Editing Story within a story (section)

== Fractal fiction ==
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Some stories feature what might be called a literary version of the [[Droste effect]], where an image contains a smaller version of itself (also a common feature in many [[fractals]]). An early version is found in an ancient Chinese proverb, in which an old monk situated in a temple found on a high mountain recursively tells the same story to a younger monk about an old monk who tells a younger monk a story regarding an old monk sitting in a temple located on a high mountain, and so on.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://m.iask.sina.com.cn/b/1GZjVScjFNuT.html|title=从前有个山，山上有个庙，庙里有个和尚，他在 – 手机爱问|website=m.iask.sina.com.cn|access-date=2019-04-30}}</ref> The same concept is at the heart of [[Michael Ende]]'s classic children's novel ''[[The Neverending Story]]'', which prominently features a book of the same title. This is later revealed to be the same book the audience is reading, when it begins to be retold again from the beginning, thus creating an infinite regression that features as a plot element. Another story that includes versions of itself is [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[The Sandman: Worlds' End]]'' which contains several instances of multiple storytelling levels, including ''Cerements'' (issue #55) where one of the inmost levels corresponds to one of the outer levels, turning the story-within-a-story structure into an infinite regression. Jesse Ball's ''The Way Through Doors'' features a deeply nested set of stories within stories, most of which explore alternate versions of the main characters. The frame device is that the main character is telling stories to a woman in a coma (similar to Almodóvar's ''Talk to Her'', mentioned above).

Richard Adams' classic Watership Down includes several memorable tales about the legendary prince of rabbits, El-Ahraira, as told by master storyteller, Dandelion.

[[Samuel Delany]]'s great surrealist sci-fi classic ''[[Dhalgren]]'' features the main character discovering a diary apparently written by a version of himself, with incidents that usually reflect, but sometimes contrast with the main narrative. The last section of the book is taken up entirely by journal entries, about which readers must choose whether to take as completing the narrator's own story. Similarly, in [[Kiese Laymon]]'s ''Long Division'', the main character discovers a book, also called ''Long Division'', featuring what appears to be himself, except as living twenty years earlier. The title book in Charles Yu's ''[[How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe]]'' exists within itself as a stable creation of a closed loop in time. Likewise, in the Will Ferrell comedy [[Stranger than Fiction (2006 film)|''Stranger than Fiction'']] the main character discovers he is a character in a book that (along with its author) also exists in the same universe. The 1979 book ''[[Gödel, Escher, Bach]]'' by [[Douglas Hofstadter]] includes a narrative between [[Achilles and the Tortoise]] (characters borrowed from [[Lewis Carroll]], who in turn borrowed them from [[Zeno of Elea|Zeno]]), and within this story they find the book "Provocative Adventures of Achilles and the Tortoise Taking Place in Sundry Spots of the Globe", which they begin to read, the Tortoise taking the part of the Tortoise, and Achilles taking the part of Achilles. Within this self-referential narrative, the two characters find the book "Provocative Adventures of Achilles and the Tortoise Taking Place in Sundry Spots of the Globe", which they begin to read, this time each taking the other's part. The 1979 experimental novel ''[[If on a winter's night a traveler]]'' by [[Italo Calvino]] follows a reader, addressed in the second person, trying to read the very same book, but being interrupted by ten other recursively nested incomplete stories.

