Chapter 7: Who’s In The Metanovel?

“Brilliant!” I said to myself, once again. Now that I’d conceived of writing a self-referential metanovel, I needed characters and a plot. “I’m a character in my metanovel, of course,” I said, “And I can make the Not Quite Omni­ scient Narrator a character!” I said. The Not Quite Omniscient Narrator knew it was a narrator, but had not been quite sure it would be a character as well when it had started narrating. Now it knew. And it knew it would become omniscient. But it still wasn’t quite sure when God would grant its wish. “And you readers? You. You can be characters, too.” “You mean me, the reader reading this sentence?” A reader asked. “Or do you mean me? The one reading this sentence?” Asked another. “Or me?” Asked others. “All of you,” I answered. “If the Not Quite Omniscient Narrator and I can be characters, so can every one of you.” “Brilliant!” I said to myself again. “And God!” I continued. “God created this metauniverse. She can be a character too!” “Great,” muttered my inner critic. “And then there’s my inner critic. You can be another character.” “Great,” muttered my inner critic. “Now I can’t avoid contributing to this stupidity.” “And my ideas. They can be characters,” I said. “I can make anything a character.” “Great,” muttered my inner critic. “Even me!” Said a piece of household hardware that would later be in the metanovel, but could not be named now without creating an inconsistency later. “The story will be me writing about writing this novel,” I said, “but that might become bor­ ing. I’ll need to create some other kind of a problem. A conflict. Maybe I’ll invent a character who tries to keep me from finishing it. The Not Quite Omniscient Narrator knew many things that the author did not. It knew that Freetown was the capital of Sierra Leone, that the standard atomic weight of lawrencium was 262, and that Pi to 100 decimal places was 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862 08998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481 11745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823 37867831652712019091456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491412737245870 06606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384 146951941511609433057270365759591953092186117381932611793105118548074462379962 74956735188575272489122793818301194912983367336244065664308602139494639522473 71907021798609437027705392171762931767523846748184676694051320005681271452635 60827785771342757789609173637178721468440901224953430146549585371050792279689 25892354201995611212902196086403441815981362977477130996051870721134999999837 Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies 29780499510597317328160963185950244594553469083026425223082533446850352619311 88171010003137838752886587533208381420617177669147303598253490428755468731159 5628638823537875937519577818577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989. None of this made the slightest difference to the metanovel’s outcome. It also knew things that were important to the metanovel’s plot: that such a character would appear; that it would attempt to foil the author’s plans; and that its efforts would lead to an im­ portant subplot. The Not Quite Omniscient Narrator also knew that the character who would attempt to foil the author’s plan was unnecessary. The author was quite capable of foiling his own plans. He had done it many times before. And he would soon do it again. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies