Metafiction

[EmilyMiller]

I assume that this is relevant to the thread:

https://forum.literotica.com/thread...-meeting-your-characters-apr-17-2026.1653644/

 

[ChuckWolf]

In some of my current and future stories I do a little bit of this, referencing fictional TV shows & movies like, Jack & Jills, Tommy Future and Supernatural Sorority.

 

[Britva415]

The princess merely acknowledges credit cards do not exist. An anachronism. Nothing suggests that she is breaking character.

A princess who knows that something which doesn't exist will exist in the future or some other universe. If that isn't breaking character, then she is, what, a psychic character?

If you establish her as psychic in this way, her psychic powers must be fired by the third act.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

If you establish her as psychic in this way, her psychic powers must be fired by the third act.

Oh, come on. Her powers didn't do anything to deserve firing. Maybe a written warning.

 

[MountainLakes]

I can say "flying cars don't exist yet." or "intergalactic space travel doesn't exist yet." And in saying either or both I am not demonstrating that I am merely a character in a piece of fiction. A figment of @Britva415 's imagination.

Wait! What? I'm just a figment of @Britva415 's imagination!?!

 

[Britva415]

I can say "flying cars don't exist yet." or "intergalactic space travel doesn't exist yet." And in saying either or both I am not demonstrating that I am merely a character in a piece of fiction. A figment of @Britva415 's imagination.

Wait! What? I'm just a figment of @Britva415 's imagination!?!

But in a story there really should be a reason for saying such a thing. Reasons could be 100% in-universe, or, they could be meta reasons.

@RetroFan presented a "Christmas pantomime in which the character of the King admonishes the Princess by saying 'I hope you have not been overspending on your Royal credit card again."

That is obviously a setting where it's really not possible to anticipate plastic, magnetic stripes and RFID cards, personal lines of credit, digital connectivity, or any of the other million modernities which would be required innovations for "a credit card" to make any sense at all.

Would your Medieval or even Renaissance princess anticipate "intergalactic space travel?" You can make her say it, but doing so makes it either a fourth wall break or a fantasy story, because in the non-fantasy version of that setting, they didn't know about, and couldn't reasonably anticipate, space travel or even galaxies in those times.

It's anachronistic if it's totally by accident. If the author is ignorant enough to not see how anachronistic it is. So if the author does it deliberately, it's either a signal that this setting is fantastical, in which case they had better follow through on that and make the anachronistic comment meaningful in the plot or else make the rest of the setting fit the same conceit, or else it's a fourth wall break for comic effect, which was what RetroFan's example was demonstrating.

Pick one of three: Either it's an ignorant anachronism that's just an author's mistake, or it's a realistic thing a realistic character could realistically say in a particular in-universe setting, or it's a self-conscious acknowledgement that "this is a fiction" on the character's part or the author's part.

In the "that hasn't been invented yet" example given, it's very very clear which of the three it is.

 

[Voboy]

Wait! What? I'm just a figment of @Britva415 's imagination!?!

Now that is meta.

 

[MountainLakes]

But in a story there really should be a reason for saying such a thing.

Stories do not have to be logical. People are not always (some will say often) logical.

Reasons could be 100% in-universe, or, they could be meta reasons.

True.

@RetroFan presented a "Christmas pantomime in which the character of the King admonishes the Princess by saying 'I hope you have not been overspending on your Royal credit card again."

That is obviously a setting where it's really not possible to anticipate plastic, magnetic stripes and RFID cards, personal lines of credit, digital connectivity, or any of the other million modernities which would be required innovations for "a credit card" to make any sense at all.

Ah, you are caught in the "this is how it developed so this is how it must be" trap.

There were "personal lines of credit," in pre-biblical times.

And there were stores.

And stores gave credit.

Then somebody used numbers to organize the giving of credit ... all of this happened well before the Renaissance.

Then someone introduced the use of embossed plastic to speed the process.

Years later, King George VI might have said to Princess Elizabeth, "I hope you have not been overspending on your Royal credit card again." And he might have said it at a "Christmas pantomime."

Magnetic strips, RFID, digital connectivity all came later, but they were not "needed" for the credit card "to make sense."

Archimedes, Hero of Alexandria, and da Vinci came up with many a concept centuries before they could be built.

 

[Britva415]

Stories do not have to be logical. People are not always (some will say often) logical.

True.

Ah, you are caught in the "this is how it developed so this is how it must be" trap.

There were "personal lines of credit," in pre-biblical times.

And there were stores.

And stores gave credit.

Then somebody used numbers to organize the giving of credit ... all of this happened well before the Renaissance.

Then someone introduced the use of embossed plastic to speed the process.

