Writing Excuses Season Four Episode 16: Breaking the Fourth Wall

Writing Excuses Season Four Episode 16: Breaking the Fourth Wall

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2010/04/25/writing-excuses-4-16-breaking-the-fourth-wall/

Key points: Breaking the fourth wall is a term from theater, when an actor addresses the audience (who were behind the invisible fourth wall). Narrators can have knowledge that characters can't, and address the reader, without breaking the characters or story in quite the same way. Anything that reminds the reader that this is a book breaks (or at least bends) the fourth wall. Once is too many, but the writer has to hit the happy medium if they are going to break the fourth wall.
( What about theater in the round? )

[Brandon] All right. I'm going to force Isaac to give us a writing prompt.
[Isaac] Awesome. I was thinking about these different cultures. In the Philippines, one of their kind of pseudo-cusswords is [they san anok nun pating? Roughly?] which means, "son of a shark!" So your writing prompt is to write a story where somebody is really a son of a shark and breaks the fourth wall which happens to be the glass wall at an aquarium.
[Howard] But no lava girl.
[Brandon] But no lava girl. All right. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

Ge-ge-ge no nyobou 5/10

aka Revelations for everyone...

This episode started with several manga frames in closeup. Fumie's voice narrated. The final one was Hakaba no Kitaro (Kitaro of the Graveyard) apparently naked in an alley, going ge-ge-ge... probably the origin story? And Fumie shut the book, and said, "It's so scary!" Then she looked at the wind chime tinkling in the window. And opened the book to the dedication again.
( Friends of the author network? )

Next, in the work room, Shigeru was drawing, and handed Fumie a sheet. "Please fill in the dark spaces." She sat down, and painted black areas. He was working on a face, twisting his own face and grunting. She watched him for a moment, then laughed. He looked up, and said, "Is there something funny on that page?" She said, "No. But you... you are the man of a 100 faces. Happy, angry, sad, you draw all these faces. And when you draw them, you make your own face match." He looked surprised. "What? No I don't." She said, "Yes, you do." He shook his head, and started drawing again. His face twisted, and he started to grunt. Then he stopped, and sat up. "Huh. I do, don't I?" He laughed. Then he pointed to the sheet she was working on and said, "See that chair back? Draw a flower on it." "What?" "Whatever you like." He handed her a pen.

To be continued...

Ge-ge-ge no nyobou 5/11

aka Scary but nostalgic

This episode started with a pen drawing an eye on a manga figure. Shigeru lifted the pen as Fumie commented, "Scary but natsukashii" (brings back fond memories, old-fashioned, nostalgic?) Shigeru said, "What?" Fumie said, "It's what the teenager at the bookstore said." Shigeru nodded, then got up and opened the closet in his workroom. He dragged out the old tin box. Fumie said, "What's that?" As he opened it, he said it was paintings from his childhood. He showed scenery, etc. then pulled out one. "Here it is." He unfolded it to show red devils tormenting a figure. "That's hell." Then he explained (and they showed us a flashback) that his old maid had taken him to a nearby temple one night. She said this picture is heaven and this picture is hell, and the gods decide where you go. He said hell was much more interesting, as the pictures of the devils tormenting figures swelled and twisted.
( Memories )

Fumie started to look at her notebook. From outside, someone called in a loud voice, "Excuse me?" Fumie went to answer the door, and looked at the older man standing there with his square bundle on his back. She said, "We don't need any." The man said, "Oh, I'm not a peddler. This is where Mizuki lives, isn't it? I'm an old friend of his." Shigeru came to the door, glanced at the man, and said, "Is it really you?" Then he went over and embraced him.

to be continued...