Writing Blog Number 2

20250523 Frame Story

Frame Story

Frame Story is the term used in folklore studies; Framing Device is the term used in film and TV.

A Frame Story is a way of telling a series of stories in one narrative. The classic example is 1001 Arabian Nights where Scheherazade tells a story to her husband every night in order to stop him from killing her. Many of the portmanteau films from the Amicus company (a rival to Hammer in the UK, and my favourite portmanteau films) have a similar device – men on a train (Dr Terror’s House Of Horrors), the story of inmates in a psychiatric facility (Asylum) et al. – and even the famous Stephen King Creepshow has the framing device of a comic book a father took from his son. In many of these situations, the last story, or an additional little coda or epilogue story involves the framing device itself (Dr Terror…, the men discover they died in a train accident; Asylum, the doctor does not work out that the person he is seeking is the nurse; Creepshow, the kid’s ordered a voodoo doll from the comic book and gets revenge on his father).
         As you can tell, I love a good portmanteau horror film!
         Want a non-horror example? Song Of The South with Uncle Remus telling the tales of Br’er Rabbit et al. Sure, I know, it’s allegedly racist and it’s buried, but it is still a Frame Story around some classic tales of folklore.

However, where does this come in when writing?
         Good question!
         It is not used often, but is becoming a little more common.
         See, anthologies of short stories are always common and are a good way for writers to get their stories out there. These will often have common themes or topics, but the stories are all self-contained units. They are not related at all.
         If you have a good reputation and decent sales as a writer, then a collection of short stories, a personal anthology, can be commissioned. But you need to have a built-in audience – Stephen King, Jeffrey Archer, names like that – and you need to have sold short stories to other markets.
         But some publishing houses do do calls for single-author anthologies, and it seems the books that have the highest acceptance rate have an over-arching Frame Story.

There are two ways you can do this.
         The first is the classic way. This is where between each story you have a short (no longer than three or so pages) interlude of sorts, normally formatted in italics, which explains where the story-teller is and where the next story comes from. This can work really well, and is almost expected, but is becoming a little clichéd, and the framing device can become an impediment and come across as same-y.
         The second way is something that was popularised by Stephen King. Although he didn’t invent it, and only utilised the format a couple of times himself (he never produced a book worth), this is where each story stands as a completely stand-alone work, and the framing device is used in the story universe. King’s was a gentleman’s club where each man would tell a tale. It was, in fact, the price of admission. This is what I prefer.
         In my own writing, I have written a series of stories told by Uncle Joe to his great-nephew. Why did I choose that format? Because I was telling standard horror tales with an Australian twist, and needed something to tie them together, and an old guy who’d travelled when he was younger seemed the ideal way to do that. It also meant I could sell each individual story to anthologies (okay, I’ve only sold two, but the idea is still there, as I’ve written 25). If I collated them, I’d probably have to edit out the explanation of who Uncle Joe was at the start of each, but that’d be all.

So, one other thing. It is not simply stories with a recurring character (blog post on them will be coming!) In the Frame Story, the recurring characters tell the story, are not involved in the action of the story. Usually. My Uncle Joe Tales, Joe tells the story to his great-nephew, but he is also the recurring character in many of them. Anyway, the recurring character being the narrator first and foremost is an important difference.

Anyway, that’s a Frame Story.
         You might as well give it a go. Might be something different, and who knows what it could lead to?
         Good luck!