The Effect of The Frame Story Technique Credibility In Fictional Narratives

Abstract

A frame story is a narrative that is constructed with the purpose of presenting a more emphasized story (or stories) that is embedded in it. Not only a technique for elevated storytelling, a frame story can also function as an effective tool for authors, helping form the sensitive relationship of trust and belief that must be established between a fictional text and its audience so that the said audience can experience the fictional reality that the text presents through a willing suspension of disbelief. Certain narrative dynamics unique to this technique of interwined storytelling can help in blurring the line between real and fiction: by helping the audience overlook the medium employed for the presentation of the story; by giving the narrator character a different (fictional) subject to address to instead of the audience; by providing in-fiction explanations for interruptions in the storytelling experience necessitated by the peculiarities of the medium; by helping the author distance himself from the story by establishing an in-story character as the storyteller; by increasing the believability of the story through establishing the trustworthiness of the source through the narrative. In addition to that, a frame story can help provide a more fulfilling depth in understanding the narrative through how the frame and the framed stories relate to each other. This work examines these narrative dynamics in detail through selected examples to showcase the effect of a frame story on the credibility of its narrative.