How do I write a story within a story?
How can a protagonist, being a writer himself, share a full short story he has written with the readers within a short story?
What are the techniques he can use to separate the frame story from the written work and vice versa?
This is a wordy short story, roughly 8,000 to 10,000 words
- I prefer the writer sharing the short story with the reader directly. First person narrative
- How can a character read a written work within a story? Third person omniscient narrative
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Well, that would depend how long this short story is. But to me, the first idea that comes to mind is to show this short story by having a character actually reading it, perhaps within the framework of your author having asked for some feedback from a friend or even his publisher. Either that or make it your first chapter showing the issues he has with it (assuming there are any) perhaps by using an opening paragraph like describing what the book means to him and asking the reader what they think of it before showing it.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25251. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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The best answer to questions of this kind is to read brilliant examples of the technique from great writers. In this case the preeminent example is probably Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (the book on which Apocalypse Now was based). Technically, the method here is storytelling (outloud to a group of sailors) rather than writing, but the principle of the frame is the same.
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