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''Sometimes, "this is a true story" is part of the fiction.''

 

 

Another common method is to claim that the book was written as a testimony (or confession) to actual events - possibly the most notable example of this is ''[[The Guild of Specialists Trilogy]]'', which takes the love that boys annuals have for intricate diagrams and maps to its absolute extreme and fabricates not only a plethora of large diagrams, maps, and sketches, but ''photos and objects''. In this version the author pretends they are simply publishing something that someone else has written - this often takes the form of a novelization of a [[The Western Mysteries|diary or a set of notebooks]]. Other methods include [[Sherlock Holmes|accounts by secondary characters]] and so on. This trope a staple of children's books and fantastic tales, it often features an [[Author Avatar]] or even instances of [[From Beyond the Fourth Wall]] or other strangeness and may be said to be [[The Lord of the Rings|translated from accounts of what happened or books written by the characters]] and never actually communicated in person.

 

 

 

Absolutely ''not'' to be confused with [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]], when fans think that maybe the story is actually real, or like to think it is, but don't have any support from canon or [[Word of God]]. Also not to be confused with [[A True Story in My Universe]], for [[In Universe]] examples. Often ties in with [[Author Avatar]] and may involve an admitted [[Unreliable Narrator]].

'''Note''': This trope only applies to ''canon and [[Word of God]] examples'' in fictional works. [[In Universe]] examples go in [[A True Story in My Universe]]. Pure [[Fanon]] examples go in [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]].

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

 

== [[Fan Fiction]] ==

 

 

* In ''[[Chronicles of Narnia]]'' it is a little-known piece of canon that [[CS Lewis (Creator)|CS Lewis]] is recounting the tales as told to him by an unknown individual or individuals, likely one or more of the Pevensie children. This is made explicit in [[The Voyage of the Dawn Treader]]: "Lucy could only say, "It would break your heart." "Why," said I, "was it so sad: " "Sad!! No," said Lucy.". However, how he could have been told of the events of ''The Last Battle'', {{spoiler|since most of the series' human protagonists had, unbeknownst to them, died in a train wreck and gone to Aslan's country}}, is unkown but could be explained by him being an [[Undead Author]], though, given the Wood Between the Worlds from [[The Magicians Nephew]], just about anything is possible. This trope is the reason why the narrator of the books often confesses ignorance as to things that the children themselves do not know. One reason he does this is that The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe came about when three children, Margaret, Mary and Katherine, were evacuated from London and sent to live with him during the war (yes, [[Author Avatar|the professor is Lewis]]). The four children of the book [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia#Background_and_conception are inspired by them].

** Speaking of [[The Magicians Nephew]], it mentions that "Mr. [[Sherlock Holmes]] was still living in Baker Street," which is either an [[Intercontinuity Crossover]] or a Shout-Out from one Literary Agent to another.

* [[CS Lewis (Creator)|CS Lewis]] also claims he stumbled upon ''[[The Screwtape Letters]]'' in a foreword in the book; given that they are letters from a [[Our Demons Are Different|demon]] to his apprentice, this one is forgivable. Lewis himself gives it only the briefest (and funniest) of [[Hand Wave|Hand Waves]], asking the reader not to delve too deeply into how he acquired them.

* [[EE Doc Smith]] in the ''[[Lensman]]'' series refers to himself as "the historian" in later books, and mentions that he was the first person to read the declassified accounts of the characters' adventures.

* The classic but criminally under appreciated Sword & Planet novel ''Transit To Scorpio'' was written by Kenneth Bulmer, but published under the name Alan Burt Akers. Within the books, "Akers" presents himself as the literary agent of English naval officer Dray Prescott, who is lost on the distant world of Antarres. Aker receives manuscripts regularly from Prescott, who gets booted back to Earth by the "Star Lords" whenever they get bored with jerking him around. The series expanded to 45 books (54 if you count the titles only published in German) making up 11 "cycles", and by the third or forth book the by-line on the covers actually read "As Told To Alan Burt Akers By Dray Prescott." Kenneth Bulmer's name never appears on any of the books.

