Mule Anyone?
(If you had a Commodore 64 in the eighties, you know exactly what I am talking about.)
In software programming a self-recursive program is an error that can occur if a line of code refers to itself. If you were taking computer classes in the eighties, you might have created the following basic program:
10 ? "Hello"
20 Goto 10
The resulting output was a screenful of "Hello."
So self-recursive metafiction would be something like:
Due to a shortage of funds, Unpublished Guy sent his astral projection to the writer's conference. First, his projection attended a session on writing descriptions, and then it attended a session on flash fiction and microfiction. During this session, he wrote a story about Unpublished Guy, who sent his astral projection to a writer's conference due to a shortage of funds. In his story Unpublished Guy's projection first attended a session on writing descriptions and wrote a passage about a mongoose that ate a five pound ham. In the next session, he wrote a story about himself sending an astral projection to a writer's conference, because he couldn't afford the registration fee. First, his projection attended a session on writing descriptions, and then it attended a session on flash fiction and microfiction. The story he wrote, began with the following sentence:
To complete the story, it would be necessary to copy and paste the above passage an infinite number of times. It might be possible with an ebook to include self-recursive code to correctly display the self-recursive metafiction.
In the eighties, this style would have been real cool. Now, it is rather passé.
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