed to be true, the metafictional explanation is more reasonable. Still, I can't seem to write that in a way that convinces myself. In my three submissions, I've glossed over the discovery in one, not mentioned it in another, and implemented it magically in the third. I'm currently trying to write a fourth one with a more serious approach to that process of discovery, but everything I try seems like irrationalfiction. (I'd be interested in reading recommendations in which that problem is solved in a satisfactory manner, especially short ones.)
With that problem solved, other questions become relevant. If you know that you are in a story, what do you accomplish with that fact? As soon as you identify a trope, the author, who has access to your stream of thought, will most likely have written that thought into the story. Therefore, he might now subvert it, and you can't actually make any reliable predictions anymore. While a battle between the character and the author might be an interesting concept, even assuming free will, the character is massively outclassed. He would have to twist every situation in such a way that the only narratively satisfying outcome is one in which he wins. An attempted justification of such a scenario is what I tried with "Applied Cultural Topology", but of course, I as the author was cooperating in that story.
Completely separate from that is the problem of xenofiction. Even if you are in a story, the story's author is not necessarily a human. All the conventions you know of might be insufficient to describe the twists and turns your story will take. Even if you assume a human author, the culture within a story is less intricate and many-facetted than the culture outside the story, because worldbuilding resources are limited. Most likely, the author will see tropes in a different view than you, because he has a broader cultural context.
Just some doubts I have, I guess. I like metafiction, but rational metafiction seems particularly hard to write.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+2] Finally, everyone was working together. (a day later)
I actually do have a rational metafiction in my drafts folder. A conflict between a character and an author works as well as any story with defined stakes and objectives. The most important part is to establish "fic physics" that the reader can rely on to prevent the story from becoming unintelligible. In that world, Language Composition is as big and powerful as the petroleum industry of ours, and Hollywood is like a military industrial complex.
And even without free will you can still beat omnipotent/omnisciencent opponents if you can get things like truly random number generators or subconscious patterns in the prose.