Today I learned about an interesting concept from ‘Making Shapely Fiction’ called a frame story. If you’re like me, you’ve probably seen it done a thousand times without putting a name to it. Simply put, it’s a story that sits around another story or set of stories like a frame, hence the name. It’s one of the oldest and well-used story telling devices out there, with such titles as ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’ making extensive use of the technique. In ‘Frankenstein,’ a seaman named Robert Walton exploring the northern arctic writes to his sister about the fantastic story that his rescue, Victor Frankenstein, relates to him.

I’m not sure I’d ever write a whole book this way, but I think I can apply the concept of using a frame in a smaller way. For example, in ‘A Christmas Story’ the narrator Ralphie frames almost every scene, adding context and hindsight to many of his own misadventures as they happen. In a way, he frames his own story as an older man. Another use might be an interview question -> flashback structure to help set the scene before diving in. This kind of thing I can see myself doing. Maybe I’ll experiment with it in the future.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley