Metafiction in How to Become a Writer by Lorrie Moore

Metafiction is also referred to as experimental fiction. Consisting of several short stories, the book Fiction was compiled by R.S. Gwynn. The two stories that express what metafiction is: “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood, and “How to Become a Writer” by Lorrie Moore. Moore describes her writing as “recipe fiction” (Gwynn 397). She explains that “recipe fiction” is a “second person, mock-imperative narrative” (Gwynn 397). Metafiction has distinctive attributes and each of the stories effectively use at least one of the attributes.

How to Become a Writer

“How to Become a Writer” written by Lorrie Moore consists of a story describing how to become a writer from the beginning to the end of the learning process. Moore starts the story by saying that if someone wants to become a writer then they should try and do something else, “movie star / astronaut, a movie star / missionary, or a movie star / kindergarten teacher” (Moore 397) The first step, in the process, is starting as a little kid then transition to high school and write poems and decide that it is not the way to write. The character decides to “experiment with fiction” (Moore 397). Then the character chooses to work with kids and use their stories to try and write her own. Moore’s story continues when the character transitions to college. In college the character takes a bird watching class. When he attends the bird watching class it ends up being the wrong class. “This class is Creative Writing” (Moore 398). The character decides that maybe it is fate that she ended up in the wrong class. As the character attends college she finds inside himself that he likes college, so he continues to write stories. No one likes her stories but she continues anyway. ...

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...on, 1998. 397-402. Print.

Lorrie Moore’s story is a great example of metafiction. The story is about a complex character that struggles to become a writer. The character goes through hardships trying to become a writer when no one else believes that she can.

Orlwoski, Victoria. "Metafiction." Postcolonial Studies Emory. Postcolonial Studies Emory, 1996. Web. 12 Feb. 2014

This source is a longer web document about different attribuets of metafiction. The document also refrences Patricia Waugh again. The website gives a more indepth look at where metafiction came from and why it is used.

Taormina, Agatha. "The Postmodern Novel: Metafiction." The Postmodern Novel: Metafiction. The Postmodern Novel, 16 Apr. 2008. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.

This website just lists several different attributes about metafiction. These attributes are the main components of metafiction.