Basic Trope: The scenes from a work run in reverse chronological order.
- Straight: Every scene in Alice's Quest takes place before the previous one.
- Exaggerated: Every shot in Alice's Quest takes place before the previous one.
- Downplayed: Act 2 of Alice's Quest takes place before Act 1 and Act 3 takes place before Act 2, but the scenes in each individual act run in chronological order.
- Justified:
- The story is told by Alice detailing the events starting with the most recent, then realizing there was a detail that needs clarification and tells of the scene taking place before...then realizing there was a detail in that which needs clarification and so forth.
- The story is told by Alice tracing back the events that led to the disaster.
- Inverted: The scenes from Alice's Quest play in chronological order, but each scene plays backwards.
- Subverted: A scene from Alice's Quest seems to take place before the previous scene, only a character makes reference to something happening in that previous scene.
- Double Subverted: It turns out that the reference was an in-universe joke which comes true just after that.
- Parodied: The scenes in Alice's Quest keep going back even after showing Alice starting her quest, showing Alice being born, her parents meeting, and goes all the way back to the Big Bang.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice's Quest is told in Anachronic Order. Some scenes take place before the previous scene, others take place after the previous scene, others take place between two other scenes, and some don't seem to fit into the continuity at all.
- Averted: The scenes from Alice's Quest play in chronological order.
- Enforced: The biggest thing to happen in Alice's Quest is the incident that touches off the plot with all subsequent happenings paling in comparison. So, the decision is made to have that be the climax of the work and the rest of the scenes to show the aftermath.
- Lampshaded: "Wait, did we just cut to a part that took place before that last one?"
- Invoked: When Bob asks Alice to detail the events leading up to the start of the work, he asks for the most recent occurance first and to clarify things when she has to.
- Exploited: Charlie, who's listening to Alice tell Bob her story, bets Bob that a certain sequence of events will occur. Bob takes the bet and loses because Charlie paid attention to one part of Alice's story that Bob missed.
- Defied: When Bob asks Alice to detail the events leading up to the start, he insists she start from the beginning.
- Discussed: "Alice is telling the story of how she got here. I wonder if she'll keep going back before the part she's on."
- Conversed: "Telling a story by placing scenes after the ones that took place after them is an interesting technique, but you do know how they're going to end as a result."
- Implied: A scene from Alice's Quest gives no indication as to when it takes place in the work's continuity, but features an action that was referred to in past tense in an earlier scene.
- Deconstructed: Alice loses track of where she is in the story due to her starting from the end and going backwards. When she tells a part that jumbles together two moments that she already mentioned, Bob figures that she's making the whole thing up and brushes off the story as a tall tale.
- Reconstructed: Alice organizes her thoughts on how to tell the story in reverse order properly so that the same thing doesn't happen when she tells Charlie the story.
- Played for Laughs: One scene shows Alice performing a dangerous task and grousing about it the whole way. We then cut to earlier and Alice steadfastly refusing to perform said task. (Essentially, a reverse Gilligan Cut.)
- Played for Drama: In one scene, Alice learns that Emperor Evulz has taken over the town of Fridge Lake and enslaved the citizens. We cut to earlier and Alice is bidding goodbye to some friends who are leaving for Fridge Lake, revealing they're in danger.
- Played for Horror: At one point, Emperor Evulz and his forces attack a small town and we focus on a house getting destroyed. We cut to earlier and a friend of Alice's ducks into the house where he says he'll be safe from Emperor Evulz.
Front to Back to Back.
