What do Pulp Fiction, Memento, and Lost have in common (besides being old pop culture references by someone who hasn’t seen a ton of recent movies and shows)? They all feature different types of non-chronological storytelling. I’ve been studying memoir lately and was interested in the various ways the authors structure their stories, jumping through time and focusing on events in a non-linear order to tell a cohesive story. Other genres besides memoir also feature stories told out of order, and this presentation will explore several.

Chronological order – this is the most common method of storytelling. A timeline for a chronological story is a single straight line with points moving along left to right in the same order as the chapters. The events in the story are shown on the page in the same order in which they occur in the story’s timeline. This is the standard for the romance genre, since most stories start with the characters apart, show their first meeting, illustrate the push and pull of the characters growing closer, and then end when they are solidly together as a couple. There are some examples of romances told out of order, but those are usually “second chance” romances in which earlier events show up as flashbacks or a dual timeline.

Non-Linear elements in a chronological story – even a story in which the chapters all follow strict chronological order can have elements that allow information to appear out of order. Here are four examples:

1. Memories/flashbacks – these show up in almost every chronological story, where the point of view (POV) character recalls a past event which helps explain the character’s worldview, and frequently the emotional baggage they will need to confront and overcome. Some stories rely more heavily on memories and flashbacks than others, but it is realistic for close POV (either first person or deep third person) when the perspective includes the thoughts and emotions of the POV character to include recollections of past events. These can show up as short (one paragraph) memories of the past events or whole scene flashbacks, but are usually tied to the events of the current timeline. Something happens in the current scene which triggers this memory, causing this character to remember that event which is then brought to the front of their mind. It’s helpful for readers if the memory or flashback is launched into by the current timeline events, since the trigger for the memory is clear. Otherwise, readers might be confused about whether this memory is actually happening in the present. It’s important to make sure that the ending of the flashback and the return to the current timeline is equally clear.
2. Flash-forwards – similar to flashbacks. Flash-forwards are less common and need more separation from the current narrative, since the POV character can’t “remember” these future events, so they are less realistic. These are often found in stories with a paranormal element or some other explanation for why this character is having visions of the future, unless a distant 3^rd person POV used. One example is the movie Arrival, which was based on Ted Chiang’s novella, “Story of Your Life.” Another example is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol when the Ghost of Christmas Future takes Ebenezer Scrooge to visit his own (potential) dark future. Also, consider the later seasons of the TV show Lost, where the characters envision their future selves. If it’s not from a main character’s perspective, it’s still non-linear, but not necessarily a flash-forward, especially if there is a narrator telling a past story with knowledge of future events.
3. Foreshadowing – from the perspective of the POV character, foreshadowing can be conscious or subconscious. Within a linear timeline, it would usually be the unconscious mind noticing of details and events that will become important in the future. This appears as hints for the readers (and the character) of the conflict and drama that is to come. It aligns with the writing concept of Chekov’s Gun, in that if you mention a gun in Chapter One, a character had better shoot that gun before the end of the story. Focus on details that matter, details that will be important when establishing your story universe.
4. Dreams – for a non-linear timeline, the types of dreams we’re talking about here are realistic dreams, either a nightmare with a character reliving a past event, or a bittersweet memory of a lost love or other events that the character has been reminded of because of their current timeline story. It could also include a premonition dream of events to come. The challenge here is making it clear to the reader (after the fact, if not before or during) which parts of the story were “the dream,” with a clear transition to the character waking up and processing that dream. Dreams that are abstract and don’t clearly relate to an actual event, either past or future, are also used in fiction, but are not really a function of non-linear storytelling, but instead are something else, usually an extended metaphor or a link to an alternate dimension.

