History Main / HowWeGotHere

See also BackToFront, DeathByFlashback, ForegoneConclusion, StartsWithTheirFuneral, FramingDevice, LittleDidIKnow, and ThisIsMyStory. Goes very well with PrivateEyeMonologue. Can often be used as a highly effective DrivingQuestion. Can often overlap with OnceMoreWithClarity if and when the introductory scene in question reappears. A specific variant is HowDadMetMom. Can take the form of FlashbackBPlot if a character's story alternates between the past and present but is not primarily a frame story.

* ''Fanfic/{{Paradoxus}}'': The first four chapters are devoted to partially explaining why Altalune and Trisha have arrived at the conclusion that time travel is the only way to fix things.

** The [[Recap/ParadoxusCapitulo03 third chapter]] explains how Bloom is made aware of Azeroth's existence and, (implied) through her, the rest of Magix. She forms an alliance with Galadwen and, indirectly, with Sylvanas. It's also revealed that Magix has already attracted the Burning Legion's attention, with three Erakli cities having already been attacked with extreme prejudice.
** {{Subverted}}. The previous chapters of the fic have centered around slowly revealing who the corpses in Altalune's nightmare belong to and why she's so hung up on that plan of hers to fix everything. In the [[Recap/ParadoxusCapitulo05 fifth]], the narration suddenly cuts back to her point of view—in as much as can be said for a narrator who briefly jumps to other characters' perspectives from time to time—while there are still many unanswered questions. Furthermore, her motivations for traveling back in time are revealed by her musings here as opposed to during the flashback.

** {{Subverted}}. The previous chapters of the fic have centered around slowly narrating who the corpses in Altalune's nightmare belong to and why she's so hung up on that plan of hers to fix everything. In the [[Recap/ParadoxusCapitulo05 fifth]], the narration suddenly cuts back to her point of view—in as much as can be said for a narrator who briefly jumps to other characters' perspectives from time to time—while there are still many unanswered questions. Furthermore, her motivations for traveling back in time are revealed by her musings here as opposed to during the flashback.

* The first chapter of ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13779778/1/A-Man-of-Honor A Man of Honor]]'' opens three months after the battle for Beacon, with Sapphron Arc searching through the recovering city of Vale for her wayward brother Jaune. Last she heard, he had applied for Beacon and claimed that he had been accepted. [[ForWantOfANail Beacon Academy, which still stands after the battle, claims they have never heard of him.]] Sapphron is beginning to fear the worst until she is approached by Cardin Winchester, who claims to work for her brother and that he can take her to him. When she finally does find him, not only is he alive and well, but living it up in a penthouse in one of Vale's ritziest neighbourhoods, [[SharpDressedMan wearing a nice suit]] and [[LuxuriousLiquor sipping on a glass of expensive whiskey]]. Naturally, [[AngerBornOfWorry after letting him have it for leaving she and their parents sick with fear,]] Sapphron wants to know why Jaune has been radio silent for almost a year, how and why he apparently has the likes of [[TheBully Cardin]] [[JerkJock Winchester]] on his payroll and how he could possibly afford to live such a luxurious lifestyle. As such, the rest of the story is told through Jaune's flashbacks. Occasionally, Cardin and [[spoiler: Neo]] give their own perspective for events Jaune was not present for.

[[quoteright:349:[[ComicBook/SleeperWildStorm https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sleeper_openin.png]]]]

[[quoteright:349:[[ComicBook/SleeperWildStorm https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sleeper_opening_39.jpg]]]]

* ''Fanfic/JimmysVisitWithDrFranklin'': Chapter 1 has Jimmy explain how he'd had gotten to the point he is in.

* ''WebOriginal/TheNingyo'' begins with Christopher Marlowe entering a dark catacomb underneath a small shack, and about to be bitten by a rattlesnake when the flashback begins to show how it got started.

