/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10318240]

>The book ends with the protagonist writing the book you're reading
>mfw

[Anonymous No.10318348]

>The first episode is a letter found in a bottle

[Anonymous No.10318374]

>The book has a framing structure to explain how it got published as a fiction book even though it's supposed to have actually happened

[Anonymous No.10318400]

>the book ends with a rocket hitting the reader

[Anonymous No.10318458]

> the first book is mentioned to be a book in the second book

[Anonymous No.10318480]

>>10318240
>the book begins with the protagonist writing the book you're reading

[Anonymous No.10318520]

>>10318374
I kinda want to do that with my book.

[Anonymous No.10318524]

>The book begins with the villain explaining the ending
SPOILETS

[Anonymous No.10318528]

>>10318240
>The book carries the namesake of a book that appears in the story

[Anonymous No.10318531]

>the author forgot to include a preface before the book started and when he does remember he's forgotten a preface he puts it right then and there in the middle of the book

[Anonymous No.10318539]

The protagonist and narrator dies on the last page but still managed to write the story in a novel?

[Anonymous No.10318572]

>>10318240
>>10318374
Are these cringey? I want to do them to a degree but they seem cringey

[Anonymous No.10318582]

>>10318572
yes
all of it has been done before and being heavy-handedly metafictional can often turn great stories into shit
its the reason Barth isn't praised anywhere near as much as he used to be

[Anonymous No.10318600]

>>10318531
That would just piss me off. I intentionally skip prefaces.

[Anonymous No.10318610]

>>10318582
I mean the former rather than "Haha so I published this book"
It's more as a framing device. Something that comes across as simply a first person story, written after the fact and the "revelation" being that it's being recorder for a purpose. (A sort of combination will/official report)
I've just always felt that first person narratives lack any real mortal tension as if they died the book would simply end mid-sentence.

[Anonymous No.10318619]

>>10318240
>>10318458
>>10318374
>>10318480
>mfw the Alexandria quartet fit all of these

[Anonymous No.10318622]

>>10318610
>simply end mid-sentence
Read don quixote

[Anonymous No.10318641]

>>10318622
Not quite what I mean.
The entire book is a retrospective on a series of events on the protagonists life from the protagonist, but in the end he winds up working with a group that essentially require an official report/documentation of said events, with the book being said documentation. An autobiography about a real time and place from a man who never actually existed.

[Anonymous No.10318701]

>>10318641
>The entire book is a retrospective on a series of events on the protagonists life from the protagonist, but in the end he winds up working with a group that essentially require an official report/documentation of said events, with the book being said documentation.

First post on this thread. I kind of like that idea, desu. Presenting the story as an official report implies there will likely be a certain level of unreliable narration. Which could be interesting, all other things being equal.

[Anonymous No.10318705]

>>10318701
ps: mild cringe. this stupid board turned my 't b h' into 'desu'

[Anonymous No.10318729]

>the book has a homosexual demon trapped inside of it, telling you not to read it

[Anonymous No.10318753]

>>10318729
It's probably been done, but a book with a final twist that any person who reads it is cursed by it would be a decent twist.

[Anonymous No.10318767]

>>10318753
'Tis merely a reply.

[Anonymous No.10318779]

>>10318240
This fucked me up for a while when I read David Copperfield as a kid.

[Anonymous No.10318804]

>>10318753
pls mommy nooo

[Anonymous No.10318842]

>The whole thing was in protagonists's head but his choices still affected the real world

[Anonymous No.10319451]

>>10318842
This fucked me up on a psychological level.

[Anonymous No.10319468]

>>10318240
>The book spends several chapters justifying pedophilic gay sex with boys, as the highest and most pure form of romantic relationships.
>MFW THIS IS A FUCKING CLASSIC BOOK OF GREAT RESPECT
>MFW I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO FEEL ANYMORE
>Mfw wondering if Plato was right....

[Anonymous No.10319526]

>>10318842
>>10319451
Any good examples that aren't ruined automatically by knowing that it's the case? As a fan of good and shit horror vidya I've seen this a billion times and rarely done well.