Non-Linear Story Structures –

What if your whole storyline isn’t chronological? What chaos are you creating for your readers? Fear not, there are established story structures that throw the whole linear plot line out the window. These include:

1. Dual/multiple timelines – this structure is common in women’s fiction when there are characters living “now” and also a storyline from the past. Frequently, the current timeline characters are trying to uncover the events from the past, which are revealed in their own timeline in alternating chapters. Maybe the connection between the various timelines is not as clear – one example is The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin. This can also involve multiple perspectives from characters living in different timelines, the premise of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.
2. Starting at a key moment – This is common in memoir, like The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, where the main character/author starts with seeing her mother eating out of a dumpster while she (the author) is walking down a Manhattan street as a successful professional. Then the author circles back to some of her earliest memories, working toward that moment. This technique also shows up in fiction such as Beartown by Fredrik Backman, which starts with a key moment—one person holding another person at gunpoint in the woods—but with no names for the two characters. Then we backtrack to learn about the town and its obsession with youth hockey, but are left wondering the whole time who the two people in the woods are and what’s going to happen after that moment. Two romance/women’s fiction examples of this structure are Sherry Thomas’ Private Arrangements and Taylor Jenkins Reid’s After I Do, both of which start years into a failing marriage, with the characters recounting their past until they catch up with the present and change their future.
3. Starting at the end and working backward – This is less common, but an interesting concept. There was an episode of Seinfeld where the characters traveled to India for a wedding that started at the end, at the wedding, and each new scene was actually the one that occurred prior until we got back to the inciting incident, the invitation, which, if handled differently, could have prevented all the mayhem of the entire episode. The film Memento falls into this camp. It would take a special type of story to work in this reverse order and continue to maintain the conflict, tension, and suspense necessary to keep the readers’ attention. Mysteries sometimes work this way, starting with the crime and going back in time (either through flashbacks or through a detective figuring these events out in the current timeline) to piece together what had happened to result in this crime.
4. Time jumps – you can also have a story that is chronological but includes a material “jump forward” in which readers need to find out (through flashbacks or dialogue hints) what happened in those missing years to fill in the gaps between the “before” and “after” the jump realities. An example of something similar is What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty in which her main character wakes up in a gym, thinking she’s 29 and happily married, only to realize she’s lost ten years’ worth of memories; she’s now divorced with a completely different life and has to piece together what happened between her last memory and the present situation.
5. Time travel – when a POV character travels through time during a story, unless they show up in the “current” timeline with no background, there is going to be some jumping around. And if there are multiple trips through time, then your story timeline is going to look more like a grid rather than a line. For a whimsical story, you could have a universe in which there are zero consequences for time travel, such as Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, in which Bill and Ted removing Socrates from ancient Greece had zero impact on the world. For most stories with time travel, you need to track each action and its consequences into all future timelines. It’s a great source of conflict in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series that the heroine can’t simply kill the brutal Jack Randall because he’s the great-grandfather of her other timeline’s husband. Same issue with Octavia Butler’s Kindred, in which the time-traveling modern Black woman must protect her slave-owning ancestors or risk her own undoing.
6. Grouping scenes by theme – this approach is common in memoir, in which the order of scenes is determined by the theme and character growth arc of the main character (who is also the author in the memoir), grouping them to show examples of the process by which they learned and grew into the person they are now through the series of events. Tara Westover’s memoir Educated employs this style, with her memories not organized by the calendar but instead by association with the feelings and lessons. These scenes are usually strung together with narrative text exploring the lessons learned, and sometimes follow the standard non-fiction structure of outlining lessons and perhaps even giving exercises or direction to readers to enforce these lessons. I haven’t seen this used in fiction, but wouldn’t rule anything out.
7. Story within a story framework – this structure involves one character reading or telling a story or multiple stories. Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin is a fun example of this method of storytelling, in which one character is writing a novel. The novel’s storyline only intersects with the “real timeline” story to add meaning and depth to the life of the main character (an author) and her efforts to find out what happened to her sister. The narrative jumps back and forth between the “current storyline” and the “story within the story” timeline, with clear indications which scenes belong to each. A more recent example of this is Colleen Hoover’s Verity, in which a young author lives with a man while she reads the notes and diaries of his incapacitated wife to finish writing a novel as a ghostwriter. The story unspooling in the incapacitated wife’s diaries leads the main character to doubt everyone and everything in that spooky old house. Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl also has an aspect of this in the first part with Amy’s diary entries posted in juxtaposition to Nick’s current timeline scenes, as does Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale. In memoir, I saw this employed to great effect in Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri.
8. Experimental – Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five uses time travel, space travel, flashbacks, and some weird things I can’t even name to pull together a compelling tale about Billy Pilgrim, who survived the bombing of Dresden by being held as a prisoner of war in a slaughterhouse with a sufficiently deep basement. And so it goes.

Email Miranda@MirandaDarrow.com to schedule a presentation for your writing group.