Years later, King George VI might have said to Princess Elizabeth, "I hope you have not been overspending on your Royal credit card again." And he might have said it at a "Christmas pantomime."

Magnetic strips, RFID, digital connectivity all came later, but they were not "needed" for the credit card "to make sense."

Archimedes, Hero of Alexandria, and da Vinci came up with many a concept centuries before they could be built.

I'm sorry, I was responding to your whole "nothing suggests the princess was breaking character" statement.

To go the route you're going, there really would have to be something there to suggest she wasn't.

In the example we were all given, there isn't.

 

[RetroFan]

But in a story there really should be a reason for saying such a thing. Reasons could be 100% in-universe, or, they could be meta reasons.

@RetroFan presented a "Christmas pantomime in which the character of the King admonishes the Princess by saying 'I hope you have not been overspending on your Royal credit card again."

That is obviously a setting where it's really not possible to anticipate plastic, magnetic stripes and RFID cards, personal lines of credit, digital connectivity, or any of the other million modernities which would be required innovations for "a credit card" to make any sense at all.

Would your Medieval or even Renaissance princess anticipate "intergalactic space travel?" You can make her say it, but doing so makes it either a fourth wall break or a fantasy story, because in the non-fantasy version of that setting, they didn't know about, and couldn't reasonably anticipate, space travel or even galaxies in those times.

It's anachronistic if it's totally by accident. If the author is ignorant enough to not see how anachronistic it is. So if the author does it deliberately, it's either a signal that this setting is fantastical, in which case they had better follow through on that and make the anachronistic comment meaningful in the plot or else make the rest of the setting fit the same conceit, or else it's a fourth wall break for comic effect, which was what RetroFan's example was demonstrating.

Pick one of three: Either it's an ignorant anachronism that's just an author's mistake, or it's a realistic thing a realistic character could realistically say in a particular in-universe setting, or it's a self-conscious acknowledgement that "this is a fiction" on the character's part or the author's part.

In the "that hasn't been invented yet" example given, it's very very clear which of the three it is.

The example I gave of the pantomime with a medieval or Regency setting, mention of a credit card by one character and another character reminding this character that credit cards haven't been invented yet is just an example of jokes you see in pantomimes, made for comedy and to make the audience laugh.

It's definitely not an anachronism because its deliberate. I class an anachronism as a mistake that is unintentional. For example if I was to write a story set in Sydney Australia the year 1960 and the Opera House is seen by characters, that would be an anachronism as the Sydney Opera House was not completed and opened until 1973.

A paradox I tend to class as seeing something in the fictional world - be it a book, a TV show, or a movie - that should not exist there in the first place. This differs from the Opera House example - Sydney is real, the Opera House is real, but it just wasn't constructed when the story is set. As per my previous post if there was a He-Man movie in which a female character is seen wearing a 'She-Ra Princess of Power' tee-shirt from back in the 1980s, this would be a paradox. She-Ra is of course He-Man's twin sister, and He-Man is obviously real in this movie, which by default makes She-Ra real too, even if she does not appear and is not referenced. But the She-Ra tee-shirt suggests the 1980s Masters of the Universe cartoon series are works of fiction, yet the settings and characters from it in this film are real and obviously the focus of the movie. So therefore the She-Ra tee-shirt should not exist in this movie but somehow does.

 

[XerXesXu]

The example I gave of the pantomime with a medieval or Regency setting, mention of a credit card by one character and another character reminding this character that credit cards haven't been invented yet is just an example of jokes you see in pantomimes, made for comedy and to make the audience laugh.

It's definitely not an anachronism because its deliberate. I class an anachronism as a mistake that is unintentional. For example if I was to write a story set in Sydney Australia the year 1960 and the Opera House is seen by characters, that would be an anachronism as the Sydney Opera House was not completed and opened until 1973.

A paradox I tend to class as seeing something in the fictional world - be it a book, a TV show, or a movie - that should not exist there in the first place. This differs from the Opera House example - Sydney is real, the Opera House is real, but it just wasn't constructed when the story is set. As per my previous post if there was a He-Man movie in which a female character is seen wearing a 'She-Ra Princess of Power' tee-shirt from back in the 1980s, this would be a paradox. She-Ra is of course He-Man's twin sister, and He-Man is obviously real in this movie, which by default makes She-Ra real too, even if she does not appear and is not referenced. But the She-Ra tee-shirt suggests the 1980s Masters of the Universe cartoon series are works of fiction, yet the settings and characters from it in this film are real and obviously the focus of the movie. So therefore the She-Ra tee-shirt should not exist in this movie but somehow does.

All goes to intentionality. A mistake is simply a mistake. Where there's no mistake, and the author intends to co-mingle realities, that would qualify as metafiction.

As always, your definitions are as good as anyone else's.