How I Experimented on Non-Fictional Writing in "Nested Story" Format?

What do you mean by "Nested Story" writing style?

Different authors follow different writing styles/formats for their writing. "Nested story" writing style is one of the most interesting writing styles. In such kinds of writing, you can find multiple layers or levels of stories inside the main story. The outer/main story is called as frame story. I can even say when one or more than one stories are present inside the main story that is known as nested stories. In other words, the main outer story can be divided into smaller inner stories and each of these inner stories can be again divided into sub-inner stories. most of these inner stories have somehow related to the main story. But, there are some examples of these nested stories where the sub-stories are not at all related to the main story. In nested story format, the author must narrate his/her story and within that story, some characters also narrate their individual stories or experiences. One of the most common uses of these nested stories is when the character of a play/movie/story goes down through the memory lane (flashback).

Where can you find these "Nested Stories"?

You can find instances of such stories in many novels, series, movies, theatre plays, anthologies, and so on. One thing that is common in all of these genres is almost all of these are fictional. What I mean to say is, "story within story" is mostly found in case of fictional writing. One important thing is, always inner stories and outer stories have some influence on each other. Some authors use nested stories format to enhance the entertainment value of their piece, whereas some others use this style to portray readers' perspectives. You can see the use of embedded stories in ancient Indian epic like Ramayana, Mahabharata, etc. Apart from these, there are other examples of nested story writing just like:- theatre play within a book, movie within a book, theatre play within a movie, series within a movie, TV show within a video game, story within a story becomes the creator of another story (spin-offs).

Have you ever tried to write a non-fictional story or a personal experience in this format?

As I already mentioned, almost all of these "Nested Stories" are either partially or completely fictional. Such stories have very few or zero similarities with real people and real events. Can we use this writing style for narrating non-fictional and real-life experiences? Can we consider personal blogs or social media posts of thousands of people and put it in a nested story format? - This question came to my mind before few months. I tried searching for proper do's and don'ts of such writing style, but I didn't find a proper one. I was also unable to find any non-fictional content in nested stories format. After that, I started reading thousands of blogs and personal experiences of people on different social media platforms. Besides these, I spent hours to listen experiences of my family, friends, neighbours and relatives. It took almost one and half months to go through all those posts and I also didn't ignore a single comment on those posts. Reading comments on all these posts gave me an opportunity to understand readers' perceptions. It is very important to write in such a way to which the viewers can relate. Then after discarding hundreds of rough drafts, I was able to compose few pieces of writing in the above style. I already posted 1-2 blogs in this format and got good response from the audience. While reading you people must have not realized those blogs were written in "non-fictional nested story" format.

From where you can get these non-fictional inner stories?

You can choose your inner story from two sources.

1. The first one is a story or real-life experience of a person whom you know. That person can be your family, friend, relative, colleague, neighbour or a stranger with whom you accidentally met. Most of the time, such stories are not shared or published on any public platform. So, you have the advantage to include these as inner stories and it will attract the attention of viewers if it's an interesting one. As these stories are never been published, so there is no chance that anyone will know about it before. As per my observation, those stories that readers haven't read before usually preferred by the readers to proceed with. Therefore, pay attention to everyone who is sharing his/her life story (either good or bad) with you. It's always preferable to take the consent of that person whom story you are going to use. This is not ethically right to write about someone or some events of their life without their permission.

2. The second category includes all those stories or life experiences shared online by millions of users on different social media platforms. You can pick anyone of these stories (of course with the consent of that person). Choose stories with which you can relate and you can draw a connection within your storyline. You have one major advantage that is, now-a-days, millions of stories are easily available online. Read the reaction of all the people who viewed that story and gave their valuable feedback or some piece of advice.

How to write a non-fictional nested story?

-- Choose your topic or area in which you want to write.

-- Select some relevant stories of others that you want to use as your inner stories.

-- Choose an unique , but catchy title.

-- At first, write about your experience or your perception of the topic.

-- Include stories of those persons that you have collected to include as inner stories. Make sure to include the name and source of publication (if it has any).

-- Don't stuff these stories forcefully. Allow these stories to come with the story of yours with the same flow.

-- You can use the exact content of those people (as you have the consent to use) or you may re-write it. But, don't do unnecessary alternation to the original story.

-- You may include some points that you gathered through the readers' feedbacks or comments and write about your view points about these feedbacks.

-- Write about your view of those inner stories and the characters of these inner stories. You can write in a comparative manner mentioning both positive and negative points.

-- Make a quick wrap up with a good conclusion.

It's not easy to establish a connection and continue the flow between different experiences of different persons. More importantly, you are putting together these nested stories that are experienced at different times. If it's a fictional one, then that completely depends upon the author's creativity. When you are working on real events, then you have to work really hard on this. It may work with a single attempt or it may not work after several failed attempts, but you will learn something new during these attempts.

Let's try writing these non-fictional and real-life experiences with nested story format. Let me know your experiences while trying these.

Thanks for reading.