Nice Job Snowcloning It, Hero (Alt Title crowner 2/28/12): Painting The Medium

Something with Non-Diegetic in the name would probably be good. Seeing as that's the established term for this sort of stuff.

Is it important that I have never heard the word "diegesis" before now?

TV Tropes Will Enrich Your Vocabulary

edited 21st Feb '12 3:09:48 PM by lebrel

That describes something very different.

Non-diegetic does seem like the most accurate description, even if it's not the most well-known term.

Medium Awareness uses "medium" in place of "non-diegetic." Maybe a name with "medium" in it would work?

Now that I think about it, why did we stop talking about "Paratext"? That's really the word we should be using (I think?)

edited 21st Feb '12 3:29:35 PM by abk0100

This trope occurs in the text itself. Paratext is for peripheral stuff like the box art, the trailer, the credits, the About The Author flap on the cover, and so on.

But it also includes subtitles at least. It's kind of hard to tell what it's including.

Meaningful Font Effects?

Visual Inflection? Hey, that's pretty good, I think.

edited 21st Feb '12 9:12:28 PM by pawsplay

I think Symbolic Interface is good (now that I think about it, and not just tossed it up because it sounded good), based on some arguments here.

It is a symbolic representation of what's not fully representable otherwise, like using a different font for a different type of speech, written sound effects, or shaking the camera to evoke tremors or an unstable mind.

It's also an interface, as it's the boundary between the story and the viewer. An interface doesn't have to be two-way.

"Interface" is pretty firmly entrenched in the technological lexicon as the way the user interacts with the product, as in Diegetic Interface, Video Game Interface Elements, Brain/Computer Interface, Viewer-Friendly Interface, Unusual User Interface, Pressure-Sensitive Interface, and pretty much every other time the word "Interface" has been used on this site. And note that we have Symbol Drawing Interface that uses the same words "Symbol" and "Interface" in exactly the way that would cause people to get this trope completely wrong.

The more I think about it, the more okay I am with using Non Diegetic in the name.

Is the crowner enough to call?

Probably, but since we don't have many good alt-title suggestions, I think we can wait on swapping the crowner.

Given that this is almost safe to call, I've already made the alt-names crowner with some suggestions from the thread.

ETA: And hollered for the crowner swap.

edited 22nd Feb '12 2:40:31 PM by SeptimusHeap

I have a problem with Non Diegetic Narrative Conventions too. "Narrative Conventions" is just another word for "Tropes". That name is describing an index (and one that's broader than this trope, anyway).

^ True. Now that I look at it more closely, the actual trope is "messing with the Non Diegetic Narrative Conventions, often for emphasis or a joke". Unfortunately, nothing snappy comes to mind...

On the use of "Non-Diegetic", it makes me uncomfortable because even after looking it up, I feel like I don't really know what "Diegetic" means, and I can't shake the feeling that we'd be using it incorrectly.

In this context, it's the first of those, "the (fictional) world in which the situations and events narrated occur". Stuff the characters can perceive: action, dialog, setting, etc. The second definition is something else.

My understanding is that "non-diegetic" just means "the characters don't notice it," unless they have Medium Awareness.

The appearance of a speech bubble is non-diegetic, while the actual words said are diegetic.

What about Non Diegetic Clues?

edited 22nd Feb '12 3:36:09 PM by abk0100

I like "Non Diegetic Clues."

I don't like the connotation of "Clues" as something you have to hunt for to lead you to a larger solution.

There's also the connotation of "subtle hints".

Inflection

1 : the act or result of curving or bending : bend 2 : change in pitch or loudness of the voice 3 a: the change of form that words undergo to mark such distinctions as those of case, gender, number, tense, person, mood, or voice b: a form, suffix, or element involved in such variation

That's my case for Visual Inflection.

"Subtle" isn't a word I'd use to describe this trope. It's unusual for it to be subtle. If you don't notice it, it's because it's so conventional that you're desensitized to it.

Also, it connotes that it's a clue "to" something. That's not necessarily true. It's more like a shorthand for something. You wouldn't say that increasing the font size is a "clue" that a character is yelling—that's just the way "yelling" is represented in comics.

edited 22nd Feb '12 7:24:00 PM by troacctid

Non Diegetic Info? Non Diegetic Message?