So I'm looking for some examples. My YA horror?/fantasy?/whatever book I've been picking at for a while has evolved to include a story within a story. Basically, a boy reads a book his grandfather secretly wrote about his youth and realizes the story might not be fiction. I have a whole life of the grandfather I want to explore while being free to return to the present and follow what the grandson is doing.
This is fairly easy to pull off in visual media, but I'm having some issues writing these parallel stories. I want to avoid anything gimmicky if I can. I'm especially looking for examples written for younger (grade-school) audiences, so nothing that requires a literature degree to decipher.
Does this technique ring any bells that might be helpful for me to reference? Any help is much appreciated.
The most recent example of story-within-a-story that I've read is The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King, part of his Dark Tower series. It's a fable framed in The Dark Tower. Wizard and Glass (book 4) is also a story within a story, but it's more dark fantasy than YA.
Both are structured the same:
Part 1 - Begin the main story
Part 2 - Tell the complete story within
Part 3 - Finish the main story
Each section has a hard stop, so there's nothing fancy. Seems like a logical way to approach it. I know this isn't particularly helpful if you haven't read The Dark Tower, but you could read The Wind Through the Keyhole without feeling too lost. The fable Roland tells (as the story within) is actually really good.
The Way Through Doors
Haunted (but the framing device story kind of sucks)
Margaret Atwood's the Blind Asssasin.
William Goldman's The Princess Bride.
Have you read A Monster Calls?
It is many stories within a story, with a dream that may very well be more than a dream arcing over the whole thing.
The Neverending Story
One my my favorites (maybe it doesn't qualify since it's not a 'complete' story) is the Misery Chastain stories from Stephen King's MISERY. What's especially cool is that it includes multiple drafts of the story. Neat-o keen-o.
The first thing I thought of was Big Fish, but I've only seen the movie, I don't know how the book reads.
Dancing Jax by Robin Jarvis & it's sequel Freax and Rejex.
Maybe the right target age you were going for?
No problem :) He's my favorite childhood author, been reading his stuff since I was ten. He always delivers on the horror and the twists (as much as you can in YA books)
The only two I can think of are Hamlet, (where your high school English teacher beats you to death with the concept of "a play within a play" ... WE GET IT!), and The Count of Monte Cristo. Monte Cristo is almost like a series of short (ish) stories about all sorts of things, characters are constantly showing up to tell stories within the story... There's so much, I have yet to finish it. Great to read to get to sleep though.
But I don't think those two work for grade school, sorry.