History Main / FramingDevice

* The medieval Indian work ''Twenty-Five Tales of Vetala/Betal'' has as a framing device Indian King Vikram talking to a vetala, a monstrous being of Hindu religion, and listening to its tales. The work was later translated into Tibetan and Mongolic languages, migrating to and spreading in Central Asia as ''The Bewitched Corpse'', ''The Enchanted Corpse'' or the like. However, the Tibetan and Mongolic compilations do not match the contents of the Indian ''Vetala'', although they keep the framing device of a character interacting with a demon/corpse and listening to its tales.

SuperTrope of RecapByAudit (the aftermath of an event reveals or sums up what happened), StorybookOpening, and MythPrologue.

See WholeEpisodeFlashback, HowWeGotHere, InterrogationFlashback, and NostalgicNarrator for more specific examples. When framing devices are stacked on top of each other, they create a NestedStory. If a framing device is set up and is later forgotten by the end of the story, it becomes a ForgottenFramingDevice. If the existence of a framing device is used as a PlotTwist, we're dealing with a NestedStoryReveal. If a story alternates between a character's past and present but doesn't use a framing device, it's FlashbackBPlot. If the framing story is "I came across this story and decided to publish it", the author is invoking DirectLineToTheAuthor. If done badly, you might find ExpoSpeak.

See WholeEpisodeFlashback, StorybookOpening, MythPrologue, HowWeGotHere, InterrogationFlashback, RecapByAudit, and NostalgicNarrator for more specific examples. When framing devices are stacked on top of each other, they create a NestedStory. If a framing device is set up and is later forgotten by the end of the story, it becomes a ForgottenFramingDevice. If the existence of a framing device is used as a PlotTwist, we're dealing with a NestedStoryReveal. If a story alternates between a character's past and present but doesn't use a framing device, it's FlashbackBPlot. If the framing story is "I came across this story and decided to publish it", the author is invoking DirectLineToTheAuthor. If done badly, you might find ExpoSpeak.

Occasionally, an entire series can use a persistent Framing Device, such as ''WesternAnimation/{{Cro}}'', which was framed by a recently thawed mammoth, who was telling the stories which composed the bulk of each episode. A noteworthy example from the days of radio is ''Radio/YoursTrulyJohnnyDollar'', whose stories were told in the form of explanations to a private detective's expense account. This method was also used to get foreign children's shows that were [[QuarterHourShort Quarter Hour Shorts]] on the air in the United States back in the 90's, [[ImportationExpansion usually by creating an entirely new show to serve as the framing device]]. To a lesser extent, devices such as the CaptainsLog can be viewed as a Framing Device, especially when (as in many ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episodes) they appear to have been written after the fact.

Occasionally, an entire series can use a persistent Framing Device, such as ''WesternAnimation/{{Cro}}'', which was framed by a recently thawed mammoth, who was telling the stories which composed the bulk of each episode. A noteworthy example from the days of radio is ''Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar'', whose stories were told in the form of explanations to a private detective's expense account. This method was also used to get foreign children's shows that were [[QuarterHourShort Quarter Hour Shorts]] on the air in the United States back in the 90's, [[ImportationExpansion usually by creating an entirely new show to serve as the framing device]]. To a lesser extent, devices such as the CaptainsLog can be viewed as a Framing Device, especially when (as in many ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episodes) they appear to have been written after the fact.

* The anime for ''Literature/AscendanceOfABookworm'' is set with the high priest of the local temple looking through the main character's memories with magic to see how she got here. It's not really necessary, but gives a hint to viewers about where the season will end and also gets to show off a popular supporting character ahead of schedule.

!!!'''In General:'''
* Many older horror comics have framing devices in which the comic has a "host" who welcomes the reader into their domain, and starts to tell this month's story. Creator/ECComics was best known for this, with their most famous being the Cryptkeeper. Creator/DCComics used the device a lot, with most of their hosts going on to become supporting characters in ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989''.
!!!'''Specific Examples:'''

-->'''Servo:''' Man, Borgnine’s grandkid must be getting really bored by now.
-->'''Mike:''' (as Borgnine): And then he went into the kitchen and poured himself a cool drink.

* In the novel version of ''Literature/ThePrincessBride'', the actual author explains that he's condensing the original book, by "S. Morgenstern". He also goes on and on about things that [[FictionalAutobiography supposedly happened to him throughout a long period of his life]] in the process that led to his "editing" the book.

