History Main / NestedStory

** Nolan likes these sort of movies. ''{{Inception}}'' features a dreams-within-dreams narrative, similar to the XKCD strip above.
*** ''{{Memento}}'' also has the BPlot of Lenny telling someone the story of his condition in what can best be described as a Flashback.

* ''AdventureTime'': In one episode, Finn [[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind goes inside Marceline's memories]] and is tricked into helping destroy her memory of an important event. To fix this, Finn brings Marceline inside his memories, and shows her his memory of seeing her memory.

* ''AdventureTime'': In one episode, Finn goes inside Marceline's memories and is tricked into destroying her memory of an important event. To fix this, Finn brings Marceline inside his memories, and shows her his memory of seeing her memory.

* The webcomic ''GrimTalesFromDownBelow'' has this, using a series of flashbacks within flashbacks. Starting with Jr. relating to Spawn how he got to be the Reaper, 3 days ago in Halloween, where he met a group of kids and told them the story of how his father Grim married his mother [[TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy Mandy]], during which Grim told the story of a particularly nasty event that happened during Billy and Mandy's childhood.

* Played for laughs in [[http://epparker.com/tallcomics/?id=76 this page]] of ''[=~Unwinder's Tall Comics~=]'', with five layers of webcomic authors demanding that someone read their webcomic.

->''Alan Wake is about a writer, writing about another writer, who is writing about himself and '''another fucking writer!''' It's like if [[MCEscher M. C. Escher]] was a writer, and also [[SophisticatedAsHell a douchebag]].''

* Played for laughs in [[http://www.tallcomics.com/index.php?strip_id=85 this page]] of ''[=~Unwinder's Tall Comics~=]'', with five layers of webcomic authors demanding that someone read their webcomic.

A type of RecursiveReality. The "outer" story may be a FramingDevice.

* ''Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire'' by [[{{Hellboy}} Mike Mignola]] and Christopher Golden is an arguably very well done version of this, in that each individual story furthers the overarching plot. What prevents it from being a {{Rashomon}} or PerspectiveFlip is that each character is merely telling the piece of the story they know: there are also plenty of other side stories slipped in, and it almost ignores the overarching plot while the stories are being told.

->''Alan Wake is about a writer, writing about another writer, who is writing about himself and '''another fucking writer!''' It's like if [[MCEscher M. C. Escher]] was a writer, and also a douchebag.''

* In ''The Monk'' by Matthew Gregory Lewis, there are a few Gothic Tales peppering the main story, or making up part of some characters' backstories.

* The ''ArabianNights''. The whole thing is composed of Nested Stories, and some of the "stand-alone" stories are as many as seven levels deep.
** Fittingly, the ''MagicTheGathering'' card [[http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=980 Shahrazad]] starts a new game within the current game.
* A number of the [[TricksterArchetype coyote]] [[NativeAmericanMythology stories]].
* ''{{Frankenstein}}'': At the deepest level: The family on whom the monster is spying is telling a story, within the monster's story to Dr. Frankenstein, who is in turn recounting the story to the captain of a ship in the Arctic, who is in turn telling someone else about it in a letter.

* The dialogue "Little Harmonic Labyrinth" in Douglas Hofstadter's ''[[GodelEscherBach Gödel, Escher, Bach]]'' is one of these. It includes LampshadeHanging and discussion of the whole concept of "push" and "pop" story. Helpfully, each level of reality is denoted by an indent in the text, but the indents are used for other things besides telling stories in stories- in one section, Achilles and the Tortoise find a magic lamp and meet a Genie. Attempting to get a wish for more wishes, the genie initially refuses saying that it can't grant "meta-wishes" (wishes about wishes) but eventually relents, but it has to ask the Meta-Genie to allow it to grant a meta-wish... and the Meta-Genie has to ask the Meta-Meta-Genie, and so on. Each genie's lines are indented one more than the previous one. [[spoiler: Naturally, the outermost story (in which Achilles and the Tortoise get kidnapped and start reading a book while they wait for the villain) never does get resolved...]]
* ''WutheringHeights'' is narrated by Mr. Lockwood, who has the story narrated to him by Nelly Dean, who at one point tells him about the time Edgar was telling her...
* ''TheSimpsons'' episode "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story" begins with the Simpsons exploring a cave, during which Lisa tells a story about Mr. Burns and a goat, during which Mr. Burns tells a story about himself, Rich Texan and Moe, during which he read a letter telling a story about Moe, Snake, and Mrs. Krabappel, during which Mrs. Krabappel tells a story about herself and Bart. This segues back into the previous story, which segues back into the, which segued into the previous one, which faded into the higher story, which then led to the goat's story. This faded back into the previous story, which segued back into the cave story, which led to Homer telling a story about buried treasure. This story ends, leaving them back in the cave, and the plot is resolved — and the story then fades into Bart claiming that this sequence of events is why he didn't do his homework.
* In {{Xkcd}}, [[http://xkcd.com/244/ Tabletop Roleplaying]] (which uses a concept similar to one in an old ''{{PvP}}'' strip), and less traditionally [[http://xkcd.com/248/ Hypotheticals]].

