Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A When should one *not* present events in chronological order?

Some stories tell well from beginning to end, all in a neat little line...and some don't. When can a story be improved by using a different order in the telling? Off the top of my head, I'd say...

3 answers  ·  posted 14y ago by HedgeMage‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question fiction storyline
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T00:47:36Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/459
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar HedgeMage‭ · 2019-12-08T00:47:36Z (almost 5 years ago)
Some stories tell well from beginning to end, all in a neat little line...and some don't.

When can a story be improved by using a different order in the telling?

* * *

Off the top of my head, I'd say flashbacks are great when something doesn't make sense out of the context of what is happening _now_ in the story, or when something that happened long ago (before the story's timeline begins) is important to the story.

Also, in a project I'm working on, the story begins at a point where it is _very_ hard to introduce the characters well, so I started at a point after that, then transitioned to a flashback on how they got to that point. It _seems_ to be working out well.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2010-11-23T22:46:50Z (almost 14 years ago)
Original score: 21