I'm not sure what to call this thread

On a less cultured level. The second half of a recent BOTTOM concert (with Richy and Eddy) was spent with them trapped in some cell-like room trying to get back to finish the second half of the gig. They refer to the audience and, eventually, discover them towards the end much to their surprise. They even talk about the actors (Edmondson and Mayall) playing them (the characters) Richy refers to Mayall as "the one who fell off that quad bike". Then there were the famous comedic 'asides' in many appearances by everyone from Arthur Askey to Bob hope to Eric Morecombe etc. They would acknowledge their part in a performance or film. All of which probably stems from Shakespear or Peer Gynt and is an old tradition. It's a very useful tool for them but for a writer it's harder to do I suspect. Anyway it was just an observation.

I know this is a very basic way to look at the matter ....... I feel that self-reference is sort of wanky, but what's wrong with having a wank?

I don't see Garth as being stubborn - I just think he is firmly planted on the entertainment side of the fence. But he might consider giving a little ............. because entertainment CAN offer insight and pop can challenge everyday perceptions rather than give people the set menu. Not everyone knows what they want so why not see if they like cake as well?

Jesus! Why not call this thread 'batty old bint finally loses it' ? I have many things to say on this subject Freda but I'm finding it impossible to go on. sunken sneak and the Rudy all star hamsters. isn't it saturday?

Isn't it called "phatic communication" - talking or writing for the sake of it. Soaps are big on it - all the "Hi" "How are you?" "Fine. How about you?" "Oh, so so." "Oh, right" and so on. I'd like to write a poem and move folks' hearts but I just cannot seem to make a start I've tried time after time but always have a problem with the rhyme but I'd like to win the £10 monthly prize so if you print this that'd be really nice {isn't that one of Pam Ayres'?}

A few years ago I had an American colleague who used to call this sort of thing "self referencing" and thought it was very bad form. He insisted you should never write songs about writing songs or make TV programmes about making TV programmes or write a speech which mentions how you came to write the speech and so on. It seemed to make sense at the time.

Thanks , I hoped there might be existing terms for this. It is a waste of time I agree. I know the phone message I mentioned making doesn't really fit, as it was just a case of getting caught out. Sneak , that was totally uncalled for. Everyone knows I'm not a bint.

rhymewasting?

Self-referencing?!? It's normally called self-consciousness, or 'meta-whatever'. It can be great when it works. Felipe Alfau's 'Locos', for example, which is about characters growing out of the author's control, or Pirandello's play 'Six Characters In Search of An Author'. Or the Monty Python sketch where it cuts to the comedian writing the scene which we've just seen - and working himself into a tizzy. Not surprised about the 'American colleague', Garth. There's a mob of characters who consider self-consciousness in art 'bad form'. Kinglsey Amis was one of them. But it's always been around. Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' and Jonson's 'The Alchemist' can be read as 'meta-theatre' - plays about the theatre. Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde' is very nearly a story about the trials of story-telling. As with all sub-genres of art, it can also be done very badly. The problem most people have with it is that when students get their hands on the ideas they think it's new and clever. And it is (to them) - but old teachers and the like don't like their protegees thinking themselves new and clever. Young people have to be very humble and morose about the tools they're inheriting, or they get a damn good slagging off. Cut that enthusiasm down! So there you go. Self-conscious art. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Nay surprises.

I think it's considered bad form because it jolts the reader/listener out of thinking they were experiencing something for real and reminds them they are only reading a book or watching a TV programme or listening to a song. It breaks the magical mystical bond between creator and audience, or some tosh like that.

ok, so is it bad form to write a piece, or even a novel, in the form of a letter to the reader. Communicating directly with them as it were. I know it's probably not a new idea but I have enjoyed many of the letters I've written to people and would like to use that referencing by direct communication as a vehicle for comedy, it can be very funny in letters and is lost in normal writing.

I don't think it's bad form, if the communication aspect is sincere. Done insincerely or too formally though, any empathy is quickly lost between reader and writer. Conspiratorial works IMO.

I don't think it's bad form either. Maybe in pure entertainment, but not in art. If the reader/listener feels put off by being reminded they are reading/listening, then surely they're approaching the text as a consumer, who wants what he pays for, rather than trying to engage with the art. I know we all like to be pampered, but for me the crucial difference between art/literature and product/entertainment is that you approach the former with a mind to appreciate the work - you meet it half-way, rather than lying back and expecting to be pleasured.

