Shattering the Fourth Wall, or Meta-Stories

[Brayon]

In between my busy university course load for this module (my university is one class at a time for five-week), and just general life stuff, I've been working on the next story in my series. In one of the scenes in this chapter, without prior thought, I dropped in "BayAuthors.Org" as a writing website one of the characters goes to read online stories. After doing a brief description of the website, I realized I had just described GA. I'm about to take it out, but it made me think about Meta-Stories, or as some call it, Shattering the Fourth Wall.

 

I've done it once in a Prompt story in "My Shorts" about AJ and Tommy. Using @Timothy M.'s Clueless Camping as a reference to where they got the idea of matching engagement rings. (Which, btw, I love that Danish tradition and if/when I get married, we'll be doing it.) 

 

So what about you all? What do you think about Meta-Stories? Have you done one? Would you read a story that shattered the fourth wall?

[Thorn Wilde]

I love it when the fourth wall is broken. It's part of the reason I love Deadpool so much, cause that's basically what he does. Never done it myself (except for in my Deadpool fanfic; for instance, I was on hiatus for two years, and it was commented on in the story when I got back to it), and in books it can be a bit weird, I think. One thing is referencing real world things and events. Actually breaking the fourth wall by speaking directly to the reader is quite another. I've been to a lot of plays that do it, though, to amazing effect, where the world suddenly freezes and a character turns towards the audience to delivers a speech directly to them. Seen it in a lot of films, too. I mean, film and theatre is where the term comes from, the idea being that the characters see their world as the whole world, but when one of the 'walls' of that world is shattered, they realise they're fictional.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Thorn Wilde

[Timothy M.]

Nothing wrong with having GA as the story site for gay guys to find good stories, I'd definitely use that.

I'm all  Preview  over you using my CC story as inspiration. It's embarrassing to admit I can't recall whether I read your short story, although the names AJ and Tommy ring a bell.

Edited November 17, 2018 by Timothy M.

[Brayon]

7 minutes ago, Timothy M. said:

Nothing wrong with having GA as the story site for gay guys to find good stories, I'd definitely use that.

I'm all   over you using my CC story as inspiration. It's embarrassing to admit I can't recall whether I read your short story, although the names AJ and Tommy ting a bell.

You did. 🙂 I gave you a shout out, for the inspiration.

[Thorn Wilde]

1 hour ago, Timothy M. said:

Nothing wrong with having GA as the story site for gay guys to find good stories, I'd definitely use that.

I'm all  Preview  over you using my CC story as inspiration. It's embarrassing to admit I can't recall whether I read your short story, although the names AJ and Tommy ring a bell.

 

Someone on this site asked to use my actual pen name for a character in their story. I was very flattered.  

[Comicality]

 

All the time. My writing is full of little inside jokes, meta moments, and little jabs and pokes at myself as well as my friends online. I think I had the most fun with a story called "Welcome Back To Shacker High", where a new character was going back to school, and cast the illusion that ALL of my other stories were somehow connected. I definitely enjoyed that short story. 

 

I think it adds something to the writing when the readers can see the writer having a little fun.

 

https://gayauthors.org/story/comicality/welcomebacktoshackerhigh/

 

[Page Scrawler]

I remember reading a book by Mark A. Roeder, in which the main characters visit a graveyard, and they see two headstones carved with the names of two teen boys. The names on the headstones were also used in a previous book by the same author, though the boys didn't die then. I wonder what happened in-between?  It always comes back to one tiny town in Indiana.  

Edited November 20, 2018 by Page Scrawler