KUEHL, John

p. 62 :

The main characteristics of metafiction are the irrelevance of the individual author and the assumption that literature is collaborative/plagiaristic; the borrowing of characters from one's own and others' work; the fictionalization of the author, who appears in the "unreal"domain of the characters, and the actualization of the characters (often writers), who appear in the "real" domain of the author; the treatment of history as fictitious; the inclusion of unreliable documentation; the projection of linguistic heterocosms or substitute worlds; the tendency to unmask and defamiliarize dead conventions through parody; the employment of arbitrary beginning and multiple endings; the introduction of frames and tales-within-tales, leading to circularity and regressus in infinitum; and the focus on fiction as process rather than product.

(Alternate Worlds, 1989)