[[Robert Altman]]'s satirical Hollywood noir [[The Player (1992 film)|''The Player'']] ends with the [[antihero]] being pitched a movie version of his own story, complete with an unlikely happy ending. The long-running musical ''[[A Chorus Line]]'' dramatizes its own creation, and the life stories of its own original cast members. The famous final number does double duty as the showstopper for both the musical the audience is watching and the one the characters are appearing in. ''[[Austin Powers in Goldmember]]'' begins with an action film opening, which turns out to be a sequence being filmed by [[Steven Spielberg]]. Near the ending, the events of the film itself are revealed to be a movie being enjoyed by the characters. Jim Henson's ''[[The Muppet Movie]]'' is framed as a screening of the movie itself, and the screenplay for the movie is present inside the movie, which ends with an abstracted, abbreviated re-staging of its own events. The 1985 Tim Burton film ''[[Pee-Wee's Big Adventure]]'' ends with the main characters watching a film version of their own adventures, but as reimagined as a Hollywood blockbuster action film, with [[James Brolin]] as a more stereotypically manly version of the [[Paul Reubens]] title character. Episode 14 of the [[anime]] series ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' is essentially a clip show, but has several newly animated segments based on ''[[Gekigangar III]]'', an anime that exists within its universe and that many characters are fans of, that involves the characters of that show watching Nadesico. The episode ends with the crew of the Nadesico watching the very same episode of Gekigangar, causing a [[paradox]]. [[Mel Brooks]]'s 1974 comedy ''[[Blazing Saddles]]'' leaves its Western setting when the climactic fight scene breaks out, revealing the setting to have been a set in the [[Warner Bros.]] studio lot; the fight spills out onto an adjacent musical set, then into the studio canteen, and finally onto the streets. The two protagonists arrive at [[Grauman's Chinese Theatre]], which is showing the "premiere" of ''Blazing Saddles''; they enter the cinema to watch the conclusion of their own film. Brooks recycled the gag in his 1987 ''[[Star Wars]]'' parody, ''[[Spaceballs]]'', where the villains are able to locate the heroes by watching a copy of the movie they are in on VHS video tape (a comic exaggeration of the phenomenon of films being available on video before their theatrical release). Brooks also made the 1976 parody ''[[Silent Movie]]'' about a buffoonish team of filmmakers trying to make the first Hollywood silent film in forty years—which is essentially that film itself (another forty years later, life imitated art imitating art, when an actual modern silent movie became a hit, the Oscar winner [[The Artist (film)|''The Artist'']]).

The film-within-a-film format is used in the [[Scream (franchise)|''Scream'']] horror series. In ''[[Scream 2]]'', the opening scene takes place in a movie theater where a screening of ''Stab'' is played which depicts the events from [[Scream (1996 film)|the first film]]. In between the events of ''Scream 2'' and ''[[Scream 3]]'', a second film was released called ''Stab 2''. ''Scream 3'' is about the actors filming a fictional third installment in the Stab series. The actors playing the trilogy's characters end up getting killed, much in the same way as the characters they are playing on screen and in the same order. In between the events of ''Scream 3'' and ''[[Scream 4]]'', four other Stab films are released. In the opening sequence of ''Scream 4'' two characters are watching ''Stab 7'' before they get killed. There's also a party in which all seven Stab movies were going to be shown. References are also made to ''Stab 5'' involving [[time travel]] as a plot device. In the fifth installment of the series, also named [[Scream (2022 film)|''Scream'']], an eighth Stab film is mentioned having been released before the film takes place. The characters in the film, several of which are fans of the series, heavily criticize the film, similar to how ''Scream 4'' was criticized. Additionally, late in the film, Mindy watches the first Stab by herself. During the depiction of Ghostface sneaking up behind Randy on the couch from the first film in Stab, Ghostface sneaks up on Mindy and attacks and stabs her.

Director [[Spike Jonze]]'s [[Adaptation (film)|''Adaptation'']] is a fictionalized version of screenwriter [[Charlie Kaufman]]'s struggles to adapt the non-cinematic book ''[[The Orchid Thief]]'' into a Hollywood blockbuster. As his onscreen self succumbs to the temptation to commercialize the narrative, Kaufman incorporates those techniques into the script, including tropes such as an invented romance, a car chase, a drug-running sequence, and an imaginary identical twin for the protagonist. (The movie also features scenes about the making of ''[[Being John Malkovich]]'', previously written by Kaufman and directed by Jonze.) Similarly, in Kaufman's self-directed 2008 film ''[[Synecdoche, New York]]'', the main character Caden Cotard is a skilled director of plays who receives a grant, and ends up creating a remarkable theater piece intended as a carbon copy of the outside world. The layers of copies of the world ends up several layers deep. The same conceit was previously used by frequent Kaufman collaborator [[Michel Gondry]] in his music video for the [[Björk]] song "[[Bachelorette (song)|Bachelorette]]", which features a musical that is about, in part, the creation of that musical. A mini-theater and small audience appear on stage to watch the musical-within-a-musical, and at some point, within that second musical a yet-smaller theater and audience appear.

Fractal fiction is sometimes utilized in [[video game]]s to play with the concept of player choice: In the first chapter of [[Stories Untold (video game)|''Stories Untold'']], the player is required to play a [[text adventure]], which eventually becomes apparent to be happening in the same environment the player is in; in ''[[Superhot]]'' the narrative itself is constructed around the player playing a game called Superhot.