History Main / NestedStory

* Webcomic/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.

[[folder: Web Original]]

* ''Website/GoodbyeStrangers'' is a nested story that also [[RecursiveReality contains itself]]. ''Behind the Curtain'' is a semi-autobiographical story about the making of ''Goodbye Strangers'', until the fictional version of the author discovers elements of ''Goodbye Strangers'' leaking into his own reality. The main story of ''Goodbye Strangers'', which is called ''Space Maddness'', takes place in a fictional setting called North Mural. Within North Mural is a FictionalVideoGame called ''Zeroworld'' which depicts a BadFuture called VHZ, which would end up coming true. But somehow, ''Behind the Curtain'' also exists within the VHZ future.

** [[UpToEleven And all this is in a story told to us by Mary Shelley.]]

* The ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' series is basically one long string of these, as present-day protagonist Desmond Miles is experiencing the memories and histories of his ancestors Altair, Ezio Auditore and Connor Kenway. ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations Revelations]]'' takes this UpToEleven when Desmond-as-Ezio finds the Masyaf Keys, which allow ''Ezio'' to see Altair's memories as well.

-->'''Jeff:''' Abed! Stop being 'meta'! Why do you always have to take what happens to us and shove it up it's own ass?!

* The play ''Rehearsal for Murder'' features a play within a play within a play within the play.
* Shakespeare uses this device in ''Hamlet'' when "The Murder of Gonzago" is used to ferret out Claudius's guilt.
* Tom Stoppard's ''Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead'' shows the Tragedians playing "The Murder of Gonzago" (which mirrors the outer play of Hamlet) which, in turn, [[MindScrew contains the Tragedians playing "The Murder of Gonzago".]]

* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': At the Council of Elrond [[WizardClassic Gandalf]] recounts the events of his research into [[ArtifactOfDoom the Ring]], his first confrontation with Saruman, and his escape from Isengard.

* The film ''The Locket'' starts with a man about to get married being confronted by another man claiming that he used to be married to the same woman, and she ruined his life. His story then starts with the same situation, as does the next story resulting from it.

* The early Creator/IngmarBergman film ''Secrets of Women'' is based on flashbacks, using the FramingDevice of the wives of three brothers telling each other stories about their marriages. One of the flashbacks starts out with the wife recounting how she went to the hospital after going into labor. Then, while she's in the hospital bed waiting for the doctor, she reminisces about how she met her husband, which starts a long, very elaborate secondary flashback scene filmed in Paris.

* Several of the SherlockHolmes stories, particularly ''A Study in Scarlet'', and ''The Valley of Fear'' have Holmes' investigation of a crime mostly as an excuse to put a frame around the killer's why he done it story.

This trope is related to the DreamWithinADream or ShowWithinAShow, but in practice it acts quite differently, because the "inner" stories claim all of the reader's attention, and there are often many levels of them, so it becomes hard to remember which one is the "outermost".

[[quoteright:350: [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Nested_Story_350_9636.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Well, Lisa's best recollection of Burns' paraphrasing of what he read in Moe's letter is that Krabappel told Moe...]]

* ''Literature/TheManuscriptFoundInSaragossa''. You have the LiteraryAgentHypothesis at the top, telling the story of the protagonist, who spends most of his time listening to stories told by others, and these stories often include nested stories of their own--to the point that the characters sometimes complain how confusing all the nested stories have become.

* In ''Webcomic/{{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 name Nested Story comes from [[MatryoshkaObject 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 [[RussianDollWorld inside another inside another inside another]].

* The early Creator/IngmarBergman film ''Secrets of Women'' is based on flashbacks, using the FramingDevice of the wives of three brothers telling each other stories about their marriages. One of the flashbacks starts out with the wife recounting how she went to the hospital after going into labor. Then, while she's in the hospital bed waiting for the doctor, she reminisces about how she met husband, which starts a long, very elaborate secondary flashback scene filmed in Paris.

-->-- '''The Oracle''', ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick''

* A number of the [[TricksterArchetype coyote]] [[Myth/NativeAmericanMythology stories]].

* It's possible at one point in ''VideoGame/DieReiseInsAll'' to let one of the main characters read ''Literature/TreasureIsland'', which ends in playing the sroty itself.

* In line with the Oral Storytelling tradition side of the trope, the "World's End" arc of ''ComicBook/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.
** The arc also ends with a NestedStoryReveal.

** Jasper Fforde's ''Something Rotten'' parodies this aspect of the novel, explaining it as the result of a slapdash compromise to resolve the bitter disagreement among the characters regarding who should get the narration.

* As mentioned above, ''TabletopGame/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.
** Actually closer to around fourteen if no card recovery systems are used. However, chances are that it will last significantly shorter.

* The play "Rehearsal for Murder" features a play within a play within a play within the play.
* Shakespeare uses this device in "''Hamlet''" when "The Murder of Gonzago" is used to ferret out Claudius's guilt.
* Similarly, Tom Stoppard's "''Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead''" shows the Tragedians playing "The Murder of Gonzago" (which mirrors the outer play of Hamlet) which, in turn, [[MindScrew contains the Tragedians playing "The Murder of Gonzago".]]

* Pictured above is ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS17E13TheSeeminglyNeverEndingStory The Seemingly Never-Ending Story]]". The episode 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]].