frame story

noun

1. a secondary story or stories embedded in the main story.
2. a narrative providing the framework for connecting a series of otherwise unrelated stories.
3. a literary device that uses such a narrative structure.

Example Sentences

And many of the stories, including the frame story, promote a misogynistic worldview.

From New York Times

As a longtime storyteller, he also savored the primacy of narrative within the stories — particularly the frame story.

From New York Times

The metafictional frame story of the novel is very different from the movie; it’s about a screenwriter, his failing marriage and his distant son.

From Washington Post

There is no such frame story in the stage musical, where the audience to Usnavi’s tale is, well, the audience, and there’s no epilogue involving Vanessa and Usnavi’s daughter.

From Slate

There’s a 10th-century document from Baghdad that describes the “Hazar Afsaneh” and mentions its frame story, about a wicked king who kills a concubine every night until one of these doomed wives manages to stave off her execution by telling him stories.

From New York Times