Breaking The Fourth Wall

[grimorian]

Since I haven't been around for more than a year, I'm probably not ready for the Critiquing forum yet, so I'm gonna start this here.

During the times I get away from writing my main novel to get a better perspective, I've been messing around with some lighter themed writing. The base plot is somewhat serious, but it's wrapped in some tongue and cheek humor, and as per my title, a bit of 4th wall breaking, mostly by the main characters.

I guess what I'm looking for here are some opinions/thoughts on something of this nature, in general obviously. Would it be something that might peek your interest? Or would it be something that turned you off? Has it been done before in a novel sense?

 

[HareBrain]

You mean characters addressing the reader? Not sure I've ever seen it done in written fiction. It might work in a comic short story, but I can't see it being very successful in a novel, partly because it would ruin the sense of immsersion in the story as a separate reality.

I'd be interested in seeing an example when you do put something in Critiques.

 

[Precise Calibre]

Terry Pratchett handles the presentation of "Dark"(serious) and "Light"(humour) at the same time very well. I believe it falls easily into the category of "satirical" which I personally love the concept if it's handled well. Read any of Pratchett's Discworld books for a good example; in particular, I would recommend "Night Watch".

 

[The Judge]

"Reader, I married him."

Jane Eyre

 

[HareBrain]

"Reader, I married him."

Jane Eyre

It's not such a problem losing the sense of immersion in the last line

Anyway, that's the narrator rather than the character (yes I know she's also a character, but she's talking in her narrator persona in this case). And the narrator addressing the reader directly is pretty common, especially in the older style of children's books. I'm not sure that counts as "breaking the fourth wall" (which is a term I think I've only heard applied to media where the characters can actually face the "audience", ie theatre, tv and film, comic books).

Or has it now also come to mean a character acting as though they're aware that they're in a work of fiction?

 

[grimorian]

Or has it now also come to mean a character acting as though they're aware that they're in a work of fiction?

For lack of a better term, that is what I was talking about. The characters occasionally making comments in which they know they're in a work of fiction. Such as a character saying "Didn't we fight these guys on page 6?" or something to that effect.

As for Harebrain's first reply, it's probably a story more geared towards the YA market, more than a serious, epic fantasy, adult type deal. Which might make it work a little better, might not...

Give me a little bit to get into the swing of things and I'll have a post in critiques soon enough.

 

[Mouse]

"Reader, I married him."

Jane Eyre

I'm reading Jane Slayre, which uses a lot of the original text from Jane Eyre (but with added vampires), so I don't know, but is that the last line in Jane Eyre? Because it goes on some (a lot!) after that line in Jane Slayre. Also, she 'breaks the fourth wall' throughout the whole novel.

Dear Reader...

 

[Precise Calibre]

I note that I completely missed the point of this thread, instead reading the literals behind the argument. This is probably why buzz-words and colloqialism should be banned as a form of communication...

It's defintiely going to be more comical as far as I'm concerned if you address the reader or at least allude to the fact that the characters realize perfectly well that they're in a story. Still a fun thing to do, and the mannerism would still seem like something Terry Pratchett would do. Still satirical.

However, the "serious" nature of any work will suffer from this technique(in my opinion). Anything attempting to be too serious like this is going to seem sappy, insistent or slap-stick.

 

[Ursa major]

* After Mouse's post I want to make a pun with a sleigh and deer in it, but feel I oughtn't: it would be rude of me (if not Rudolf). *


For quite a while, my WiPs had whole chapters where a kind of narrator chats away in first person present tense to the reader. (And all this found within a relatively complex frame story: I was nothing if not foolishly ambitious.) Frankly, it undermined the main story, which isn't meant to be a comedy** (which is where 4th wall breaking works best, in my opinion).

To get round it, I've taken the Jane Eyre route and placed the mentions of the frame story and what's left of the narrator-ish chatting at the end of WiP1. I hope these together are intriguing enough to let the reader follow the main story through WiPs 2 through 4. (If not, it'll all have to go at the end of WiP4.)

* Crosses fingers. *



** - Okay, there are some jokes, but these are in the mouths (or brains) or the characters.

 

[The Judge]

It's not such a problem losing the sense of immersion in the last line

Hah! Shows how carefully you read it! As Mouse so rightly says, it's not the last line: it is in fact the first line of the last chapter. And it's not the only time the reader is addressed, either.

I grant you, however, that the characters themselves don't otherwise address the reader or know they're in a novel. Frankly, it would have improved it ten-fold if they did.