Hen I am sorry I can't accept that. What the blazes does "trying to engage with the art" mean? To me that's just a fancy way of saying reading a book or watching a TV programme. Maybe I am odd but if I ever write a book I do not want anyone to "engage with my art". I just want them to read my book and lose themselves in a (hopefully) good story and an interesting experience. I am less likely to do that if I keep reminding them they are physically looking at words on a page, that's all. But having said that I have never published a book, so I could be wrong about this. No offence meant, just wanted to express a different view.

One other thing: I don't have a problem with a play within a play or a film within a film; it's writing about writing a play/film that I think causes the problem. To me it seems like the easiest and most obvious trick for a writer to pull (ie focus on the writing process) and that is probably another good reason to avoid it.

Re engaging with the art ........ I would feel cheated if I watched a film and didn't notice whether it was well directed or not. There are some sorts of people who fall asleep during exciting films because all there is to follow are things happening and exposition, and even brilliant acting and camera work can't compensate up for a script that is a meat and 2 veg plot without any quirks. A novel or short story, likewise, has to offer more than plot or entertainment if it wants to be remembered.

Me I just like a good yarn Freda. If I start to notice the directing then I feel it is bad directing (because it is trying to draw attention to itself). In my view all these things - directing, acting, writing - need to be (mostly) invisible/transparent.

Well...I'm with Freda. When I say 'engage with the art' I mean what she says - noticing how things are done - in a way, involving yourself in the process. Nothing wrong with liking a good yarn - as I said, we all like to be pampered - but that's not art, as far as I'm concerned. It's entertainment. If art were only meant to be gripping, then a football match is a piece of art. Chat shows are art. Think of it this way - art is a kind of language. It is a way ideas and feelings travel from one human being to another. There needs to be someone on the other end prepared to receive it, prepared to engage with it, someone prepared to pick up the telephone and respond. It can be thoroughly entertaining in many different ways, but also, crucially, it involves this degree of interaction. 'A good yarn' is just manipulation. It's getting a massage, or a chair leg repaired. It fulfils a social function (the need to be relaxed and entertained.) If the writing and directing is entirely invisible - if there's no one at the wheel - then the element of human contact is lost. That might mean nothing to you, but it means a lot to me.

If there was "no one at the wheel" I assure you the writing, acting and directing would be entirely visible. To me the job of a true creator of art/entertainment is to hide those things from us punters. Artists who do otherwise usually tend to be saying "look at me I'm a writer/director/actor, ain't I clever". I prefer seamlessness in my art, to self-consciousness and self indulgence. That might mean nothing to the rest of the world, but it means a lot to me.

Oh, one other point, in response to your one other point. 'The Tempest' and 'The Alchemist' are not just plays within plays, and 'Troilus & Criseyde' isn't just a story within a story. Shakespeare, Jonson and Chaucer were likely doing exactly what you consider bad form - writing about the process of writing. As I said - long tradition. It's not a trick - it's practically a genre.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.....the moment I hit 'Post' I thought of a way I should have expanded that argument. Shakespeare, in fact, makes a definite habit of reminding his audience that they are watching a performance, as does Jonson. It was common practice for players on the stage to make jokes about the fact that they're in a play, and the audience loved it. So, in fact, it can definitely be an entertainment too. So I think you might be cheating yourself out of more enjoyment if you choose to lable it bad practice! (On a side note - while I stick by my distinction between entertainment and art, I do know the two can be intermingled. Thus, football is sometimes called art by those who find it stimulates intense feelings, and engaging with art can, and frequently *is*, a leisure activity. I just think it also goes *beyond* leisure.)

Yeah but we've moved on from those days, Hen. There are loads of unsophisticated things those fellows used to do which we don't do now. Shakespeare was a mighty genius with the words, but that doesn't mean he was so hot on form. Like I suggested earlier, writing about writing is to me a form of self indulgence. It's writing for oneself and for other writers, rather than for the rest of the human race. There are an awful lot of non-writers out there who are going to feel excluded.

"Artists who do otherwise usually tend to be saying "look at me I'm a writer/director/actor, ain't I clever". Aha! I knew I could draw this one out of you at some point! That phrase is one I've been rebuking for years. Look, if artists who use self-consciousness are saying "Look at me, ain't I clever", then artists who don't are likewise saying, "Look at me, I'm boring." You have to let go of this idea that self-consciousness is automatically an attempt to impress you. It's just a part of the same show. "I prefer seamlessness in my art, to self-consciousness and self indulgence." Seamlessness and self-consciousness are in no way mutually exclusive, nor seamlessness and self-indulgence. Look. You don't have to like it. But you must at least accept that it isn't bad form, or cheating, or anything like that. It's as eternally linked to art and artists as dialogue and plot.

