Nubosidad variable (1992) is the novel in which the author's projection of herself into her characters is most transparent. This is certainly the novel which best presents the use of diaries and letters in Carmen Martín Gaite's work. Apart from the four-page epilogue, the novel is ‘written’ by two friends, Sofía and Mariana, who meet after many years and decide to rekindle their lost friendship, initially through their writing. This novel has strong metafictional aspects, with the process of writing always in the foreground of the work as the protagonists write and comment on their writing. Life and literature are interlaced, with Sofía as the character who finds it more difficult to distinguish between the two. Towards the end of the novel, Mariana also begins to see her life as part of a novel for which she starts taking notes, developing the people she meets as main or secondary characters in her narrative.

In Chapter I Sofía begins the novel by giving the reader information about their encounter. After years of separation the two friends meet at an exhibition. The first mention of this meeting is at the end of the chapter, when Sofia writes: ‘Quién podía imaginarse que, después de los años mil, en ese local rebosante de famosos iba a encontrarme contigo, lo que son las cosas, con Mariana León en persona.’