[[folder:Literature]]
!!General:
* This is a popular technique for historical non-fiction works, especially popular non-fiction written in novelistic style.
** Kurt Eichenwald's book about Enron, ''Conspiracy of Fools'' starts with a board meeting not long before Enron's collapse in which crooked CFO Andrew Fastow was fired, then vaults back in time to tell the history of the company from the beginning.
** Pope Brock's book ''Charlatan'', a biography of notorious quack doctor John W. Brinkley, starts with Brinkley's demonstration for the Kansas State Medical Board in 1930 and the board's subsequent revocation of his license, then jumps back to tell Brinkley's life story starting with his birth in 1885.

!!By Author:
* Used in the Creator/ChuckPalahniuk novels ''Literature/Survivor1999'', ''Literature/{{Lullaby}}'', and most notably, ''Literature/FightClub.''. ''Survivor'' opens with the protagonist in an empty plane he's hijacked that's running out of gas somewhere above the Australian outback. The rest of the book is a flashback being recited into the flight recorder. ''Lullaby'' starts with the protagonist and someone named Sarge on a hunt for witches, and every so often the story of HowWeGotHere is interrupted for an update on the latest stop in their hunt. ''Fight Club'' more or less begins at the end, before coming back to the opening for the second chapter.
** Most, if not all, of Palahniuk's books utilize HowWeGotHere, the author himself being a self-stated fan of the trope.
** ''Survivor'' is probably the UrExample in Palahniuk's works. The narrator [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall references to the amount of time he has left before the plane inevitably crashes]] after some flashbacks, reminding himself to get through the story to the point of the hijack. Just for kicks, the page numbers run backwards.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov:
** "Literature/TheBicentennialMan": The first chapter has Andrew Martin at the surgeon's office to arrange for his final prosthetic. The robot doctor objects to the operation because it would kill a human, so Andrew reveals that he isn't human. The next chapter begins with his early days in the Martin household as a RobotButler.
** "{{Literature/Profession}}": After establishing George Platen's situation (living in a Home for the Feeble-minded), the narration moves back in time to reflect on what happened during his Reading Day (when he was eight) and Education Day (when he was eighteen), providing {{Exposition}} based on what George/"everyone" knows about society. Returning to his present, George escapes the Home and watches his childhood friend compete in Olympics Day.
** "Literature/TheUglyLittleBoy": The story opens with Edith Fellowes visiting Timmie for the last time, because she plans to save his life. Then it goes back three years to when she was first offered a job by Stasis Incorporated.
* Creator/RogerZelazny is fond of this trope:
** ''Literature/DoorwaysInTheSand'': Every single chapter, except the first and the last, works this way.
** ''Literature/LordOfLight'' after the InMediasRes first chapter, a little more than half the book is dedicated to explaining how Sam came to be at war with the Gods.