[Anonymous No.10319533]

>>10318753
>>10318767
Why was this reported/deleted? That was a post relevant to the thread. Which rule says "You musn't reference chainmail"?

[Anonymous No.10319538]

>>10319468
Plato didn't argue that; Plato spoke through Socrates (and in the Symposium, Diotima). Socrates refutes this idea as a lower, more base conception of love and not the one which corresponds to the ideal.

[Anonymous No.10319575]

>>10318701
I'm torn on how upfront to be about it. On one hand if it's upfront as you say it's a good reason for unreliable narration and honestly helps with the writing since any of my autistic bleep boop human emotions are hard syndrome will just come across as a weary, shamed man not being particularly good at expressing how he felt about at least one particularly horrific situation. On the other hand it tips the hand in revealing he ends up working for an organisation and sharing the information, which would raise eyebrows a bit early when weird/impossible things start happening

[Anonymous No.10319640]

>>10319538
>mfw I was faking it and never read the book.

[Anonymous No.10319766]

>the book begins with the protagonist reading the book you're writing
Bricks were shat

[Anonymous No.10319808]

>>10319575
>and honestly helps with the writing since any of my autistic bleep boop human emotions are hard syndrome will just come across as a weary, shamed man not being particularly good at expressing how he felt about at least one particularly horrific situation.

That's a pretty good reason to use the form. Not necessarily a dispositive reason, but a pretty good reason.

>On the other hand it tips the hand in revealing he ends up working for an organisation and sharing the information, which would raise eyebrows a bit early when weird/impossible things start happening

I dunno. When you adopt a particular form there's a cost/benefit to it. I guess you just have to make a judgment call whether you can make the story you want to tell work using a 'report' form.

[Anonymous No.10319895]

>>10319526
steppenwolf

[Anonymous No.10320121]

>>10319808
I'll find a middleground no doubt, or simply write as much as I can both ways and pick the one that feels right, or post in a critique thread. If it can come across naturally without handholding or throwing out basic book structure I certainly want to make it work

[Anonymous No.10320404]

>>10319640
Well meme'd, sir.

[Anonymous No.10320483]

>>10318240
>when the book is written as the author slowly goes insane, but is written backwards, so that the end is comprehensive due to vague pre-planning structure, and as the chapters regress the author loses control over the end product, and the novel gets more and more disjointed, and the novel starts with an authors note, vague on its inception period, which directly states that all books that will ever be written afterwards are of little importance and should simply be burned for warmth. There is already enough junk out there, just don't bother wasting your life as a fraud telling stories you've never believed.
>mfw it was a marketing ploy for the editor who is also the author, but has hidden this fact from the public so as to boast that he can make sense of a madman
>mfw the editor shoots himself in the head when the investigative journalism requires the editor to pretend to be the crazy author, in an attempt to convince the public that the author is real, and was once of sane mind, otherwise the stories are simply ravings and not a work of post-modern genius, with a little reference to the man who lied on oprah that one time
>mfw the investigative journalist dissappears
>mfw the editor's body dissappears
>mfw the entire story of it being a fraud was the author pretending to be an editor pretending to be a crazy author, who killed the journalist to create more drama around the story, to cement the writers place among the greats
>mfw the book has three matches hidden at the end, instructing the reader to burn the book immediately and recommend the book to a friend at the same time

[Anonymous No.10320752]

>>10320483
name 1 (one) book

[Anonymous No.10321478]

>The storyline is a series of books written by three different authors in an attempt to hide the truth

[Anonymous No.10321688]

>>10318240
What are some good examples of this?
I was supposed to infer that this is what was happened at the end of Cat's Cradle right?

[Anonymous No.10322176]

>>10321688
The outsider's does this.
Gatsby does this.
To a real degree hp Lovecraft does this.
A lot of try hards do this.

[Anonymous No.10322203]

>>10322176
Lovecraft's works are usually written as if they were by the character rather than a reveal. Dagon opens with pretty much "Please don't think I'm mad"

[Anonymous No.10322211]

>>10321688
Notes from Underground - Dostojevskij
Lolita - Nabokov
Pale Fire (?) - Nabokov

[Anonymous No.10322213]

>>10318374
This was standard practice for centuries. Why do none of you know that?

