Scrapbook Story: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A story whose text is largely, if not solely, composed of multiple contemporary [[Fictional Document|in-story documents]] to form the narrative. All the [[Narrator]] has done is put the supposedly pre-existing documents in order. This style of writing used to be commonplace, because of its inbuilt explanation of how the narrator knows so much, but had been largely superseded by the Victorian period. However, it is still sometimes used.

 

Compare [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]], [[Mockumentary]]. See [[Diary]]

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* The third volume of ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'', titled "The Black Dossier," is two interwoven stories: the contents of the Black Dossier itself, a Scrapbook Story about the history of the league from its founding under Prospero to the events of volume 1 and 2 and its subsequent dissolution; and a frame story about Mina and Alan stealing the dossier and reading it. The book changes from one to the other when Mina opens or closes the book in-story. To further muddy the waters, the book's cover, under the dust jacket, is exactly like the one on the in-story book, and the various scraps have marginal notes scribbled in blue pen by the dossier's compiler addressed to the current head of British Intelligence services. The actual scraps are pastiches of comic strips, erotica, text pieces, a "lost" [[Shakespeare]] folio, a mashup of Bertie Wooster and [[H.P. Lovecraft]], and a stuck-in Tijuana Bible made for proles by PORNSEC under the INGSOC regime.

* The ''[[Abadazad]]'' series has been released in small graphic novels, each an enchanted <s>diary</s>log in which she details her adventures to this point. The "enchanted" part comes to play when the book records things she wasn't around for, as well as turning from text to pictures and back, and bringing in full pages of the "original" ''Abadazad'' books whenever someone reads or refers to them.

 

* The ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'' [[Fan Fiction]] ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3982345/1/ Comic Book Heroes]'', which takes the idea that Joshua is {{spoiler|mentally damaged and stuck with the mind of a child}} at the end of the anime and turns it on its head by having him become a comic book writer as an adult. The story is told through excerpts of interviews with his children, reviews of movies based on his work, letters and journal entries written by Joshua and his friends, and an essay discussing the portrayal of female characters in his work—all fictional, of course.

* The [[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]] fanfiction [[The Shoebox Project]], which incorporates letters and notes written between the main characters to wonderful effect.

** Although odds are it starts some time before [[Beowulf]] goes to a colony of dwarves for advice.

** Given that, sadly, not all of Fadlan's writings about his travels in the northern lands survived to modern times, the historical parts end after he gets abducted by Norsemen during his visit to the tribe of the Rus.

** ''The Beatrice Letters'' present letters from Lemony to his lover Beatrice (before the series began) and {{spoiler|those sent to Lemony by a [[Dead Guy, Junior|young child named after]] the deceased Beatrice, some years after the main series ended}}.

* [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s ''[[Hocus Pocus]]'' is [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|presented as]] the collection of hundreds of varying scraps of paper written on by the protagonist, Vance Hartke, while he was in prison.

* ''Ella Minnow Pea'' by Mark Dunn is constructed entirely of letters written by and to inhabitants of a fictional island just of the coast of the USA. The island's most famous son is the author of the pangram "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog", and the novel concerns the fate of the islanders as various letters are stricken from the alphabet.

* ''Dear Mr. Henshaw'' features [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|letters to the author]] followed by [[Diary]] entries of the protagonist.

* The Wilkie Collins novel ''[[The Moonstone]]'' (widely held to be one of the first detective novels) is a compilation of letters, journals, and testimonies of many different people. [[Justified Trope|Justified in that]] the novel focuses on the investigation of a theft, and in the interests of setting the record straight, one of the main characters decides to gather up all the accounts of the event.

** Collins' earlier novel ''[[The Woman in White]]'' also consists of a collection of narratives.

* ''[[Important Artifacts And Personal Property From The Collection Of Lenore Doolan And Harold Morris]]'' by Leanne Shapton is a novel in the form of an auction catalog.

* "The Riddle of Castle Cain" in ''The Making of [[Jonathan Creek]]''. It opens with a single page in comic book format, in which Jonathan and Maddy are asked to investigate a decades-old murder. The rest of the story, scattered throughout the book, is told in the form of the various documents Jonathan has peiced together; lab reports, press cuttings and so on. Finally there's a two panel comic in which Jonathan announces he's solved the case (but not what the solution is, because the story was written as a readers' competition).

* ''[[Feeling Sorry for Celia]]'' is told through various letter and notes from and to the protagonist.

* ''[[We Need to Talk About Kevin]]'' is composed entirely of letters from Kevin's mother to his father.

* ''Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf: A Year Told through Stuff'' tells the story of a young girl in 7th grade through diary entries, notes, cards, school assignments, receipts, shopping & to-do lists, etc.

* ''I Can't Tell You'' begins just after the protagonist decides that he should stop talking to people, because [[Noodle Incident|blurting out words led to a very painful situation]]. We see both his diary entries, and the notes he writes to other people (and in an effort to make him feel comfortable, many of those people write notes back to him.) Interesting in that a): some of these notes are canonically destroyed, and b): we also see patterns of splotches and burn marks, some of them made on clothing rather than paper, with descriptions of how those marks were made.

* Tolkien may have intended ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' to end up this way, since most of the texts that went into go beyond [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]] by having their own in-universe authors, and sometimes being written at specific times and places. However, since he didn't come close to finishing, it had to be patched together posthumously in a way that destroyed the effect.

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* The ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]'' clanbooks are presented as compilations of documents relating to each of the clans.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* A number of [[Vlog Series]], including:

** ''[[Lonelygirl15]]'' and its sequel, ''[[LG15: the resistance]]''.