Nonlinear storytelling discussion

One of the more useful tools in the storyteller's box is the ability to tell a story in non-linear order. Everyone's familiar with those old standbys: flashbacks, starting a story in media res, starting in the distant future and telling the story of how we got there, et cetera.

These are relatively simple to use because they're one-off events. What I'd like to hear some discussion on are more advanced techniques.

For instance, the classic Holmesian murder-mystery whodunnit is, arguably, very reliant on anachronic order to be effective. There are effectively at least two timelines, the "line of events" and the "line of narration." The line of events is chronological: event A happened, conversation B happened, character C was murdered by character D, detective E steps in, interviews witness F and picks up on clue G...and so on, and so forth. In contrast, the line of narration, the order in which the story is told, is not chronological. It starts with detective E's entry into the picture, and as we follow him, we learn about earlier events, and earlier events, until along with the detective we can piece together the line of events—but not necessarily in the order that events took place. Instead, we learn about conversation B. Then character C. Then event A. Then character D (but not knowing yet what transpired when he met character C). And so on, and so on, until we can lay out the events and characters: A-B-C-D...

This isn't simply restricted to mysteries, of course; all the literary progeny of the mystery—espionage fiction on le Carrean lines, horror in its different varieties, especially Lovecraftian, many romances or thrillers or the like with a character's mysterious past—rely on it. But it requires a lot of skill to put together effectively, because you have to track what the audience knows, what the characters know, and what actually happened, and gauge the timing of the revelations for maximum effect.

So, what experiences, tropers? What insights? What advice?

Take advantage of the fact we have word processors, and can easily edit. I have characters react to memories of events that the reader is not yet aware of, and build up reactions and story around that, before dropping in the reason some pages later

There's a fiction timeline program called Aeon Timeline that can use dates and times (past, present or future) or time relative to an arbitrary point in time.

It costs money but the 20-day trial is actually 20 days on which you use it (I've had one day's trial several weeks ago and I've still got 19 days to go) so you can at least have a decent play with it - without missing out on half the trial period due to unforeseen circumstances - before you decide whether or not to buy it.

The built in demonstration is "Murder on the Orient Express" and shows how you use the timeline to keep track of just the sort of scenario you are describing.

You can use it to keep track of the where, when and what of characters and any MacGuffin you desire.

I generally use Spreadsheets to build timelines but I'm seriously looking at buying the software.

It's pretty easy and intuitive to use and you can run multiple concurrent arcs to keep track of what's really happened right from the point where everyone turns up at the Mysterious House as well as everyone's movements once the Great Detective starts investigating and any "fictional" timelines as described by the other characters and/or what is revealed to the audience.

edited 16th Jul '15 8:37:41 PM by Wolf1066

Honest truth: I hate these. I don't think I've ever used one. Probably never will. Even writing mystery, it's not really necessary. (Thanks Dick Francis!)

If you do engage in nonlinear narratives, ask yourself why you're telling the story out of order. What does it add to the piece?

I remember an anecdote about the production of Finding Nemo, where the writers originally intended for the scene where Marlin loses his wife and all his eggs in a barracuda attack to appear way later in the film, related in a flashback. The idea was that, after all that Marlin has gone through trying to save Nemo, the audience would finally know why Marlin cares so much about rescuing his son.

The problem was, withholding that information until late in the movie did nothing to improve the narrative. It wasn't a "twist" - the audience could already understand Marlin's motives perfectly well without the flashback, based purely on narrative shorthand.

Making it the first scene in the movie worked much better, because it meant the audience better understood Marlin's motivations right from the start. It also better established Marlin's character arc, showing the trauma that triggered his over-protectiveness of Nemo, and allowing the audience to follow his personal journey from start to finish, without any confusing time-jumps.

So the next time you consider including a flashback, ask yourself if your work would actually benefit from the extra convolution, or if speaking plainly would suffice.

Hmm, good point, this is a really interesting anecdote.

Conversely though, in medias res can let you start at a point where the goals of the protagonist are most clearly/vividly established.

Or just provide an interesting hook—an engaging piece of action, a hint of fantasy elements to come, a mystery to intrigue, etc.—especially in cases in which the start of the story is otherwise fairly slow.

Sorry if I have to ask, but do character back stories count as non-linear storytelling?

I happen to like writing character back stories a lot. So much that I have managed to make up back stories for each of the villains in my localized Fan Fic.

No, they don't.

Non-linear storytelling just means relating a narrative's events out of chronological order, instead of following a strict progression from past to future.

Depends on if you tell the backstory after you've had a chance to meet the character, and how central it is to the story.

One very big reason is that it's one of the most effective ways to enforce a sense of mystery about a character. I've already mentioned murder mysteries; tell them in straight chronological order and they wouldn't work nearly as well. Less Sherlock Holmes, more Crime and Punishment.

In a related genre, there's that staple of espionage literature, the mole hunt; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy—both in book and film form—begins in the aftermath of a scandal that we learn was caused by the Soviet spy hiding his own tracks, and with the confirmation of the fact that the spy does exist. As the story progresses, we not only follow George Smiley's hunt for the mole, but also his memories of the recent past, learning about the different characters and puzzling over them for clues.

(Which, in turn, provides me with an excuse to plug for one of the best scenes from the movie: Smiley tells of the time he met his Soviet counterpart, Karla. With any other director or actor, this would have been a flashback, as indeed it was in the BBC mini-series adaptation, but Tomas Alfredson decided to do exactly what the book did, and have Smiley tell the story. The result is a masterful scene, held together by Gary Oldman's acting—a bit of revisiting the past, revealing more than we ever knew about George Smiley.)

