withinfiction

Withinfiction is a term used in literary criticism to describe works that incorporate one or more fictional narratives inside a larger fictional framework. It refers to narratives that include embedded stories, manuscripts, plays, or other fictional texts presented as part of the diegetic world, as well as situations in which characters discuss or create stories within the story. The device is often used to explore themes of authorship, narrative authority, and the instability of reality, and to invite readers to question what counts as story within a story.

Typically, withinfiction involves multiple levels of narration, such as a frame story that houses an inner tale, or an in-world document that the characters read or compose. Techniques include explicit self-reference, footnotes or appendices, and parallel plots that mirror or contradict the outer plot. The effect can range from playful metafiction to serious critique of storytelling conventions.

Examples cited by critics include Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler (which foregrounds a reader attempting to access a book), and other frame narratives and nested tales. In film and television, the device appears in meta-commentary or stories about writing and publishing. In interactive media and games, players may encounter in-world texts that influence the main story.

See also: metafiction, nested narrative, frame story, self-reference, intertextuality.