* ''[[Life of Pi]]'' by Yann Martel is supposedly a novelization of true events; the prologue features Martel himself in India, meeting the character Mamaji who, in turn, tells him about the main character, Pi. The first section of the novel is the story of Pi's childhood, interlaced with scenes of Martel supposedly meeting and interviewing Pi as an adult. (The rest is about a shipwreck, a tiger and some Japanese guys.)

{{quote| Ms. Diane Stone, secretary to Chief Robert McGowan of the Pasadena Police Department, was on the phone. "The chief has approved the release to you of the details concerning the Morales murder," she told me. He has authorized you to go ahead with it at any time, if you want to." Of course I wanted to: the unraveling of the case via the patient, intelligent investigation work of the department in general, and Virgil Tibbs in particular, would need no embellishment in the telling. As I always do in such instances, I called Virgil and suggested a meeting. Two nights later we sat down to dine together in one of Pasadena's very fine restaurants.... By the time that the main course had been put down in front of us we had gone over the Morales case in detail and Virgil had filled me in on several points which had not previously been made public. As always, I agreed to publish nothing until the department had read the manuscript and had given it an official approval. This procedure helped to eliminate possible errors and also made sure that I had not unintentionally included information which was still confidential.}}

* Robert Littell used this trope for ''The Amateur'', published in 1980. He notes in a prologue that Charlie Heller (the main protagonist of the novel) met with him to have the novel published. Littell notes that Heller had learned of Littell's "fictionalization" of the events depicted in ''The Defection of A.J. Lewinter'' and ''The Debriefing''. Internal details suggest that the events of ''The Amateur'' took place in 1972 (i.e. a terrorist victim's gravestone reads 1972).

* ''[[The Athenian Murders]]'' by Jose Carlos Somoza is supposed to be the translation of an ancient Greek prose work, [[Footnote Fever|much annotated]] by a translator who we suppose is from the end of the twentieth century. As it turns out, {{spoiler|the translator himself is a fictional character, invented by an ancient Greek writer...[[Mind Screw|who has written the whole book, notes included...and appeared as a very minor character in the initial novel itself]].}}

* ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'':

** The foreword of the ''[[Star Trek Online (Video Game)|Star Trek Online]]'' media tie-in book, ''The Needs of the Many'' by Michael A. Martin and [[Star Trek Deep Space Nine (TV)|Jake Sisko]] explains that Martin's editor passed on a collection of interviews conducted by Sisko along with other pertinent historical documents to be compiled into the resulting book ("...and the accompanying derivative holoprograms.")

* ''[[Tall Tale America]]'' insists throughout that it is a true account of real people from American history, even in the bibliography where it cites works of fiction as sources (the 1987 reprint breaks this with the author's afterword, though).

* [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Dostoevsky]]'s ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]'' is set up as though it is a recounting of actual historical events (with even an introduction from its fictitious author presenting it as a biography), and the narrator himself expresses himself in such a way that he cannot help but become a character in the novel, even though he does not directly affect any of the action.

* ''[[Exegesis (Literature)|Exegesis]]'' is not only an e-mail [[Epistolary Novel]], but it's implied that it's really supposed to be actual e-mails released in book form by Alice Lu (one of the main characters).

* ''True Confessions of [[Adrian Mole|Adrian Albert Mole]], [[Margaret Thatcher|Margaret Hilda Roberts]] and Susan Lilian Townsend'' has author biographies for all three "authors". According to Sue Townsend's she was ''sued'' by Adrian for trying to pass his diaries off as fiction.

* The Author's Foreword in ''[[The Pale King]]''. [[David Foster Wallace]] claims that all of it is true, yet he points out the disclaimer on the copyright page states that the characters and events are fictitious. He spends a good portion of the chapter noting the inherent paradox.