You Are Reading an Essay: How Metafiction Can Alienate Readers by Adam Callaway

The birth was messy. Sweat, blood, tears, and cerebrospinal fluid slicked the white tile. Dirty forceps, scalpels, and fountain pens were strewn haphazardly. In a pail of ink, a half-formed idea wailed. The thought-doctors could only guess if it would make it.
–From Skull Born, the very first (and thankfully unpublished) Lacuna story

Metafiction, at its most basic, is fiction about fiction. This can take a variety of forms. Everything from John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse to Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s Shadow of the Wind, can be considered metafiction.

Stories about storytelling have always interested me. An early influence on my writing were Walter Moers’ Zamonia books, specifically The City of Dreaming Books. In it, he imagined a decadent, surreal wonderland of writers, publishers, and booklovers. Books and stories literally came alive and posed serious dangers to the citizens of Bookholm.

The first Lacuna story was more-or-less Bookholmian fan fiction as seen through the eyes of China Mieville. It was very metafictional, with book ideas being torn from the skulls of writers in a bizarre send-off of a birthing ritual. These idea-babies were fed books, poems, emotions; anything to make them more robust. Literary devices manifested as physical deformities on the idea-husk. They would develop into golemic mandrake roots of pulp and story. Once they became large enough, the authors would consume the idea, go into a trance-like state, and write an entire manuscript in one sitting.

Making aspects of “story” into tangible reality is not only hard to write but hard to visualize.

It’s all very confusing and convoluted. Making aspects of “story” into tangible reality is not only hard to write but hard to visualize.

Needless to say, it was never published. Besides all the metafiction, it clocked in at 12,000 words, and contained some truly cliché plot points.

Even though the story was bad, the editors I sent it to expressed interest in the idea of a city based around publishing (again: Bookholm fan fiction). However, they all had one thing to say about Lacuna: tone down the metafiction.

It took me months to figure out why they wanted me to tone down the metafiction. I mean: without metafiction, Lacuna dies. How could they be interested in Lacuna but not in metafiction?

Metafiction alienates readers, and forces the reader to confront the fact that they are engaged in the act of reading.

Here’s the thing I learned about the type of metafiction I was pursuing: it’s distracting. This is okay for a postmodernist work. Postmodernism demands a certain amount of metafiction to draw attention to the fact that what you are reading is a work of fiction. This is the last thing you want in a secondary world fantasy.

Fantasy is all about suspension about disbelief. It becomes difficult to suspend your disbelief when you are being bombarded with magical dangling modifiers, edible split infinitives, and animated motifs. No matter how good your imagination is, the lack of verisimilitude makes the story challenging to read.

Metafiction makes you feel like the story is an external construction. The narrator seems distant, as if they’re reading the story to you over the telephone. It’s hard to internalize the setting or characters, making it difficult to enjoy the work.

More than anything, metafiction alienates readers. It’s not commonly used, and for good reason. Not only does it take a master author to write it successfully, but it also forces the reader to confront the fact that they are engaged in the act of reading. They cannot place themselves into the work at any point. Even if the characters are sympathetic, a reader is not going to want to empathize with them for fear that a creature built of interrobangs will step off of the page and say, “This is not a punctuation mark.”

I striped away all references to writing, editing, publishing, et cetera. What was I left with? A city of blue class laborers making paper. Like any fantasy author, I took that little nugget — that little bit of reality — and exaggerated it.

As the months wore on and I discovered these things about metafiction, I felt like Lacuna needed to change too. It was too similar to Bookholm. I striped away all references to writing, editing, publishing, et cetera. What was I left with? A city of blue class laborers making paper. Like any fantasy author, I took that little nugget — that little bit of reality — and exaggerated it. I folded Lacuna into a paper city. Paper-making took on a transgressive, dark light with the creation of termite powered production lines and caustic pools of bleach. The simple and mundane became the dangerous and extraordinary.

I was so much happier with Lacuna 2.0. The stories started to flow with ease, spawning characters that appeared in multiple works, and themes that begged to be explored.

I sent these new stories out, and you know what? One got published. And then another. And then another. The stories were reviewed, reprinted, and shortlisted for awards.

