A while back I wrote about framing devices in the aptly titled Does Your Story Need A Framing Device? However, I recently came across a particularly clever subversion of expectations in a fictional series regarding turning the framing device (and the cliches that came with it) to really enhance the world building of the series in an interesting, meaningful way.
Mild spoiler warnings ahead for the subtle brilliance of The Magnus Archives.
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When The Frame Is Part of The Picture
For those who didn't listen to the first episode of the show, linked above, The Magnus Archives is an anthology horror podcast that follows the efforts of those employed in the archives of the Magnus Institute. Found in London, England, the institute records and catalogs encounters with the strange and supernatural, and the stories we're hearing are several of the written accounts being put on-tape by employees. This is why the audio has a strangely old-school sound, and why we can hear the day-to-day goings on in many of the recordings.
So far so normal for a horror podcast, right? After all, in a strictly audio format, this kind of framing device plays into the metanarrative quite well. We can keep the voice cast relatively small, because it's the same researchers over and over again, and we can focus on the tension of the tales as they're in (essentially) a journalistic format, with survivors of these events telling their stories to someone who will listen.
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| Pretty basic stuff, really. |
Now, this format isn't perfect. Firstly, there's the way the narrator's voices and cadence alter when they read the stories from witnesses, giving us a more heartfelt performance to listen to. We can write that off, though, as just something that comes with the format. Not only that, but as the plot progresses the narrators get stuck-in with supernatural plots in their own right. They're chased by monsters, they have to make bargains with terrible creatures, and the tape recorder always has to have a contrived reason to be present in order for us to hear what's going on. Maybe it's someone surreptitiously recording a conversation with their boss (who may have ulterior motives what what he's doing), or they want to leave a record in case they disappear... but generally speaking, we overlook the presence of the tape recorder because if it wasn't running, we wouldn't hear the unfolding narrative as the audience.
What The Magnus Archives does, though, is take these things we've largely overlooked because they're a part of the format, and it weaves them into the narrative, and the world building.
This is where the minor spoilers begin, so proceed with caution.
For starters, it's revealed that not all the statements in the archives are recorded in this way... only the stand outs. Only the ones that compel the reader. And reading these statements is more than just an exercise in the strange and bizarre; it changes the one doing the reading. It brings them into the story, and into the person who gave the statement, which provides an organic explanation for what we all previously thought was just a dramatic performance to keep the audience interested. Additionally, while some incidents of the tape recorder being turned on surreptitiously are explained, other times the characters actually point out that they didn't notice it was running until that moment. They wonder where the hell it came from, and how it came to be there. This jars us out of our complacency, as the listeners, and it makes us question all the times the tape recorder's presence was never explained, and it makes us wonder why the mysterious force behind this device (for there certainly is such a force) chose for us to hear that conversation, or that interaction.
This twist sends us reeling, as the audience, because it uses assumptions we had made and ignored, which plays into the themes of the show. After all, so many of the strange and supernatural events aren't seen by most people, and they so often shrug and look away... it's only when something becomes too much for them to write off that they have to acknowledge something out of the ordinary is occurring, and this stab to our sense of structure and the place of the framing device throws so many of our assumptions out the window, and has us questioning everything!
There's no real advice in this week's update... I just wanted to call attention to this bit of sleight of hand because it's one worth hearing, and adding to your own toolbox if you can!
For Fans of Audio Fiction...
If you're a fan of audio fiction, and you are looking for some unique offerings, then I want to remind you to head over to the Azukail Games YouTube channel, as well as to my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary. The former has nearly 50 short audio dramas, many of which are interconnected, telling tales in dark fantasy worlds, sci-fi war zones, and noir back alleys. The latter has longer stories that are dramatized versions of several of the tales found in my short story collection The Rejects, which I'd also recommend lovers or short fiction check out!
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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!
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