Framing/Frame Story

A frame story, or framing is a common literary device where one overarching story contains either one or several related stories and unites the narrative.

It has been used in such classical literature pieces as Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey or Boccacio’s Decameron. Frame story remains very common even today and can be seen even outside literature in modern movies or television shows (e.g., Inception, How I Met Your Mother).

There can be many reasons for using a frame story, such as to provide context to the story, to add momentum or even to provide additional points of view. One way to understand a frame story “is to imagine a sandwich. The introductory and concluding stories are the bread, and the additional stories inside the frame are the fillings in the story sandwich.” (SuperSummary, n.d.)

Frame stories are formed when a character begins telling a story (flashbacks can be also used as frame stories in visual storytelling).