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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/467
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

What's the most important thing that your readers need to know right way? What's the scene that will drag them into your story? The answers to those questions will tell you what should come first.

It's certainly possible to write a convoluted, insanely complex story, jumping back and forth in time. Kurt Vonnegut [wrote](http://www.writingclasses.com/InformationPages/index.php/PageID/538): "Start as close to the end as possible", and he was amazingly skilled at writing such a book. Neil Gaiman writes stories nested within other stories, and then you find out you've been in another story all along. There's an entire _genre_ of fiction based on the non-linear narrative, and its called detective fiction.

Can you making it easy for your reader to follow along? If so, there's no reason not to make your story more interesting by using non-linear narrative tools. If you're using them just to add spice to your story, then its going to be obvious that you're trying to pull one over on the reader.

To sum up, it all depends on the story you're telling. What is the absolute core of the story? Use whatever techniques will drive the story forward, including this.

Original score: 17