"Yeah but we've moved on from those days, Hen." Come on, man. You're getting desperate now. To claim Shakespeare was 'unsophisticated' and 'not hot on form' is absurd. If that were the case, he wouldn't be known now. People don't get reread down through the centuries just for having a purdy tongue. The truth us, we haven't moved on an inch. Lots of people still love self-consciousness, lots of people still do it. Students who discover it nowerdays are still excited by it, because it does offer a different level of interaction. It's fun, and it's cool. I think the major problem with your idea is here: "It's writing for oneself and for other writers, rather than for the rest of the human race." Absolute rubbish. Shakespeare's audience was made up of the entire strata of Jacobian society, and they all appreciated and enjoyed it. Same is true nowerdays. You can't posit the tiny minority of Kingsley Amises and Garths as 'the rest of the human race'. Most people, I assure you, have no problems. *You* are the cult, not us. You can get with the programme, and accept your problem is down to your own tastes - not the art itself - or you can wallow in stubbornness. For my own part, I accept that I am particularly attached to it - moreso than the average person maybe. But to try and prove self-consciousness is fundamentally unsound....well, as I said before, you might as well try to tell me that dialogue is bad practice. Or pictures in books. Or retelling other people's stories (another thing always done...always will be done.) It's that simple.

I respect your view Hen and greatly respect your abilities as a writer, however I just wouldn't be happy doing something like that in my own writing, except maybe if I was setting out to be ironic. I think writers who do this self conscious thing shoot themselves in the foot by narrowing their potential audience appeal. The trick of saying things like "dear reader" sounds terribly old-fashioned to me, and comes from a less sophisticated era. Every time I come across this kind of self consciousness in a work of art (novel/play/poem/film) it breaks the spell for me. Maybe it's just a personal thing, but it grates horribly.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Hen. It is a student thing. It's something each generation discovers anew for itself and then tends to grow out of. Students tend to do it because they are very self conscious, individuals and on a journey of self discovery/exploration. Older people like me tend to have got that stuff out of their system. But I am sure there are older people and students who will take up opposite positions from me and thee in this debate. If this is your thing, then of course you should do it. No doubt a good writer - and you are unquestionably a good writer - can carry it off, but in my book it is a technical mistake. Like they say, all rules are meant to be broken and you choose to break this one. Fine.

Very reasonable. Thank you. I agree that a younger generation are likely to find it more invigorating, and it can certainly grow tiresome, especially when it's done over-extravagantly. Don't get me wrong - I've seen some bad stuff. I maintain, however, that it isn't a rule to avoid self-consciousness, and it can be done very maturely. The more I think about it, the more I see that it's everywhere. Chaucer's use of self-consciousness in the Canterbury Tales is what has made it stand out against so much other medieval literature. The interruptions of the various travellers during the telling of the tales tells us as much about their characters and personalities as the tales themselves do - since the whole thing has no real grand plot, it is the fact that it is fundamentally *about* storytellers and storytelling that makes it a mature work. More recently, Kurt Vonnegut (one of my favourite writers) uses self-consciousness to great effect - and it doesn't get in the way of the story. It actually makes two simultaneous stories - there is the tale being told, and the tale of the person telling it. Even Dickens, who is a famously clean storyteller, uses a little self-consciousness in 'Great Expectations' - we are made aware of the fact that the story is being told by the older Pip, and that he is telling it from a particular point of view. You see it as something that interrupts the plot - but I think it is most effective when it flows alongside the plot, and we are made to see both things happening simultaneously. In fact, I've just realised that this was my dad's definition of 'literature' - stories where more than one thing is going on at the same time. So, in a way, he sees a kind of self-consciousness as necessary to literature.

Well, it's refreshing to see a decent debate put well from both sides. I see the idea of communicating with the reader as a part of the process of story telling. To actually tell a story to someone will always involve some kind of reference to the listener, as a stand up comic will always involve the audience in his tales and jokes. I love to involve the listener in any spoken story and when writing a story I often feel that dimension is missing. Even to record stuff on tape has that dimension if it is done in the form of a letter to someone or is done with the listener in mind. It's not a question of art for me just another thing to add to a story. Naturally it can be crappy if done badly but so can anything else, that's what crappy is all about. I should add that I have no plans to write in this way. I just like the idea.

Is it in Peer Gynt that a character remarks , But I can't die in the Second Act? Douglas Hoftstadter was a big promoter of self-referential sentences (which indirectly lead to Godel's Incompleteness Theorum showing that not even mathematics can be certain of mathematical facts) - my favourite of his being "Doesn't this sentence remind you of Agatha Christie?" which of course, it does, although for no good reason. And "This sentence contains exactly threee erors."