!!By Title:
* ''Literature/ThirteenReasonsWhy'' by Jay Asher starts out after a girl named Hannah's suicide. The protagonist Clay receives 13 tapes made by her explaining why she killed herself.
* ''Literature/AbsolutelyTruly'' begins with Truly hanging upside-down in a church steeple staring at said steeple's bell before flashing back to when she and her family were packing to move to Pumpkin Falls.
* LampshadeHanging and Subversion: ''[[Literature/AlcatrazSeries Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians]]'' begins with the title character/narrator about to be sacrificed by the equally Evil Librarians on an altar of encyclopedias. Naturally, we immediately go off to a low-key domestic scene. The narrator explains that he has done this to screw with the reader, to prove he's not a nice person. Ultimately [[spoiler:this scene never actually occurs, which the narrator cites as further proof that he's a bad person]] Two books later, we find out that [[spoiler:this scene will only occur in the fifth (and last) book of the series]].
** And when it finally happens [[spoiler:in the fifth (and last) book of the series, the narrator's father is killed, and]] the book abruptly ends, as does the series. [[spoiler:Until Bastille promises to continue the story.]]
* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': ''The Andalite Chronicles'' begins at Elfangor's death scene in the first main series book, then jumps to the 1970s to explain Elfangor's backstory and how he was indirectly responsible for the invasion of Earth and the creation of the Animorphs' nemesis [[BigBad Visser Three]].
* In Literature/TheBible, the entirety of the Literature/BookOfGenesis is this. Tradition holds that it was written and narrated by Moses.
* ''Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye'' starts off with Holden hospitalised and telling a psychologist the events that led up to it.
* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfDorsa'': The last book, ''Empress of Dorsa'', starts by following Megs, a new character (and only the third who's POV is shown), before the reveal it's after a devastating Imperial defeat in the East, with Tasia and Joslyn taken as prisoners in the mysterious Kingdom of Persopos. In Part II it then cuts to four months before, showing what happened following Joslyn and Tasia.
* ''Literature/TheDinner'': The novel begins with Paul (the main character) and his wife, Claire, meeting Paul's brother, Serge, and Serge's wife, Babette, at a fancy resturant to discuss an important family matter. Through a series of flashbacks, the reader gradually pieces together the events that led up to this meeting.
* Terry Pratchett's ''Literature/{{Wintersmith}}'', of the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' series, starts off not just at the ending, but at a ''possible'' ending.
* The first book in the ''Literature/DisneyChills'' series opens with Shelly being dragged before Ursula, then flashes back to show how it all happened.
* ''Literature/TheDivide2005:'' The first several chapters show the discovery of Abbie Cooper's body and her family reacting to the news. Those chapters also establish that Abbie was pregnant when she died and that she's spent the last few years as a wanted Eco-terrorist and murderer. It also is made clear that her parents are divorced due to her father's adultery. The story then skips back several years to show everything leading up to those events in rich detail.
* ''Due to a Death'' by Mary Kelly opens with the first-person narrator, traumatised and bleeding, being driven home by someone, while police rush to attend the discovery of a woman's dead body. She takes refuge in the local church to reflect on events, and the bulk of the book is her recollection of what happened to bring her to this point.
* ''Literature/EasternStandardTribe'' opens with Art on the roof of a pysch hospital and is split between the present and past storylines.
* ''Literature/TheEmpiriumTrilogy'': The prologue of ''Furyborn'' shows Rielle giving birth to her daughter and facing down Corien, an encounter that leads to Simon and the newborn being thrust into the future and the empirium being smothered. The narrative then jumps back two years ago to a time before Rielle's powers were even widely known, with the rest of her chapters detailing how she got to the state she was in during the prologue. [[spoiler:Subverted in that the exact events depicted in this prologue don't come to pass thanks to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong future-Eliana's interference]].]]
* ''Literature/FinnegansWake'' ends with an incomplete sentence that is resolved by the first sentence (opened with a lowercase letter) in the book. Since the book is heavily based on Vico's Historic Cycles, it's HowWeGotHere to the extreme.
* The novel ''George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt'' opens with a very cool sequence featuring George commanding the space shuttle during a launch, which then turns out to be a dream from which he is awakened in an unfamiliar bed. The first half of the book covers how he got there.
* ''Literature/InTheRealmOfCarnalHorror'' starts with the main character leaving the country with loads of cash. The novel then goes on to say why, in a {{Flashback}}.
* ''Literature/InfiniteJest'', although [[JigsawPuzzlePlot one could certainly be forgiven]] [[{{Doorstopper}} for not realizing it]].
