Bittercon: Levels and Limits of Metafictionality

[kate_nepveu]

Bittercon panel number three. And dual-purpose of getting something off my to-write list!

Levels and Limits of Metafictionality

Stories about stories. When can the teller of a story successfully interact with the story, and when is it a cheat?

Examples that I think work (how they do is spoiler-protected and cut for length): Pamela Dean's Secret Country trilogy, in which kids cross into another world and it looks like their "let's pretend" game is real; the musical The Drowsy Chaperone, where a fan of a musical plays a record, imagines the production, and talks to the audience about the songs, staging, artists, and story; Katherine Blake's (Dorothy Heydt) novel The Interior Life, in which a housewife has detailed daydreams about a secondary fantasy world. What else? And is Dream of the Endless automatically disqualified?

(Don't spoil people, please: ROT13 spoilers or put them between <span style="color: #999999; background-color: #999999"> </span>.)

All spoilers are ROT13'ed, which I prefer because I'm sure no-one's styles will mess it up.

The Secret Country trilogy: hzz, rzoneenffvatyl V qba'g guvax V pna npphengryl qrfpevor gur zrpunavfz orpnhfr vg'f orra n juvyr, ohg pregnvayl gur bgure jbeyq jnf erny; gurer jnf whfg fbzr jnl gung fgbevrf sebz bhe jbeyq pebffrq bire naq unq rssrpg ba gurvef. Evtug?

The Drowsy Chaperone: gur aneengbe trgf nyy fnq ng gur raq naq cnhfrf gur erpbeq, naq gur punenpgref va gur zhfvpny pbzr bhg bs gurve sebmra cbfrf naq vapbecbengr uvz vagb gur qnapr fprar—juvpu ng svefg unq zr ivoengvat jvgu vaqvtangvba, ohg ng gur raq bs gur ahzore ur'f onpx va uvf punve, naq vg frrzrq pyrne gung ur jnf vzntvavat orvat cneg bs vg gb yvsg uvf fcvevgf, be vg jnf n zrgncube sbe gur cbjre bs fgbel gb erzbir barfrys sebz bar'f gebhoyrf; gur zhfvpny jnfa'g ernyyl gnxvat cynpr va uvf ncnegzrag.

The Interior Life: V jnf pbaivaprq gung gur ubhfrjvsr jbhyq pebff vagb gur frpbaqnel snagnfl jbeyq, naq V jnf fb vzcerffrq jura fur qvqa'g.

Comments

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

Dream would be closer to the idea that belief creates supernatural beings.

I get annoyed when stories reveal that the book the protagonist is writing is the one you're reading. It's especially hard to swallow when it then goes on the describe events after its publication and the death of the author.

Do self-fullfilling time travel stories count?

Not quite the same thing, but the webcomic Order of the Stick (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.html) is set in a D&D universe where (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html) the (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0003.html) characters (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0034.html) know (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0143.html) the (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0297.html) rules (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0340.html).

[kate_nepveu]

I get annoyed when stories reveal that the book the protagonist is writing is the one you're reading. It's especially hard to swallow when it then goes on the describe events after its publication and the death of the author.

That's--gasp--*breaking* *POV*! (One of my personal pet peeves.)

The explicit identification of the POV character with the "author" (err, as opposed to the person whose name is on the book's cover; "narrator" isn't right because that doesn't require the telling be in writing) is tricky, I think for the reason you say: it's hard to keep your reader's suspension of disbelief--"okay, now you say you're writing this down, but do you really mean that you *remember* all this in so much detail?" Whereas if it's known to be written all along, like a diary or letters, there's more reason to think that the "author" remembers, or if it's just not specified, the reader can assume a position inside the POV character's head as the story unfolds.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I think anything in first has to address those issues. Either the letters/diary thing, which I call "first headlong" meaning that the narrator doesn't know in advance how things are going to come out, and you're carried along at the same pace, or else you have to have a time and place and purpose for which the whole thing is being written. In all my published first person novels I explicitly address the issue of memory -- cheating with giving Sulien the same kind of good memory I have, and with Lucy in Farthing explicitly saying about dialogue that mostly she's just saying what she sort of remembers they said, but this next bit is word-for-word, sort of thing. In Ha'Penny and Half a Crown I have a time and place and purpose but I just let the memory thing glide.

I don't like letters and diary, I don't mind reading them, but I don't like writing them because characters change and grow as time goes by, which I'm fine with, but I don't want to have to deal with as regards narrative voice. Though now I think of it, it might be fun. But it also would be quite a hard mode for me, I think, I'd have to be very aware of that. The times I have tried it, I had problems.

The other form of first is what I call "brain dump" where it isn't being written (or recorded, like Vlad), you're being carried along inside the head of the first person voice, often in present tense.

[kate_nepveu]

I certainly am more comfortable, from my peculiar focus on POV, when those issues are addressed. I keep getting twitchy every time in _Melusine_ that Mildmay's narration appears retrospective or explicitly narrated to another person, since it seems very unlikely that the series as a whole is meant to be.

Or, maybe I'm just oversensitive. Whatever.

[snarp]

I think it definitely does seem like Mildmay's talking to someone more than Felix is, but it feels to me like he's just talking to himself. He's in what's basically an alien culture most of the time, and in general seems to be kind of an introvert, both of which would make his internal monologue much more self-conscious. If it's intentional (or if I'm not just completely imagining it), I'd say the difference in tone is a pretty effective technique for conveying Mildmay's level of social isolation as contrasted with Felix's.

[kate_nepveu]

I flagged one comment especially in my re-read: "I'd lost the rest of it somehow--I can't even tell *you* how anymore." (emphasis added)

But overall I like your interpretation of the self-consciousness of it. Thank you, that's helpful for my thinking about it.