It’s three weeks until the next writing group get-together, although we do have a possible story night at The Black Cat in town before then. For the last couple of writing groups I have (as so often happens I’m ashamed to admit) left writing my writing group contribution until virtually the last minute. The first I recently missed was ‘Demon’, although I did write and share it the day after we met. For that challenge, my idea was someone who was possessed, however, the demon was not an actual devil (yes, I know they don’t exist really) but an addiction. It was based on something I’d witnessed many years ago, and I think the memory took over from my imagination and what I produced was not very successful. The most recent challenge was ‘Arson’ – and I have shared here the different times arson has touched my life – three different occasions at two different schools, and the criminal attack on a beloved place, the Underfall Yard in Bristol. I also shared here part of what I wrote – which unfortunately (in one way) was obviously the beginning or part of a longer piece, perhaps a new novel.
So, I’ve decided to make sure that for the next writing group meeting I will come with a planned and polished piece of writing. However… and it’s a massive however, this challenge truly is a challenge. I’m not boasting to say I could write a story from almost any prompt fairly easily – although some of what I produce might be better than other pieces. However, the next challenge really is just that – a challenge! We are to write something which breaks the fourth wall:
The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates the actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this “wall”, the convention assumes that the actors behave as if they cannot…
“Breaking the fourth wall” refers to any moment where this convention is violated. This may include actors speaking directly to the audience, acknowledging the fiction of the play, or referencing themselves as characters.
Wikipedia
This definition refers to the stage, but as writers we too have a fourth wall between our stories and our readers.
The method of breaking the fourth wall in literature is a metalepsis (the transgression of narrative levels), which is a technique often used in metafiction. The metafiction genre occurs when a character within a literary work acknowledges the reality that they are in fact a fictitious being.
Metafiction is fiction in which the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness of a work by parodying or departing from novelistic conventions and traditional narrative techniques.
Wikipedia again
Gosh! This is going to be pretty challenging, I don’t think I’ve ever written something like this although I do try and challenge myself in different ways, as I did here two days ago – https://loiselsden.com/2025/09/22/17-secretary/ Actually, now I come to think about it, I remember writing something probably when I was still in my teens; it was the beginning of a story, teenage romance of course. It’s long gone, and probably was quite dreadful, but I guess it shows even then I was trying to write in different ways!
Lois Elsden 