Openings & ThresholdsIntermediate
Frame Opening
An outer voice, document, memory, interview, trial, or manuscript frames the story.
Principle
A frame opening tells the reader not only what happened, but how it is being received.
Takeaways
- The frame establishes who is telling, to whom, and under what pressure.
- It can create distance, irony, authority, doubt, or testimony.
- The frame must continue to matter after the threshold.
Overview
A frame opening begins outside the main action and positions the narrative as told, found, remembered, recorded, judged, translated, or performed. It changes the reader's relation to the events before those events fully begin.
Examples
- An editor's note introduces the manuscript whose reliability is already in question.
- A trial transcript opens before the story returns to the crime.