People often speak of the “meta-fictional” nature of post-modern fiction writing

People often speak of the “meta-fictional” nature of post-modern fiction writing, but the impulse is in many ways as old as the impulse to create fictions; think of Cervantes. Describe the ways in which three modern American novels (i.e., Faulkner, James, Hurston, Cather, Wharton, etc.) are themselves about novel-making or embody the impulse of novel-making in the formal procedures.