Magical Realism Metafiction The Graphic Novel

Metafiction
The prefix meta means beyond or transcending; thus the term metafiction literally means "beyond fiction." Thus metafiction can be described as fiction about the nature and purpose of fiction. In Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-conscious Fiction, Patricia Waugh defines metafiction as: fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. . . Metafiction explore[s] a theory of writing fiction through the practice of writing fiction" (2). Metafiction attempts to blur the line between fiction and reality. In metafiction authors often break out of the narrative to address the nature of what they are doing in the novel. Some of the characteristics of metafiction identified by Victoria Orlowski include:

the violation of narrative levels, specifically o intrusions in the narrative to comment on the writing o involvement of the author with the fictional characters o "directly addressing the reader" o "openly questioning how narrative assumptions and conventions transform and filter reality. . . ." the reliance on "unconventional and experimental techniques" such as: o a rejection of conventional plot o a display of "reflexivity (the dimension present in all literary texts and also central to all literary analysis, a function which enables the reader to understand the processes by which he or she reads the world as a test)"