: Re: Presenting Fiction as Non-Fiction I am toying writing a book involving layered stories: There is Manuscript A, written by a character, which is an ostensibly real account/diary of an incident

@Phylliss352

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The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco provides a classic example of exactly what you're describing.

You know that whole thing at the beginning where he discovers the medieval manuscript and all that stuff?

Fiction.

If you skip it, you don't lose much.

Same with Nabokov, who is constantly playing with the nature of fiction.

In fact, what you describe -- in terms of preface, afterwords, index, etc (all being fictionalized trimmings on top of the "text" itself) is all part of Nabokov's classic work PALE FIRE. What's cool about this is the "commentary" IS the story itself, and tells a DIFFERENT story than the main story.

Brings up all sorts of interesting questions.

Is Pale Fire by the poet himself? Is Pale Fire by a critic? By the poet's wife?

Is it really what it says it is about? That's the nature of fiction, and by playing with this idea in the form, you're exploring one of the key things that makes fiction work.

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