* ''Literature/JackyHaHa'' starts with Jacky about to receive her award for best comedy actress at a ceremony, and writes to her two daughters about it, relating to them the events that occurred when she was 12 years old (warts and all) that allowed her to get to this point.
* Dr. Seuss' ''Literature/TheLorax'' starts and ends at the place where the Onceler's Thneed factory once stood, with the Onceler telling the young boy listening how it all happened.
* ''Literature/MoonlightBecomesYou'' opens with our heroine Maggie Holloway waking up after being attacked and knocked unconscious, and realizing she's [[BuriedAlive trapped in a coffin, underground]]. The rest of the novel begins nearly a month prior, explaining how Maggie came to be in this predicament.
* OlderThanFeudalism: Creator/{{Homer}}'s ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' did this.
* Creator/PGWodehouse uses a six-line version of this in his short story ''[[Literature/JeevesAndWooster Right Ho, Jeeves]]'' before the {{Narrator}} pulls back and laments the difficulty of deciding when best to start a story.
* ''Literature/{{Robopocalypse}}'' starts immediately after the destruction of the final A.I. bastion then flashes back to the creation of that A.I. and the start of the robot war.
* ''Literature/{{Run}}'' starts with Agnes and Bo running away from home. While Bo's chapters show the two continuing their journey, Agnes' show the start of their friendship and what led to them leaving in the first place.
* Alyson Noël's ''Literature/SavingZoe'' takes place one year after Zoë is brutally murdered. It follows her sister Echo reading Zoë's diary and finding out about her life before she was murdered.
* K.J Parker's ''Literature/TheScavengerTrilogy'' The whole series is an extended journey to appreciate how we got to the mysterious start of the story.
* Creator/JasperFforde's ''Literature/ShadesOfGrey: The Road to High Saffron'' is begins with the narrator being slowly digested by a carnivorous plant. 400 pages later you find out why.
* ''Literature/SmallGame'' opens with Mara describing each of the survivors at a midpoint in their story, then drops back to explain how Mara was recruited to the TV show.
* In the ''Literature/SouthernSistersMysteries'', ''Murder Shoots the Bull'' opens with Mary Alice and Patricia Anne in jail because Mary Alice hit a bank president over the head with an umbrella. Patricia Anne observes that to explain how they got into this predicament, she'd have to back up a few weeks, and proceeds to tell the reader about her latest wacky adventure.
* [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishRoyalFamily Prince Harry]]'s memoir ''Spare'' starts shortly after his grandfather's funeral, with him having a confrontation with his father and brother, both of whom claim not to know why he and his wife abruptly left Great Britain. He promptly addresses them and the reader--"Pa? Willy? World? Here you go." The book then begins proper with him as a 12-year old boy learning of his mother's death and takes us through his entire life from them on before bringing us back to the post-funeral gathering.
* ''Literature/TheStrangerBesideMe'' starts with Ted Bundy arriving in Florida after escaping prison.
* The first line of ''Literature/TheThebaid'' describes the climax ("brothers crossing swords") and the whole rest of the work builds up to the lethal duel between Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of Oedipus.
* ''Literature/TheyShootHorsesDontThey'' starts with Robert, the protagonist being sentenced for the murder of his friend, Gloria ([[ICannotSelfTerminate which he did on her request]]). This happens at the very end of the book.
* ''Literature/ThreeWishes'' starts with a scene of three women having dinner, described by a number of other restaurant guests (who we are also warned [[UnreliableNarrator might have gotten the details wrong]]). One of the three is pregnant, and another one at one point gets furious and screams at the other two that they have ruined her life. Then we skip back to over a year earlier, and most of the rest of the novel is spent teasing out (with a number of [[RedHerring Red Herrings]] along the way) which of the three protagonists we get to know will turn out to be which woman, and what the argument is going to be about.
* ''Literature/ToKillAMockingbird'' opens with Scout and her brother Jem discussing how far back you'd have to go to explain how he'd broken his arm. The ''entire rest of the novel'' is thus dedicated to describing the various events leading up to it, and Jem's broken arm only happens right near the end.
* ''Literature/WarriorCats'': ''Leopardstar's Hope'' starts with Leopartstar at the Bonehill, watching Stonefur die. The rest of the book shows her life up to the point and the decisions that led her there.
* ''Literature/WhenYouReachMe'' starts in April 1979, (and told in the present tense). The story is Miranda narrating the story that she would tell from Sal getting punched in Oct 1978 to the fateful chase and death in May 1979 as that was the story she was tasked to write down.
* ''Literature/{{Wicked}}'' has an unusual version: the "end" is an event the audience presumably knows already, due to the ubiquity of ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'', but goes on to tell the events leading up to it in a completely different manner, focusing on side characters from the original story (which also makes it something of a LowerDeckEpisode).
[[/folder]]