Frame story

It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

The frame story is the overarching story with no particular viewpoint character, though it is frequently seen from the perspective of Chronicler and occasionally Kvothe or Bast, though it is closer to third-person omniscient than third-person limited. The frame story is set approximately a decade or more after the autobiographical story that Kvothe tells. Each book (The Name of the Wind, Wise Man's Fear, and Doors of Stone) by nature of the structure comprises one day of the frame story, though the initial set-up takes slightly longer than one day in The Name of the Wind.

Newarre

The frame story largely takes place in the small farming town of Newarre, pronounced closely to both "no where" and "Noir." Kvothe, known to the townsfolk as "Kote" to hide his true identity, has hidden away as a simple innkeeper with his assistant, Bast. Here, he lives a simple life, and the story begins to pick up a few chapters before he begins to tell his autobiography to Chronicler. His inn, functioning largely as a tavern to most visitors, rarely has more than a half-dozen visitors at any one time, it seems. Most of these are local farmers: Graham, Cob, Jacob Walker, Aaron, and Carter.

Chronology

The frame story is told approximately a decade or more after the autobiographical story told by Kvothe. It has been long enough that his true nature, that of the adventurer, musician, and arcanist has become a legendary thing, close enough in time to bear a great deal of truth, but far enough by both distance and time to be warped, typical of stories in The Four Corners of Civilization.