History Main / NestedStory

* The webcomic ''Fanfic/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 [[WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy Mandy]], during which Grim told the story of a particularly nasty event that happened during Billy and Mandy's childhood.

-->''"We're in the middle of a scene you don't remember in a narrated flashback framed by a flash-forward in a prequel book. There's no way in hell you're finding your way back here."''
-->-- The Oracle, TheOrderOfTheStick

* ''Podcast/TheThrillingAdventureHour'' episode "The Devil You Know" opens with Sadie telling the story of why she and Frank are traveling though the depths of the New Jersey hell. That turns into a story of their friend and fellow OccultDetective, Pterodactyl Jones, she his encounter with a woman who claims for can reunite him with his pterodactyl ghost buddy, Harvey. She tells the story of how she fell in love with a ghost only to have her pastor father write to the Vatican about help exorcising ghosts. The Vatican begins telling the story of how they got the tool they're sending the father before Sadie steps in and puts an end to this, declaring the story has become a "narrative nesting doll".

* ''Film/NeverGiveASuckerAnEvenBreak'': The absolutely crazy movie script that Creator/W.C. Fields reads to his producer, with him falling out of the airplane and onto the remote mountain house of the rich lady and her beautiful daughter, takes up the whole middle part of the film. Every so often there's a cut from the nested story back to the producer in his office expressing incredulity as the script gets crazier.

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

* In PeterPaysTribute, the main character is writing a novel that features a bard who tells stories.

* ''Literature/{{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.

* Pictured above is ''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 [[WholeEpisodeFlashback then fades into Bart claiming that this sequence of events is why he didn't do his homework]].
* The ''WesternAnimation/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 "Memory of a Memory", 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.
** "Five Short Tables" takes this to ridiculous levels when Fionna the Human and Cake the Cat (who are based on Ice King's in-universe RuleSixtyThree fan fiction) are subjected to a story by the Ice Queen about Flynn the Human Being and Jacques the Raccoon, who are being subjected to a story by Ice President about Lynn the Person and Janet the Fox.
* The episode [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS6E10TheSaddleRowReview The Saddle Row Review]] from ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' works like this, where the top layer has Rarity reading the review, and then the action cuts between the middle layer where the characters are being interviewed about the main plot and the bottom layer of the main plot itself.

* ''InterviewWithTheVampire''.

* In MarvelComics mythological characters like [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules Hercules]] are prone to waxing at length about their past exploits, often [[TalkingIsAFreeAction in the middle of a fight]].

* MarkTwain's semi-autobiographical work ''Roughing It'' features a man who keeps segueing from story to story without finishing any of them, going as deep as five or six levels at least.

* Some of Creator/HPLovecraft's stories can get four or five levels deep. For example: ''The Call of Cthulhu'' is ostensibly a document found by the reader, collated by Thurston, made of research done by his granduncle, which contains an account of a police officer, who recounts exposition detailed by a cultist.

* Storytelling is a major theme in ''TheKingkillerChronicle''. Kvothe is dictating his autobiography, which contains quite a few stories.

* As mentioned above, MagicTheGathering has [[http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=980 a card]] that starts a game of Magic within the current one, named as a ShoutOut to Literature/ArabianNights. Of course, you could have four of these cards in your deck, resulting in games lasting roughly five times longer than normal. The card has since been banned at official tournaments.

Most Nested Story plots try to end in the original storyline, the major exceptions being AllJustADream and NestedStoryReveal plots, which usually leap to the outer storyline only at the end of the piece. There are, however, [[KudzuPlot a few stories that never return to the outer plot]], perhaps, but not always due to carelessness on the part of the author: Compare ShaggyDogStory.

* ''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.

* ''WesternAnimation/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.

* ''Literature/{{Baltimore}}, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire'' by [[ComicBook/{{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.

A type of RecursiveReality. The "outer" story may be a FramingDevice. See also PerspectiveFlip and TheRashomon. Compare SoapWheel. See also TwoLinesNoWaiting and FourLinesAllWaiting. Can become a KudzuPlot if many [[PlotThreads stories within stories]] are unresolved.

* CaptainSNES has quite a few of these, being that the entire story is being told in flashback form. This trope gets invoked whenever anybody in-story has a flashback, and at least once somebody ''in'' a flashback gets a flashback, and so on.

* In MarvelComics mythological characters like [[TheIncredibleHercules Hercules]] are prone to waxing at length about their past exploits, often [[TalkingIsAFreeAction in the middle of a fight]].