This article brings together two phenomena: on the one hand, the shift from storytelling to "storyliving" in communication and marketing, which encourages individuals to think of their own story as part of the brand's story; and on the other, the development, in artistic and literary production, of a "bovarysm" that exceeds the limits of the work, according to a logic that is no longer representational, but performative. Sophie Calle, Chloé Delaume and Alain Farah don't just tell stories: they stage themselves living them. This performative bovarianism also reflects the adaptation of players in the artistic and literary world to an economic model in which, in order to sell, you have to perform a story. Drawing on Jérôme Meizoz's work on the notion of posture, the aim is to reflect on the ways in which the author is figuration in and out of the book, according to a fictional strategy that shifts literary creation from mimesis to mimicry. While certain artistic and literary practices thwart these strategies, others play on them, re-enact them or overplay them, blurring the line between good and bad uses of narrative.