Framing the Story: An Introduction to Cognitive Frames and Narrative Worlds

Every story a writer tells, no matter how experimental or traditional, rests on invisible structures that tell how readers make sense of it. These structures aren’t limited to plot points or genres. They live deeper, at the level of thought itself. Cognitive linguists call them frames: mental models that shape how we interpret events, relationships, and even single words. Writers may not always be conscious of them, but readers respond to them instinctively, filtering narrative details through expectations formed long before the first page.

Think of frames as the architecture of perception. When we walk into a courtroom, we don’t see only walls and desks—we see a trial, a contest of justice, an arrangement of roles like judge, jury, and defendant. When we pick up a detective novel, we enter a frame of investigation, where every cigarette stub, every overheard whisper, may be a clue. The frame tells us how to read. Without it, we would be adrift, not knowing which details matter or how they fit together.

For writers, becoming aware of frames is a creative turning point. Frames are the lenses through which readers interpret narrative worlds. To use them well means learning how to set expectations, surprise an audience, and even unsettle the assumptions they bring with them. To use them carelessly risks losing coherence, pacing, or thematic force. A novel that promises the frame of pilgrimage, for example, but never follows through with a sense of movement or transformation, may leave readers unsatisfied without their quite knowing why.

The most compelling works of literature often draw their power from the way they manipulate frames. Take Kafka’s The Trial: we recognize the frame of legal process—accusation, evidence, defense—but Kafka twists it until the very logic of law collapses into absurdity. The reader is unsettled because the frame has been corrupted, showing us how fragile our interpretive structures can be. Or consider Toni Morrison’s Beloved, which relies on frames of memory and haunting. By folding past and present together and refusing to let trauma stay confined, Morrison destabilizes the frame of historical narrative, asking us to inhabit a world where history itself refuses closure. These works are unforgettable because of how they reshape the reader’s cognitive frames.

Every writer, knowingly or not, uses cognitive frames to build their tales. A fantasy novelist who sets up a quest, a memoirist who filters experience through recollection, a poet who frames a lyric around an invocation—all are using frames to give shape to meaning. The challenge is that these structures often operate below conscious awareness. Writers may slip into a familiar frame without realizing they’ve done so, or attempt to subvert one without laying the groundwork to make the subversion coherent. This is where outside critique becomes crucial.

A publishing consultant, especially one with experience in narrative theory, can help illuminate how frames are functioning in a manuscript. They can see when a writer leans too heavily on convention, producing a story that feels predictable, or when a frame has been established but then abandoned midstream, leaving the reader unmoored. They can help clarify whether the story’s world truly aligns with its chosen frame, or whether inconsistencies are undermining it. Perhaps most importantly, they can guide writers toward deliberate choices: strengthening a frame where it supports the story, loosening it where it restricts, or bending it in innovative ways that generate surprise and depth.

Imagine a novel drafted around a pilgrimage. The author envisions a character leaving home, traveling across landscapes, meeting mentors and adversaries along the way. But somewhere in the middle chapters, the journey stalls. The protagonist spends long stretches in reflection or side plots that have little to do with movement or transformation. A reader may feel restless without understanding why. A consultant, however, can point out that the pilgrimage frame has been weakened—that the story promised one kind of architecture but delivered another. With that feedback, the writer can either re-align with the pilgrimage schema or consciously reimagine the work as something else, perhaps a meditation or an anti-quest. What matters is that the decision becomes intentional.

This blog series will explore some of the most enduring frames in literature. Each post will take up a particular frame and look at how it works in practice. We will trace examples from classic and contemporary works, consider the expectations each frame creates, and discuss how writers can use or subvert them. Along the way, we will return to the practical question: how can a publishing consultant’s critique help refine these frames, ensuring they work in service of the writer’s vision rather than against it?

Here is a preview of what’s to come:

The Quest Frame
From The Odyssey to modern fantasy, the quest remains one of the most powerful narrative structures. We will examine the components of the quest—journey, obstacle, return—and explore how writers can use or resist its pull. We’ll also consider how critique can help distinguish between archetype and cliché.

The Investigation Frame
Detective stories, mysteries, and thrillers thrive on the frame of investigation. Readers are trained to become sleuths, weighing evidence and anticipating revelations. We’ll look at how writers can heighten suspense or deliberately frustrate it, and how a consultant’s perspective can reveal when logic falters or clues feel unearned.

The Memory Frame
Memoir, autofiction, and historical fiction often rely on memory to structure experience. This installment will consider how recollection shapes voice, time, and perspective.

The Pilgrimage Frame
Long before the novel, stories of pilgrimage shaped cultural imagination. From allegorical journeys to contemporary road narratives, this frame blends outer travel with inner transformation. We’ll discuss how to sustain momentum in such stories and how critique can identify when a manuscript risks losing its way.

The Transformation Frame
Change—physical, emotional, spiritual—lies at the heart of countless narratives. From Ovid to contemporary coming-of-age fiction, transformation frames stories of becoming. This post will explore how to balance metaphor with plot and how outside feedback can ensure transformations feel earned rather than arbitrary.

The Utopia/Dystopia Frame
Speculative fiction often organizes itself around idealized or corrupted societies. By shaping entire worlds through these frames, writers invite readers to contemplate possibility or fear. We’ll investigate how to balance social critique with character development and how critique can strengthen coherence in world-building.

The Haunted Frame
From Gothic novels to trauma narratives, the haunted frame deals with the persistence of the past. This post will show how haunting structures narrative temporality and atmosphere, while also considering how feedback can clarify whether haunting feels essential or ornamental.

The Game Frame
Some writers turn narrative into a puzzle, riddle, or game. Borges, Calvino, and postmodern experiments invite readers to play with form itself. We’ll look at the risks and rewards of this frame, and how a consultant can help a writer strike balance between intellectual play and emotional engagement.

Each of these frames offers a different perspective on how stories work, and together they illustrate the rich variety of ways narrative can be shaped and reshaped. The series will not attempt to be exhaustive—frames multiply as literature evolves—but it will aim to provide writers with tools to see their own work in a new light.

At the heart of this project is the belief that writing thrives in dialogue. Writers do not simply pour stories onto the page; they craft them in conversation with tradition, with theory, with readers, and with mentors. Cognitive frames give us one language for understanding the hidden architecture of stories. Publishing consultants give us another, offering a fresh eye to help refine those structures so they serve the writer’s vision rather than obscure it.

As the series unfolds, we invite you to read, reflect, and consider how frames appear in your own work—whether in the draft of a novel, the seed of a memoir, or even the poem still forming in the back of your mind. To understand frames is to understand how literature teaches us to think, and how thinking itself can be remade through story.