* The ''EdEddNEddy'' episode "Every Which Way But Ed" involves Eddy telling his fellow Eds a story, but Johnny starts telling a story in which ''Nazz'' starts telling a story, and eventually the Eds get hopelessly lost in all the flashbacks.
* In line with the Oral Storytelling tradition side of the trope, the "World's End" arc of ''TheSandman'' features those caught in a reality storm telling stories, sometimes about people who told them a story about a person who told them a story... Occasionally, this gets to be five-deep in stories.
* ''HouseOfLeaves'', though mostly a {{Mind Screw}}y version of ShowWithinAShow (Within a Show, and another layer or two), has elements of this, particularly the twist where lines between the levels of each story get blurred.
* ''Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire'' by [[{{Hellboy}} Mike Mignola]] and Christopher Golden is an arguably very well done version of this, in that each individual story furthers the overarching plot. What prevents it from being a {{Rashomon}} or PerspectiveFlip is that each character is merely telling the piece of the story they know: there are also plenty of other side stories slipped in, and it almost ignores the overarching plot while the stories are being told.
* Used in ''TheStinkyCheeseMan and Other Fairly Stupid Tales'': "Jack's Bean Problem". The Giant orders Jack to tell him a story, but says he'll eat Jack when the story's over anyway. Jack realizes his only hope is to stall, so he tells the story of how [-the Giant orders Jack to tell him a story, but says he'll eat Jack when the story's over anyway. Jack realizes his only hope is to stall, so he tells the story of how-] [--the Giant orders Jack to tell him a story, but says he'll eat Jack when the story's over anyway. Jack realizes his only hope is to stall, so he tells the story of how--] [---the Giant orders Jack to tell him a story, but says he'll eat Jack when the story's over anyway. Jack realizes his only hope is to stall, so he tells the story of how the Giant...---] In a later chapter, we find out that the Giant fell asleep listening to Jack's endless recursive loop, and Jack just snuck away.
* This happens a couple of times in ''TheCountOfMonteCristo''.
* You can see the nature of [[TheCyberiad "Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines of King Genius"]] just from the title.
* ''The Blind Assassin'' features a story within a story within a story.
* The webcomic ''GrimTalesFromDownBelow'' has this, using a series of flashbacks within flashbacks. Starting with Jr. relating to Spawn how he got to be the Reaper, 3 days ago in Halloween, where he met a group of kids and told them the story of how his father Grim married his mother [[TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy Mandy]], during which Grim told the story of a particularly nasty event that happened during Billy and Mandy's childhood.
* Happens a few times in ''HowIMetYourMother'', due to its love of playing around with flashback sequences. The deepest nested story would be the episode "The Platinum Rule". To prove why Ted shouldn't date his doctor in 2008, Robin tells a story of dating a co-worker in 2007, and then within that story Marshall and Lily flash back to their awkward relationship with their neighbors in 2006, and within that flashback Barney tells the story of how he dated Wendy the waitress in 2005. Keeping in mind that the whole show is a flashback of Ted telling the story set in 2008 to his kids in 2030.
* ''TheCanterburyTales'', though it's pretty good about having only one StoryWithinAStory going on at a time, still has about 25 tales that get told one after the other, and sometimes extra tales in the middle of a prologue.
* Kelly Link's "Lull" is a head-spinning example. It's a short story about six suburban men playing poker. They call a phone-sex operator and ask her to tell them a story. She tells a story about a cheerleader and TheDevil fooling around in a closet. The devil asks the cheerleader to tell him a story. Which is a strange story seemingly about one of the men in the framing story and his wife. Beyond that, you have to read it yourself.

** Nolan likes these sort of movies. {{Inception}} features a dreams-within-dreams narrative, similar to the XKCD strip above.
*** {{Memento}} also has the BPlot of Lenny telling someone the story of his condition in what can best be described as a Flashback.

* In "Melmoth the Wanderer" by Charles Robert Maturin, the narrative is made of this trope, exposing one story of the Wanderer within one other, after an other, as prelude to an other, etc.
* In "The Monk" by Matthew Gregory Lewis, there are a few Gothic Tales peppering the main story, or making up part of some characters' backstories.

* ''EternalDarkness'' begins with Edward Roivas posthumously narrating the beginning of his granddaughter Alex's chapter in the ''Tome of Eternal Darkness''. In her story, she reads (and experiences) the stories of other previous Tome bearers, including that of Edward himself.

* The dialogue "Little Harmonic Labyrinth" in Douglas Hofstadter's ''Gödel, Escher, Bach'' is one of these. It includes LampshadeHanging and discussion of the whole concept of "push" and "pop" story. Helpfully, each level of reality is denoted by an indent in the text, but the indents are used for other things besides telling stories in stories- in one section, Achilles and the Tortoise find a magic lamp and meet a Genie. Attempting to get a wish for more wishes, the genie initially refuses saying that it can't grant "meta-wishes" (wishes about wishes) but eventually relents, but it has to ask the Meta-Genie to allow it to grant a meta-wish... and the Meta-Genie has to ask the Meta-Meta-Genie, and so on. Each genie's lines are indented one more than the previous one. [[spoiler: Naturally, the outermost story (in which Achilles and the Tortoise get kidnapped and start reading a book while they wait for the villain) never does get resolved...]]

* The ''Arabian Nights''. The whole thing is composed of Nested Stories, and some of the "stand-alone" stories are as many as seven levels deep.

* ''Interview with a Vampire''.

* A number of the coyote stories.

The name Nested Story comes from Russian matryoshka, or "nesting" dolls; Take one doll apart, and there's another doll inside it, and another inside that, and so on and so on, just as this trope is one story inside another inside another inside another.

Most Nested Story plots try to end in the original storyline, the major exception being AllJustADream plots, which only leap to the outer storyline at the very end of the piece. There are, however, a few stories that never return to the outer plot, perhaps due to carelessness on the part of the author.

See also RecursiveReality. Compare FramingDevice.