We need to fix:: Literary Agent Hypothesis

I've done a lot of work to Literary Agent Hypothesis, but it's still badly broken: see here for more details

If anyone can help me fix it, it is still crowded with examples that don't belong there. The Trope is curently split as follows:

• Direct Line to the Author: canon examples where it is Word of God that a fictional story is 'true'in our universe. This includes examples where works are said to be based on mysterious ancient documents.

• A True Story in My Universe: which is for In-Universe examples of the above

• Literary Agent Hypothesis: for when the idea that a work is true is pure fanon with no Word of God.

edited 6th Jan '12 1:33:58 PM by Hadashi

So, let me see if I've got this right.

• Literary Agent Hypothesis: The idea that a work is just a fictional version of real events.
  • Direct Line to the Author: A subtrope where the work presents itself that way.
• A True Story In My World: When the events of a work are fictionalized within the work; ie, the characters mention "they wrote a book about us" or somesuch.

Is that right? All three of those tropes have needlessly confusing descriptions, and Direct Line to the Author and A True Story In My World are confusingly named, as well. Should definitely work on that.

I'm not sure that you understand what the tropes are about, I admit that the text of Literary Agent Hypothesis is still very confusing, but it is being worked on. If you read the full text of the other two tropes they should give you a general idea of what it is about.

The titles of Direct Line to the Author, Literary Agent Hypothesis and A True Story In Universe are all pretty fitting if you read the tropes.

edited 6th Jan '12 4:04:47 PM by Hadashi

I did read the articles. I'm still confused. That's why I asked "is this right?" instead of saying "I think it's this". Regardless, the names are confusing. A True Story in My Universe makes me think of Mutually Fictional because it uses first person, which makes it sound like dialogue (eg, "Spider Man is just a comic book here? It's A True Story in My Universe!"). Direct Line to the Author seems to be named such because the characters have a direct line to the author through which the work was made, but that's far from intuitive (going on the name alone, I'd guess that it was a character breaking the fourth wall in order to talk to the author directly).

Ideally, trope names will be indicative of their meanings without having to refer to the trope article to figure out what the hell they mean. This is absolutely not the case for either A True Story in My Universe or Direct Line to the Author. Given that both also have few wicks (22 for Direct Line to the Author and 12 for A True Story in My Universe) and seem to have been launched from YKTTW without waiting for consensus on a proper name, I'd say change them.

Actually, Recounted by the Main Characters seems to be a redirect for Direct Line to the Author — that's a much better name. I'd suggest using that (though using either Recounted By The Main Character, singular, or Recounted By The Characters in order to make it slightly broader would probably be better). A True Story in My Universe's redirects are just as bad as its main title, though — I'd say Self Confessed Literary Agent, Literary Agent Confirmation, Literary Agent Confession, or something like that.

edited 6th Jan '12 4:27:13 PM by NativeJovian

A True Story in My Universe is also very similar to Recursive Canon. They should be disambiguated.

Well, "is this right?" sounds rather similar to "I think it's this" to me, but in any case one of that trope's redirects is True Story In Universe. We can just change it to that. Direct Line to the Author is named because it is often, quite literally the way it is set up - the author has the characters ringing or writing to them (see trope description, Wizard Of Oz is the classic example).

"seem to have been launched from YKTTW without waiting for consensus on a proper name, I'd say change them."

The reason both those got shoved out faster than expected is because dozens and dozens of examples for them were already added to Literery Agent Hypothasis due to Trope Decay. As it is I moved some incorrectly due to fatigue, so many got deleted (see discussion page for that trope). Direct Line is more or less What It Says On The Tin and was changed to that as it seemed a lot less clunky and ambiguous (Recounted By The Main Characters could imply many things that are nothing to do with that trope). If you want to change it back, I would start a rename thread and try to go for something new. It is not Recounted By The Main Character because that is too specific. Recounted by the Characters is better, but we need to keep clear of that Literary Agent stuff, it's not a good name.

edited 7th Jan '12 3:57:15 AM by Hadashi

So, wait a second. This thread was made for Literary Agent Hypothesis. Are there any actual problems with that trope? There don't seem to be. If we want to make changes to Direct Line to the Author or A True Story in My Universe, then we should make threads for them instead.

Literary Agent Hypothesis needs clarification and simplification work. Direct Line to the Author and A True Story in My Universe were made specifically to handle examples that had been erroneously placed on Literary Agent Hypothesis but which actually had nothing to do with fanon theories. I have moved a lot of the erroneous examples to these two tropes but very many still remain and I didn't get it 100% right because it was a long exhausting job and I could only really go on what the example says since it would have taken far to long to confirm every single example.

