Is there a name for when the narrator (in a literary text) talks to the reader directly?
I'm talking about mainly third person narrators in fiction, like for example, "if you have felt/heard/seen X then...". What is it called?
You are viewing a single comment
I've always known that as an aside.
This seems the best answer
It seems like the best fit, but I'm not actually sure if that would apply either. The definition listed there is when a character talks directly to the audience, like in a Deadpool movie when he makes a joke as an aside, it seems to more apply to characters inside the story, not outside. I guess you can argue that the Narrator is considered a character in a story, but in my mind they've always seemed sort of nebulous and outside "the story" (with some exceptions to this). The Narrator is sort of always talking to the reader in a way (unless it's a character specifically narrating the events to another character).
Ha ha Terry Pratchett especially, but also Stephen King sometimes disagree 🙂