[Anonymous No.10322243]

>>10322203
This is what I get for listening to audio books while running.
I'll have to read them again because I got it wrong.

[Anonymous No.10322248]

>>10322243
Probably worth it. I love Lovecraft and I have to shake my eyes and reread a page now again.

[Anonymous No.10322252]

>>10322248
>Now and again
Fuck

[Anonymous No.10322256]

>>10318240
>it's non-fiction

[Anonymous No.10322273]

>>10322256
That only happened once to me when my sister gave a me a book that I thought sucked.
Funny enough when I found out it was memoir it became a 100x better.

[Anonymous No.10322336]

>>10318240
>It's about a man in a time loop but it's a about a time-travelling woman but it's a book written by the man but he is dead but he is also alive but it's all in the woman's head but the reality itself is a book written by an entirely different author

[Anonymous No.10322394]

>the book ends with the protagonist reading the book you're reading

[Anonymous No.10322406]

>The book's ending is the beginning of the plot

[Anonymous No.10322448]

>the narrator begins the story from the middle only to jump into a long retrospection immediately

Stop, record scratch, "you might be wondering what I'm doing here"

[Anonymous No.10322453]

>book is a fictional autobiography of a real historical figure

[Anonymous No.10322464]

>the book ends with a polarimetric birefringence of the main character into two separate anisotropic beings

[Anonymous No.10323066]

>>10321688
I think la peste by camus did this. Someome saying lolita is pretty dumb since its clear the entire time that h humbert is writing the book. Lol spoilers btw

[Anonymous No.10323070]

>>10318240
yeah, james and the giant peach was the last book i read too

[Anonymous No.10323083]

>>10318240
What are some books that actually do this?

[Anonymous No.10323131]

>protagonist is writing down the story
>uses caps and exclamation marks and jumps out of a window while still writing

[Anonymous No.10323338]

>>10318779
Fucked you up as in? Good bad

[Anonymous No.10323722]

>>10322406
This is why I refuse to read most series
Always this same shit that makes me feel I wasted time reading the book

[Anonymous No.10323739]

>>10318531
The Pale King?

[Anonymous No.10323769]

What about Master and Margerita? Protagonist had written a book BEFORE the story is finished. Prot writing a book in the end of the story is cliche af.

[Anonymous No.10324180]

>The events from the book really happened except they didn't but they really did

[Anonymous No.10324361]

>tfw the book is a book

[Anonymous No.10324646]

>>10318641
The Eisenhorn trilogy by Dan Abnett does this. It's genre fiction, but he pulls it off well. Read it for inspiration if that's your bag.

It's Warhammer 40k, so be aware. Though it's much more mundane than normal 40k shenanigans.

[Anonymous No.10324666]

>the main character is an author who is writing a book where the main character is the author who is writing a book where the

[Anonymous No.10325217]

>preface has spoilers
>book also has introduction

[Anonymous No.10326083]

>>10321478
would read again

[Anonymous No.10326317]

>>10318240
>The book is a hyperbolic allegory to the changing times the author lived through.
Early 20th century was one hell of a ride.

[Anonymous No.10326340]

>>10318240
>The book opens with some ambiguous pseudo-dialog loosely connected to the coming chapters
>Continues to drop seemingly random lines in intermissions
>Its actually the thoughts of the character before his demise and the whole story is just a recollection of his memories.

[Anonymous No.10326405]

>>10318240
>>10318348
>>10318524
>>10326317
Nothing wrong with these.

[Anonymous No.10326728]

>>10322453
Borges and Nabokov sort of do that

[Anonymous No.10326737]

>>10324180
What is the Bible?

[Anonymous No.10326744]

>>10319468
Death in Venice or Steppenwolf?

[Anonymous No.10327694]

>reality is an illusion but the higher reality is also an illusion

[Anonymous No.10327766]

>grouchy hard-boiled detective story has gruff 1st person narration
>narrator turns out to be the villain

[Anonymous No.10328020]

>>10318458
Don Quixote does this perfectly

[Anonymous No.10328034]

>>10323739
The Pale King did it too yes but it was Tristam Shandy