Or, to take from another genre entirely, there's Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre. Again, we don't learn about his backstory, and the core of who he really is, until we're midway through the story.

(Fourth example for you anime fans out in the audience: Puella Magi Madoka Magica. For two separate characters, Kyouko and Homura, we don't learn about their pasts until after we've had a chance to meet them and form our impressions about them, like the viewpoint characters do.)

In all cases, the characters and situations look very different before we learn about their past and after we do so. Manipulation of what the audience knows is central in every case.

edited 17th Jul '15 10:32:15 AM by SabresEdge

Character development and the unravelling of mysteries =/= nonlinear storytelling.

If the audience is introduced to a character, and then later learns their backstory, that's just good character writing. You're supposed to give the audience time to form a first impression before you fill in the background details. Otherwise you'd just be infodumping in every single scene with a new character.

The difference is one of degree, not kind. Place more emphasis on the events that happened before—especially if that's only revealed in glimpses and fragments instead of as a coherent whole—and you'd have nonlinear narrative.

No, that's still not non-linear storytelling.

Non-linear storytelling would mean showing entire scenes out of chronological order, not just having someone explain something in a flashback. (I goofed with my earlier Finding Nemo anecdote. That's not really an example, it's just a good point about flashbacks.)

Think of it this way: what are the chronological events depicted? Character is introduced to story -> intermediate character-building action -> character's backstory is revealed by character explaining past events in the present -> story continues.

You see how the narrative never actually shifted in time? Both the scene, and the character, never changed chronological position. They were always relating events in hindsight, rather than in the moment, as it were.

I say this, because right now your definition of "nonlinear storytelling" is so broad as to be meaningless. It literally just means "any story where important things happened before the plot started", which is the overwhelmingly vast majority of all stories, ever.

EDIT: Something like Pulp Fiction would be closer to a true nonlinear story, as you see scenes taking place after and before each other in linear sequence. One of the main characters gets shot to death in one sequence, but later in the film he's shown in a chronologically earlier scene alive and well.

And that's one of the best uses of nonlinear narrative - playing with the ideas of fate and destiny. If the audience sees a character die in one scene, but he's alive in the next, "earlier" scene, suddenly everything that character says and does is tinged with poignancy and melancholy. It speaks to the fragility of life, the suddenness of death, and the great question of what we do with the time we have, whether we acknowledge our own mortality or not.

edited 17th Jul '15 2:47:52 PM by Tungsten74

I am using it in a deliberately broad context, because I'm still not convinced that the difference is one of kind and not of degree. Pulp Fiction does the technique brilliantly by taking it to an extreme degree, relying on recurrent themes to carry its narrative instead of events.

Perhaps that's the strict definition of nonlinear narrative. It's also so narrow and so specific as to be useless; unless you're Tarantino or someone of his skill, it's too difficult to pull off without disjointing the entire work. Most of the rest of us find it challenging enough to maintain coherence and pacing through multiple non-chronological flashbacks within the framework of a chronological narrative (a la the George Smiley novels), which is difficult enough as to be worthy of discussion. That's a step or two more advanced than using just one or two flashbacks in the course of a chronological narrative, which is fairly easy to do and generally doesn't qualify—but overall, the differences are of degree and not of kind.

Thanks for your comments, guys.

These will serve as my guide whenever I try my luck on nonlinear storytelling. But for now, I'm more inclined to use "Rashomon"-Style than nonlinear.

The way I see it, nonlinear storytelling is when storytelling does not reflect the chronology of real life. For example, rather than finding out about the past by hearing a character talk about it, one moment you're reading about 2015 the next you're reading about 1885. There's no solid tie to the characters reminiscing or retelling the 1885 stuff.

Is this a fair definition?

I think that's a decent way of putting it. I'd describe non-linear stories as being when the reader's experience of events out of sequence with the characters'. Which you would expect to follow causal chronology.^* So my definition allows for time-travelling but still linear stories. Odd.

So by that measure I wouldn't consider most mysteries to be non-linear. Since the narrative follows our detective's (and other characters post crime) linear experience of untangling the mystery. The "line of narration" becomes a framing device around the non-linear elements. We don't jump around in time, we follow some character's retelling/imagining of a different time.

I would actually consider the "Rashomon"-Style to be non-linear. Since we the audience get the full suite of facts in a separate order to the characters (who generally don't get it all anyway).

Cloud Atlas (the film) was much more non-linear with the six subplots than the book.^details The film braids all six subplots together, but keeps them linear within them selves. So A1-B1-C1-D1-A2-E1-D2-F1-etc.. The book tells the first half of the first story before jumping to the first half of the second, eventually closing them up in reverse order. So A1-B1-C1-D1-E1-F1-F2-E2-D2-C2-B2-A2. And I think it was better for it. Doesn't help that the book takes its pastiche nature a little too far.

I'm a big fan of non-linear stuff in my writing. Though most of its longer and unfinished. I have one fanfic I quite liked writing which starts way before and ends way after the source film. If you were to list the events chronologically with the film as events K-M, then the story went A-N-B-O...K-X-L-Y-M-Z. Meant I got to line up the dramatic builds of each half over one another and not have the middle of the story just be Stations of the Canon.

That's what I was thinking as well. At least, it makes more sense to me looking at it that way.