I don't know I'd use the term "immersion", but for me it's a matter of of credibility and the suspension of disbelief. Though thinking about it I could conceive of a fantasy type story where the characters know they are trapped in a novel and want to escape, though it would still be more comical than serious I think. Some of these post-modern literary-type novels have self-referential passages which perhaps border on it (eg character X who is a dentist in Patagonia is reading a book about a person called X who is a Patagonian dentist). Mind you, I'm basing this on reviews of such books, never having had the slightest inclination to read them myself.

 

[Culhwch]

Though thinking about it I could conceive of a fantasy type story where the characters know they are trapped in a novel and want to escape, though it would still be more comical than serious I think.

That's more or less already been done, and done quite well, by Jasper Fforde. Fforde's books immediately sprung to mind while reading this thread.

 

[Ursa major]

I'd almost bet that "both" those teeth-botherers were of Welsh descent.


From Wiki:

Fforde's books are noted for their profusion of literary allusions and word play, tightly scripted plots, and playfulness with the conventions of traditional genres. His works usually contain various elements of metafiction, parody, and fantasy. None of his books has a chapter 13 except in the table of contents where there is a title of the chapter and a page number. In many of the books the page number is, in fact, the page right before the first page of chapter 14. However, in some the page number is just a page somewhere in chapter 12.

 

[grimorian]

I've never even heard of Jasper Fforde, but I will have to check some of his stuff out. Any suggestions on which book of his I should check out first?

And my story is definitely more comical than serious, for those that brought it up.

 

[Culhwch]

You'll want the Thursday Next novels, starting with The Eyre Affair:

Jasper Fforde

 

[HareBrain]

For lack of a better term, that is what I was talking about. The characters occasionally making comments in which they know they're in a work of fiction. Such as a character saying "Didn't we fight these guys on page 6?" or something to that effect.

Used to very good effect in the webcomic Order of the Stick. Also, I now remember, used a couple of times in Bored of the Rings. So there's definitely space for it.

Hah! Shows how carefully you read it! As Mouse so rightly says, it's not the last line

Not the last line? What needs to happen after that? Where was the editor??

I suppose it wouldn't impress you to know that before your post, I'd always assumed it to be the last line of Pride and Prejudice?

 

[Pyan]

There's a whole slew of examples here: No Fourth Wall - Television Tropes & Idioms

Apologies to those who can't break away from that site...

 

[Toby Frost]

It's fine for knockabout comedy, but as with all comedy you need to decide what you will and won't use in order not to foist unexpected things onto the reader. I've used it 0.5 times, when characters needed to acquire a navigational computer known throughout as a "plotting device", and still feel slightly guilty about doing so.

As for more serious books, it is used in some self-consciously "literary" works*. John Fowles springs to mind, and Dickens could hardly write a chapter without addressing the reader. Personally I don't like it much, and it isn't used very much at all in modern genre fiction. I suppose you have the use of "you" in some books (Big Brother's portrait had eyes that followed "You") but this doesn't really count.


*Can I just register my undying hatred of the expression "literary fiction"?

 

[Boneman]

*Can I just register my undying hatred of the expression "literary fiction"?

*Can I just second that?

On thread: I find I do sometimes enjoy close narrative 1st person stuff, where it often seems that the character is speaking to us, but isn't, if you see what I mean. Reiver is really good at this type of thing, and I guess it could work really well, with the character adressing us, but I'm thinking that would only work well in one book. The joke would run thin, if it was done too often:

Such as a character saying "Didn't we fight these guys on page 6?" or something to that effect.

In the "Road to..." film series, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby would always get themselves out of a tight spot, by yelling "Hey! Special Effects!" and get a way out of their predicament. It was funny to start with, but the more they did it, the less funny it became. But it was done for pure slapstick, and not to be taken seriously in the slightest...

But maybe you could be the one to establish a whole new genre, and the only way to find out is to write the book, and see how it looks. Would probably be a lot of fun writing it.

 

[Ursa major]

Reader, I had to self publish this book....

 

[Blackrook]

If you're going to break the fourth wall, it should not be done by ALL characters but only ONE, a minor character who is comic relief, and it should be done sparingly.

Throughout the Star Wars six movies, only ONE character EVER broke the fourth wall and it happened ONE time. The character was C-3PO. In Empire Strikes Back, he got a door shut in his face and, thinking he has been abandoned, he turns to the audience and says "Typical!"