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

[nikojen.livejournal.com]

From musicals, another good one is Into the Woods with the narrator being dragged into the action at one point gb or fnpevsvprq gb n tvnag... ohg yrnivat gur punenpgref gb erterg univat bss'q uvz jura gurl ernyvmr gurl qba'g xabj jung gurl'er fhccbfrq gb qb arkg. There's also the implication at the end that the narrator himself is the Baker's son, passing on the stories that his father told him...

Also: I'm still one volume away from the end, but one that has really struck me is the Princess Tutu anime. On its most basic level, the setup deals with a prince and a crow who escaped from the pages of a story and the magical Princess Tutu who is helping them return. But when the story starts to play itself in the "real" world, the lines between reality and story become practically non-existent, with characters aware that they're in a story and bar punenpgre qvfpbirevat gung ur vf qrfpraqrq sebz gur bevtvany nhgube (jub vf nyfb gur aneengbe/pbzzragngbe bs gur frevrf) naq guhf unf gur cbjre gb nssrpg gur pheerag fgbel jvgu uvf bja jevgvat.

[kate_nepveu]

I'm not reading your _Princess Tutu_ spoilers because I intend to watch that.

The _Into the Woods_ one is interesting--does it work because of the nature of fairy tales, in your opinion?

[janni.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes--Into the Woods--another one that really influenced me. It's not a spoiler to say that the narrator interacts with the story through much of it. It's all about what happens after "happily ever after," and how real life is different from story.

There's also the implication at the end that the narrator himself is the Baker's son, passing on the stories that his father told him...

Do you really think so? But ... gur bgure punenpgref _xvyy_ gur aneengbe unysjnl guebhtu gur fgbel, qba'g gurl? Be nz V zvferzrzorevat?