* The ''Pinball/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon'' pinball takes place in a DriveInTheater where the titular movie is playing. The bulk of the game has the player waiting for the film to start and trying steal a kiss from his girlfriend. The action switches to the film itself during multiball, where the goal is to rescue Kay from the Creature.

* In Creator/MikhailAkhmanov's ''Call of the Abyss'', people with psychic potential receive strange visions when located in a specific spot above Mars. It turns out that the visions are being sent from an AlternateUniverse and appear to show events in the life of people in the past. The stories diverge from historical accounts after the Renaissance, suggesting that this is where this world's history split off from ours. However, the main story experienced by the characters is actually from way back in Ancient Egypt, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Wenamun story of a priest named Un-Amun]][[note]]It is now believed by historians that the story does not, in fact, portray RealLife events but is an early example of historical fiction[[/note]]. The sequel, ''First after God'', continues with the exploration of the signal, aided by the discovery of a psychic alien race, whose representative helps decipher the messages. The vision in this case is that of Captain Peter Shelton, a brave 17th century English sailor seeking to find the lost Incan treasure.

* Mil Millington's ''A Certain Chemistry'' is framed by God telling us how all our emotions, actions and thoughts are governed by our bodies' chemistries, using the main character's story (in which a writer cheats on his girlfriend with a soap star) to illustrate his points.

* ''Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All'' is framed as the 99-year-old narrator, Lucy, telling stories of her life (and the lives of many people she's known) to a journalist interviewing her. The stories get more personal, revealing, and risky as the book progresses, until TheReveal in the penultimate chapter.

* ''A Tale Lost For the World'' by Osip Senkovskiy provides a subversion by being an ''annoyingly'' intricate framing device for a story, that, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin well,]] is not actually included.

* ''The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar'' by Creator/RoaldDahl has two layers of framing.

* A particularly ingenious version of this is used in ''Anime/MartianSuccessorNadesico,'' in an inversion of its ShowWithinAShow relationship with ''Anime/Gekiganger3'' -- it airs as an episode of ''Gekiganger'' in which its characters are watching ''Nadesico.'' It manages to [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] the RecapEpisode when one of the ''Gekiganger'' characters complains that nothing new happens in them, and it's an excuse for the production company to take a break. The ''Gekiganger'' OVA meanwhile, has a framing device of the ''Nadesico'' cast, after the end of the series, watching the ''Gekiganger'' movie in a theater.
* ''Anime/TenchiMuyo Extra Chapter: Galaxy Police Mihoshi's Space Adventure'' (a.k.a. ''Mihoshi Special'') is framed by Mihoshi telling the story to the other characters from the original {{OAV}} series. Most of the characters in the "inner" story are AlternateContinuity versions of them.

* ''Anime/{{Monster}}'' opens with a passage from Revelations which puts the actions of the series it parallels in a very different context.
* The story of the manga ''Manga/NotSimple'' is told as a reporter named Jim writes a book (also titled Not Simple) detailing the many trials of the protr's life.
* ''Manga/KingOfBanditJing: Seventh Heaven'' is a 3-episode {{OVA}} series in which the first and third episodes act as a frame for the second one.
* The first half of Episode 14 of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' is a ClipShow with SEELE discussing the events that played out up to that point framing the segment.
* Similarly, ''Anime/SamuraiChamploo'' has a recap episode framed via Mugen (surreptitiously) reading Fuu's diary entries.

* The last compilation movie for the ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'' anime was framed as [[spoiler:Karma and Nagisa]], just the day before [[spoiler:the Class 3-E reunion seven years after the main story]], meeting up and talking to each other.
* The anime for ''Literature/AscendanceOfABookworm'' is set with the high priest of the local temple looking through the main character's memories with magic to see how she got here. It's not really necessary, but gives a hint to viewers about where the season will end and also gets to show off a popular supporting character ahead of schedule.
* ''Literature/MonsterGirlDoctor Zero'' is a prequel novel that opens with Lime the SlimeGirl visiting the Litbeit Clinic only for her and Sapphee to have a series of conversations about their time in medical school.

* FramingDevice:

* The Literature/PinkCarnation books, featuring the successor to Literature/TheScarletPimpernel, has a framing device in which a modern-day grad student in England is researching the Carnation's exploits, with the help of another spy's descendant.

** In ''Fanfic/TheLegendOfTotalDramaIsland'', Brett learns that he will be a contestant on the the newly revived ''Total Drama Island: The Next Generation'' and learns that his mother was a contestant on the first season of the original ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama Island'', so he asks her to tell him all about her experience. Her tales comprise the inner story, with the [[GreekChorus byplay between Brett and his mother]] comprising the frame story.

