: Re: "...If I wrote it..." Infamously, O. J. Simpson wrote a book titled "If I did it". Now about a book that could be titled "If I wrote it" - it doesn't have to be titled that, but the idea

@Pierce369

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Not quite what you are looking for, but Lawrence Sterne's Tristram Shandy [*] was built on a similar principle.

Following the common rules of novel writing in 18th century, the author sets to write a book about his own life. But soon he falls into the first problems, such as "where I should start". So he begins writing about his conception, therfore about his parents, but then he gets lost in the history of his whole family... long story short, he gets born around page 300.

The whole book is a meta-novel, a satyrical piece towards the new fashion of middle-class literature of the time. Sterne played on the fact that it's impossible to detail the richness and beauty of a whole life, so every literary attempt will be overwhelmed by overthinking, digressing, confusion.

It was the first modern work of meta-literature, so close to what you are aiming at.

[*] Lawrence Sterne, The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman, 1776 - wikisource

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