How does metafiction challenge traditional storytelling in novels?

Metafiction challenges traditional storytelling by explicitly drawing attention to the fact that a work is a constructed piece of writing rather than an objective reality. While traditional novels often aim to immerse the reader in a seamless narrative, metafiction functions by referring to or taking as its subject the very nature of fictional writing and its conventions.1

By highlighting the "contrivance" of the art form, metafiction disrupts the reader's suspension of disbelief. Instead of presenting a narrative as a transparent record of events, it exposes the mechanisms of storytelling—such as the author's choices, the limitations of language, and the artificiality of plot structures. This approach forces readers to engage critically with the text, questioning the boundary between the "real" world and the invented world of the novel.

While some authors, such as Daniel Defoe, historically used techniques like journalistic reportage to make fiction appear as factual as possible, metafiction does the opposite: it invites the reader to acknowledge the author's hand and the inherent artifice of the narrative process.2