* ''{{VideoGame/Catherine}}'' has the whole game be an episode of the show The Golden Playhouse, with your hostess, Trisha: The Midnight Venus. It plays out as if it's a TV series that shows late night movies, complete with opening and closing narration by Trisha. There's even a watermark in the corner of some cutscenes.
** The game is an unusual example in that it is a framing device ''within'' a framing device. [[spoiler:The Golden Playhouse segment of the game which is styled after a late night TV show, is actually a means devised by Trisha (who is actually Ishtar: The Goddess of Love spelled backwards) of finding a person worthy enough to challenge Babel and become her new love partner, due to Dumuzid cheating on her.]]

* ''Film/TheThirdSaturdayInOctoberPartV'' is a 2022 film presented as the fifth installment of a cheap series of ''Film/{{Halloween}}'' rip-offs that was released in 1994. An OpeningScroll explains this. The first original film, ''Film/TheThirdSaturdayInOctoberPartI'', was defictionalized as a sequel, released in 2023 but purported to be originally released in 1979.

* ''Literature/EatersOfTheDead'' is framed as an analysis of an ancient manuscript written by an Arab traveling to Scandinavia.

* ''Literature/TheThirteenthWarrior'' is framed as an analysis of an ancient manuscript written by an Arab traveling to Scandinavia.

** The novels ''Literature/AStudyInScarlet'' and ''The Valley of Fear'' use the stories of Holmes solving a mystery as frames for the perpetrators telling their stories of why they done it.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'' novel ''Liberty's Crusade'' is a {{novelization}} of the Terran campaign, framed as an anti-Terran Dominion documentary by reporter Michael Liberty.

* ''[[Literature/VorkosiganSaga Borders of Infinity]]'', by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold, opens with the protagonist lying in a hospital bed recovering from surgery, with nothing to do except answer his superior officer's questions about his recent missions.

* Creator/MichaelCrichton's ''Literature/EatersOfTheDead'' is framed as an analysis of an ancient manuscript written by an Arab traveling to Scandinavia.

* In Creator/MichaelEnde's ''Literature/TheNeverendingStory'', Bastian's story is initially used as a frame for Atreyu's, as Bastian reads a stolen storybook. When Bastian finds that the book he is reading contains descriptions of his own life and actions, the line between framing and framed story becomes blurry.

* The ''Literature/{{Pendragon}}'' series by Creator/DJMacHale. This is how most of the books in the 10-book series are told. The protagonist Bobby Pendragon writes down his thoughts in a sort of diary as a way of organizing his thoughts and keeping himself sane and sends them to his 2 friends back on present-day Earth who read it along with the audience. Though some of the 5th book and all of the 10th are in his first-person point of view.

* Pierre Boulle’s original ''Literature/PlanetOfTheApes'' is framed with two astronauts finding a strange manuscript floating in space that turns out to be Ulysse’s story. They’re revealed to be chimpanzees in the end of the book.

* The Literature/SherlockHolmes novels ''A Study in Scarlet'' and ''The Valley of Fear'' use the stories of Holmes solving a mystery as frames for the perpetrators telling their stories of why they done it.
** Similarly, Holmes's investigation in the short story ''The Crooked Man'' is a Framing Device for a story about a soldier in India, and his involvement in ''The Adventure of the Gloria Scott'' is entirely incidental.

* ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'' by Creator/HGWells is told through a guest at the Time Traveller's party, who for all but the first two chapters and the final chapter is taking dictation from the Time Traveller.
* ''Literature/TortallUniverse'': The ''Literature/BekaCooper'' trilogy is framed as a young George Cooper reading a cop ancestor's journal at his mother's insistence, to try and dissuade him from being a thief.

* ''Literature/MirrorProject'' presents itself as code comments hidden inside the titular app, a perfectly secure anonymous browser that's also sentient.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheWackyAdventuresOfRonaldMcdonald'' was a series of animated videos, each one having wraparound segments of a live-action Ronald [=McDonald=], who interacts with an animatronic suit of his dog Sundae as well as CGI animations of Grimace, Hamburglar and Birdie before undergoing a ToonTransformation to transition to the animated portion for the first three videos, while the later three instead had Ronald already having experienced the video's adventure before starting a projector to play the animated portion and eschewed the interactions with other characters aside from Sundae's voice being heard from off-screen in "Visitors from Outer Space" and "The Monster O'[=McDonaldland=] Loch".