I translated my ideas into a “readers metafiction” where paper and ink hold as much magic as wands and amulets.

Because I took the advice of editors, I made a thinly veiled fan fiction into something of my own mind; something I could be proud of. Instead of pursuing stories that typified “writers metafiction” where grammar was anthropomorphized, I translated my ideas into a “readers metafiction” where paper and ink hold as much magic as wands and amulets.

That’s where the distinction between metafiction lies for me: will this appeal to those who write or those who read? Metafiction can be brilliant, but it has to be accessible. Not everyone who reads is a writer, but everyone who writes is a reader.

Written by Adam Callaway

Adam Callaway

Adam Callaway's stories have appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Flurb, and The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror. You can find him on Twitter @adamcallaways, or via his website at http://www.adamcallaways.com.

http://www.adamcallaway.net/

Discussion
  • Paul Weimer (@princejvstin) April 15, 2013 at 8:25 am

    Thanks, Adam

    Metafiction is a very tricky high wire act, unless its in tiny doses (sort of like saffron, that way). Jasper Fforde and Borges are the only writers that immediately come to mind for me where I enjoyed large scale metafictional elements.

  • neth April 15, 2013 at 8:34 am

    Interesting article, though I would liked to have seen more.

    I disagree that postmodernism and second world fantasy don’t mix. It can, it’s just not easily done. Mostly because not very much second world fantasy is ‘modernist’ enough for there to be post-modern reaction. But a couple authors have done some pretty great stuff with it. Steven Erikson comes to mind, though it’s more evident in his novellas than his series (but does make up a huge underlying concept of his series). Jeff VanderMeer is another who comes to mind with some of his stuff in Ambergris.

    I also think that the current fad of grimdark, gritty (or whatever you want to call it) second world fantasy will make for some interesting post-modern and even metaphysical explorations. They may not end up as best sellers, but they’re books I’d want to read.

  • Paul Weimer (@princejvstin) April 15, 2013 at 8:39 am

    Completely blanked on Vandermeer. Yeah, there are useful metafictional elements in Ambergris, although some works of his are more metafictional than others. Sometimes its just a flavor rather than a main ingredient…

  • Doug M. April 15, 2013 at 9:47 am

    Jasper Fforde was already mentioned, which goes right along with the point I wanted to make: comedy may be an exception to the “rule.”

    Also, as to it even being a “rule”, I think it’s pretty clear that you’re talking in terms of averages. Reaching the largest audience possible might indeed be more difficult with meta-fiction involved, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be done (nor does it mean there are no readers capable of loving it).

    Clearly there’s nothing inherently wrong with meta-fiction. I enjoy it as a reader, and I’m almost positive I’m not the only one. Not all readers (even readers of secondary-world fantasy) are immersion-type readers. So the total suspension of disbelief is not a universal requirement for the enjoyment of a fictional narrative, believe it or not. I’m always aware that I’m reading–always have been. It doesn’t take away from my ability to enjoy all types of fiction (secondary-world fantasy included).

    So I guess it all depends on what your goals, are as a writer, as to whether or not meta-fiction should play a large role in your writing. But I think it’s mistake to assume it flat-out “puts readers off their feed.” There are no absolutes here.

    Love your work, by the way. Always look forward to your stories in BCS.

  • Carl Duzett April 16, 2013 at 8:13 am

    I tend to hate meta-anythings — musicals about musicals, news stories about journalists, et cetera. But has anybody here read “The Emperor of Mars”, the story that won a Hugo two years ago? That was quite meta and also, I thought, very powerful.

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  • Charles Gutierrez April 18, 2013 at 9:02 am

    I think Thomas Ligotti is worth mentioning, since a significant fraction of his works involve metafictional elements. I’m thinking in particular of Nethescurial–which manages to be both deeply metafictional and disturbing–but it’s a theme that becomes more prominent later in his career.

  • […] La metafiction aliène le lecteur qui se voit déranré en plein milieu de son divertissement qu’il voulait le moins compliqué possible. Son cerveau est même dans son cooler avec trois quatre bouteilles de Coors. […]