Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Other Writer's Other Worlds

JDuncan has left a new comment on your post "Writer's other worlds":

"In this same vein, and out of curiosity, is there anything out there were the
m(ain)c(haracter) discovers they are actually a written character in a novel and then interacts in some fashion with the writer in order to alter the story?"

The only one of these that comes to mind was the Will Ferrell movie STRANGER THAN FICTION, but it doesn't appear to be based on a novel.

However, I received a pitch for one of these at the WD Pitch Slam, so perhaps I'll have one of these to sell shortly.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd name a book to which this basically applies, but that'd be a pretty huge spoiler for the last third of the story. Suffice it to say that it's a pretty famous novel & deals with philosophy.

Adrienne said...

It isn't quite the same, but "Sophie's World" that philosophical read that all my friends when we were teenagers was a must have, had a similar kind of idea, where ** spoiler alert **

Sophie discovers she's a character in a book.

Sherri said...

The last book in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series uses this device. He's a character in his own book, and the other characters have to get his help to save the world.

Janicu said...

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke comes to mind, but not exactly the same thing.

Anonymous said...

Stephen King again. He wrote a short story in Nightmares and Dreamscapes about a PI character that meets his author, and changes his fate. It's called "Umney's Last Case".

And for that matter, his novel The Dark Half has the character interacting with the author. It's a little bit of the plot of character-meets-author and author-enters-created-world rolled into one.

Anonymous said...

Didn't Johnny Depp also play in a movie (based on a Stephen King novel) similar to Stranger Than Fiction?

Anonymous said...

"In this same vein, and out of curiosity, is there anything out there were the m(ain)c(haracter) discovers they are actually a written character in a novel and then interacts in some fashion with the writer in order to alter the story?"

In Grant Morrison's (?) run on the Animal Man comic book, the lead character realized he was a character in a comic and eventually went to the writer's house to bitch him out for all the tragedy in his life, prompting the writer to bring his wife and kids back to life.

Harry

Anonymous said...

The Dark Tower by Stephen King

Ravenous Romance said...

Thanks. These comments are great, although I'm sure there are more books/films. I can't believe I forgot about THE DARK HALF.

Ravenous Romance said...

(I think I erased this by mistake)

I think What Dreams May Come might fall into this category. I really loved the movie, which was based on a 1978 novel of the same name, by Richard Matheson. I have not read the book, but apparently there were some significant changes in the film adaptati

Tyhitia Green said...

Barb,
The movie Johnny Depp played in was called Secret Window, based on the Stephen King short story, Secret Window, Secret Garden from his book FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT. It wasn't really similar to Stranger Than Fiction, in that **Spoiler alert** Johnny Depp was a writer who thought a man was trying to accuse him of plagiarism and then tried to kill him. It turns out that the "guy" was really in Johnny Depp's head all along. Good story, by the way! :*)