If you want to see bad examples of Literary Agent Hypothesis that are really Direct Line to the Author or A True Story in My Universe, start at the bottom of the page and work up.

edited 8th Jan '12 6:52:32 AM by Hadashi

Recapping: Moving non-examples is what is needed. Other than that, nothing is needed. The description is correct.

While we're talking about it, there's a fourth thing I've been wanting to add somehow, but have had some trouble defining it precisely:

Fictional Publishing History, perhaps. Mainly used in parody, it's kind of in a zone between this trope and Fictional Document. There's an actual fictional work that actually exists in Real Life, which purports to be part of a much larger, but nonexistent, body of work. Like my own Jet Dream comics (where the gag is that they're part of an actual comics line that was supposedly published circa 1970) or Bongo Comics "Radioactive Man" comic books◊, which are intermittently released with numbering that suggests it was a Long Runner published since the 1940s.

The concept doesn't quite seem to fit existing tropes (nobody ever thinks the stories are ever anything other than fictional, and they're not even presented as non-fiction), but has a lot of overlap with them. Probably needs to be a separate trope, but I bring it up here in case it makes sense to think about it in the broader context of thinking about Literary Agent Hypothesis.

"Recapping: Moving non-examples is what is needed. Other than that, nothing is needed. The description is correct."

The description is correct, but needs to be worked on. Ideally we should simplify it a bit.

Suedenim, what you are describing sounds like either a different trope, or a mixture of it and Direct Line to the Author. Direct Line covers all fictional works that purport to be true stories but aren't, what you are describing sounds like a closely related trope. If you are saying, though, that it literally came from a magazine of that period, then it might be this - but I don't know.

edited 8th Jan '12 8:03:18 AM by Hadashi

No, it didn't come from that period, but is produced in a Retreaux fashion, so it looks like it did.

Sounds fun. What I'm mean is, do you think it would make a good example of Direct line, or would it be better off with its own specific trope?

That's what I'm trying to figure out. It seems to be at the intersection of a bunch of different tropes, but not really belonging to any. Close enough that I'm unsure whether it needs a new trope, or just a slight tweak to the definition of an existing one. Fictional Document is kinda-sorta close, but the examples are mostly "Characters in a fictional work talk about their favorite (but non-existent in Real Life) novels" or somesuch, but the novels in question don't exist in the real world (except in a few isolated cases, like when J.K. Rowling actually wrote the "Quidditch" book, for instance.)

Oh, and a slight correction to my earlier statement. The Jet Dream source material *is* from the general time period, but repurposed as a Remix Comic.

edited 8th Jan '12 9:02:54 AM by suedenim

"It seems to be at the intersection of a bunch of different tropes, but not really belonging to any"

That's definitely a good thing.

I think this is defiantly a different (but tangentially related) trope, I don't have much time to think about articulating it currently, but if you want to create a new trope I think it would work - I would certainly put a hat on it for you. Just be sure to make it clear that it is distinct from these ones (I swear there are these guys who just do nothing but jump on new tropes and compare them to entirely unrelated things....).

edited 8th Jan '12 9:35:10 AM by Hadashi

If I'm reading the descriptions for the various interrelated tropes correctly, then shouldn't Literary Agent Hypothesis be exampleless Audience Reaction or something? It's impossible for the Literary Agent Hypothesis to be used by the work itself (if it is, then that's Direct Line to the Author) — it has to come from the fans, so isn't really a trope, per se. It's more like a type of Fan Wank.

So does every example under Literary Agent Hypothesis need to be sorted to one of the other tropes, or am I still misunderstanding it?

LAH contains examples of fan theories, therefore it is not about the works as much as it is about Fanon. If a theory is popular in the fandom then it can go there, if it is canon it goes in one of the others.

While it makes sense that a trope like Literary Agent Hypothesis should be a part of fan theory, I think the article lost something when this was removed:

Because it's not just a matter of perspective of the work as fanon, having a perspective on how to treat a fictional work is critical to discourse in general. As it is now, it sounds like the article is saying "only fans talk about books this way" when SOME perspective on the book's "reality" is necessary to talk about books period.

I note too that Watsonian versus Doylist links here as a related trope but not the other way around.

suedenim, I think your examples fall under Absolutely Happened.

Hmm, thanks for that. Absolutely Happened certainly seems close, but unfortunately seems to need work: the description is vague and half the examples don't seem to fit.

On a related note, someone seems to have started a YKTTW draft for when the work presents itself as being a diary written by the character. The draft is abandoned. Linked here.

If we don't already have this, I think it would be useful and related to some of the prior misuse of Literary Agent Hypothesis.

Plato called this trope mimesis.

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