Examples of How We Got Here in 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 Chuck Palahniuk novels Survivor (1999), Lullaby, and most notably, Fight Club.. 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 How We Got Here 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 How We Got Here, the author himself being a self-stated fan of the trope.
- Survivor is probably the Ur-Example in Palahniuk's works. The narrator 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.
- Isaac Asimov:
- "The Bicentennial Man": 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 Robot Butler.
- "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.
- "The Ugly Little Boy": 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.
- Roger Zelazny is fond of this trope:
- Doorways in the Sand: Every single chapter, except the first and the last, works this way.
- Lord of Light after the In Medias Res 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:
- 13 Reasons Why 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.
- Absolutely Truly 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.
- The Afterward: The story begins after the quest has been completed, then intersperses with chapters which show what happened.
- Lampshade Hanging and Subversion: 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 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 this scene will only occur in the fifth (and last) book of the series.
- And when it finally happens in the fifth (and last) book of the series, the narrator's father is killed, and the book abruptly ends, as does the series. Until Bastille promises to continue the story.
- 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 Visser Three.
- In The Bible, the entirety of the Book of Genesis is this. Tradition holds that it was written and narrated by Moses.
- The Catcher in the Rye starts off with Holden hospitalised and telling a psychologist the events that led up to it.
- The Chronicles of Dorsa: 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.
- The Dinner: 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 Wintersmith, of the Discworld series, starts off not just at the ending, but at a possible ending.
- The first book in the Disney Chills series opens with Shelly being dragged before Ursula, then flashes back to show how it all happened.
- The Divide (2005): 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.
- Eastern Standard Tribe opens with Art on the roof of a pysch hospital and is split between the present and past storylines.
- The Empirium Trilogy: 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. Subverted in that the exact events depicted in this prologue don't come to pass thanks to future-Eliana's interference.
- Finnegans Wake 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 How We Got Here 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.
- "The Hound (1924)": The opening paragraph announces that the narrator is about to commit suicide to avoid perishing at the claws and teeth of an undead monstrosity. What follows thereafter is a recapitulation of why said undead has it out for him until the final paragraph closes with the affirmation that the narrator will blow his brains out immediately after putting down the pen.
- In The Realm Of Carnal Horror starts with the main character leaving the country with loads of cash. The novel then goes on to say why, in a Flashback.
- Infinite Jest, although one could certainly be forgiven for not realizing it.
- Jacky Ha Ha 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' The Lorax 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.
- Malgudi Days: "Gateman's Gift". The story begins with the eponymous gateman, Govind Singh, trying to read a letter he received without opening it. Then the author writes "But before saying anything further about his progress, it would be useful to go back to an earlier chapter in his history", after which he recounts the events which led up to that point.
- Moonlight Becomes You opens with our heroine Maggie Holloway waking up after being attacked and knocked unconscious, and realizing she's trapped in a coffin, underground. The rest of the novel begins nearly a month prior, explaining how Maggie came to be in this predicament.
- Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime: "I Killed Santa Claus" begins with the narrator describing the circumstances behind why she can say that phrase about an Accidental Murder act of self-defense involving a dishonest mall Santa.
- Older Than Feudalism: Homer's The Odyssey did this when Odysseus makes it to the island of the Phaeacians; he tells them everything that has happened to him up to that point.
- In Our Wives Under the Sea, Miri's part of the story takes place after Leah comes back wrong from an expedition. Leah's half, spread throughout, is dedicated to showing what happened on the expedition and ends at the moment where the submarine resurfaces.
- P. G. Wodehouse uses a six-line version of this in his short story Right Ho, Jeeves before the Narrator pulls back and laments the difficulty of deciding when best to start a story.
- 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.
- 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 Saving Zoë 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 The Scavenger Trilogy The whole series is an extended journey to appreciate how we got to the mysterious start of the story.
- Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron is begins with the narrator being slowly digested by a carnivorous plant. 400 pages later you find out why.
- Small Game 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 Southern Sisters Mysteries, 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.
- 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.
- The Stranger Beside Me starts with Ted Bundy arriving in Florida after escaping prison.
- The first line of The Thebaid 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.
- They Shoot Horses, Don't They? starts with Robert, the protagonist being sentenced for the murder of his friend, Gloria (which he did on her request). This happens at the very end of the book.
- Three Wishes starts with a scene of three women having dinner, described by a number of other restaurant guests (who we are also warned 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 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.
- To Kill a Mockingbird 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.
- Warrior Cats: 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.
- When You Reach Me 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.
- Wicked has an unusual version: the "end" is an event the audience presumably knows already, due to the ubiquity of The Wizard of Oz, 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 Lower-Deck Episode).
- Wyst: Alastor 1716 by Jack Vance opens with the Connatic, the ruler of the Alastor Cluster, receiving several messages about a deteriorating situation on the titular planet and a man named Jantiff Ravensroke being in great danger there. The rest of the story is told from Jantiff's viewpoint, beginning with how he came to be on Wyst in the first place and detailing his descent into the situation the Connatic is warned of in the opening.
