: Re: Can a writer joke with the reader without breaking the fourth wall? Can I, for example, write a whole new storyline inside my novel, and then say something, for example such as: "just kidding"?

I've seen it done in the movies "True Lies" and also Pixar's "Up", played out where a character imagines a scenario such as violently punching out an obnoxious salesman or letting the kid down on a rope. The audience doesn't know it is hypothetical, but we figure it out soon enough... The camera tells us it was just in the character's head by showing that this absurd result (the man's face bloodied, the kid falling hundreds of feet to the streets below) didn't really happen.

In both of these cases, it was pretty clear that the character was either trying to make up his mind about what to do or restraining his reflexive tendencies, and playing out the situation in his mind to see what he should do.

Then there is the TV series approach of reversing the last 24 episodes by having a character wake up in a past situation (such as before another person's death), showing us that whatever had followed was a dream.

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: Re: Can a writer joke with the reader without breaking the fourth wall? Can I, for example, write a whole new storyline inside my novel, and then say something, for example such as: "just kidding"?

More posts by @Lengel543

: Can I quote dictionary definitions without permission/attribution in a fiction novel? In the fiction novel Iâ€™m writing, the MC often searches a dictionary for the definition of a certain word,

: Descriptive words to slow down the pace of the story? Is it true that to slow down a story, you add descriptive words in place of an action? I feel like the pace my story is going at, I'll

: Why is character lifetime proportional to character development so often? Hollywood movies are a good example of this, but also many books feature the rule. When the plot revolves around life

: How do I fill time in my story? I am writing a short story, and I have some gaps in time I have to fill. In my story, a girl wants to go to a party later in the day, but there are

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