Diegesis

Okay, imagine you're watching a movie or reading a book. Everything that happens inside that movie or book is part of the story, right? That's called the "diegesis". It's like a little world that the story takes place in.

So, let's say you're watching a movie where a man goes to the store to buy some milk. In the diegesis of the movie, that means it actually happened in the story. But if the camera suddenly cut to a shot of the director saying "cut!" and then going to get a sandwich, that wouldn't be part of the diegesis.

Basically, any time you're inside the story, you're in the diegesis. And anything outside of it, like commentary from the author or director or something else that breaks the illusion of the story, is not part of it.