Definitions

Metafiction is a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality.  In providing a critique of their own methods of construction, such writings not only examine the fundamental structures of narrative fiction, they also explore the possible fictionality of the world outside the literary fictional text.  (Waugh 2).

Spectrum:  Metafiction is thus an elastic term which cover a wide range of fictions.  There are those novels at one end of the spectrum which take    fictionality as a  theme to be explored . .. whose formal self-consciousness is limited.  At the center of this spectrum are those texts that manifest the symptoms of formal and ontological insecurity but allow their deconstructions to be finally recontextualized or ''naturalized'' and given a total  interpretation . . .Finally, at the furthest extreme that, in rejecting realism more thoroughly, posit the world as a fabrication of competing semiotic systems which never correspond to material conditions, ...(Waugh 18-19)

Relevant terms:

Surfiction: Raymond Federman''s book of that name discusses the  mode in terms of overt narratorial intrusion so that, as in the  ''self-begetting novel'', the focus appears to be on the ironist him/herself  rather than on the overt and covert levels of the ironic text.  Telling as individual invention, spontaneous fabrication at the expense of  external reality  or literary tradition, is  emphasized rather than . . . metafiction''s  continuous involvement in -- and meditation of -- reality through linguistic structures and  preexistent texts.

Reference:

Waugh, Patricia.   Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. NY: Routledge, 1984.