Metafiction is any kind of storytelling where the creator is actively trying to make the audience think about the fact that it is experiencing a fictional account. This might be handled through the use of many different narrative devices, including cases where the artist directly speaks to his audience or some cases where the creator becomes a character in the adventure and talks about the process of writing the story.

The reasons for metafiction vary a lot, with some authors doing it to provoke a particular reaction in the reader, while others do it specifically to comment on the process of creating fiction.

Metafiction is common in film and theater, but most people use the term to describe techniques employed by authors of novels and short stories.