Distracting Your Reader

One of my modules this year is entitled "Creative Vigilance: Fictions and Meta-Fictions". Now, I hear that question that rushes to your lips and flails on your tongue; what is a meta-fiction? Well that's a fiction where the reader is kept within no doubt that they are reading a novel or short story. When I say this of course, you'll reply that you know you're reading a book... but do you really? Isn't it true that getting lost in a book is a form of escapism? Isn't it true that once you get past the first paragraph you should be stood inside the setting? Those are no longer words, this is no longer a page, this is your reality, however brief it may be.

A meta-fiction is a piece of writing that periodically brings you back to the reality that you are, in fact, reading a book, making it nearly impossible to get lost in the places. You are now wondering what use this would have to writers, I mean surely the sole purpose of fiction is to leave the world behind? Right? Isn't that what you're being taught Faith, in your writing course? Well yes. But as with everything, this skill has it's place. A break in rhythm is often needed, and even if it isn't, perhaps it can be useful.

Think of it, you've just come past one of those scenes, a heart-wrenching scene, one that makes you want to cry, if you're not already in tears. Part of you wants to shut to book and never go back, part of you wants to keep reading forever, holding onto some vain hope that it might be a dream, that it never really happened to that character. Now you come across a single line:

"And now you sit, in your arm chair or on your bed, or in this train carriage, and you are sad about the character that has just died, and you want to put the book down, and you want to keep reading. Is there a happy ending? You ask me, the writer."

Sure, it breaks the rhythm by taking you out, but perhaps it also inspires thoughts in you. It could intrigue the reader to read further, it could stop the reader putting the book down. Is there a happy ending? Only you can find out.

Writers often set themselves as the narrator in books, but rarely do they step in, play with the characters directly. Why? Because it's distracting. But still, pauses are needed in reading so that the observer can take in all that has happened so far, the brain needs time to put the pieces together. This speed reading bullshit only gives part of the story. To get the whole one must read and re-read, slowly every time. Taking in each word, wondering about it's place in the story. Of course, this is just my opinion.

The purpose of this module, as stipulated last week, is not to produce award winning, earth-shaking art, but to rock the foundations of writing that we have learnt. We have learnt to write, this is true, but by knocking down all that we have collected we can pick up the pieces and look at them anew. Test the boundaries. Fulfill our true potential, or at least get the key to doing so. Because at the moment it's buried under all that 'knowledge' that has been imparted on us. We may become successful as we are, but pushing us could make us into the type of writers that make new rules and challenge the old ones.

That's all for now readers.