Introduction

Have you ever felt the urge to break free from linear narratives? Does your story seem to resist fitting into a traditional format? You’re not alone, and you aren’t wrong. The non-linear story structure has roots in ancient times and continues to thrive today.

“Pulp Fiction” by Quentin Tarantino (1994), One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut are exemplary non-linear narratives that have become iconic. They demonstrate that you can succeed with a non-linear story and captivate audiences across different formats.

Chronological stories offer a logical flow, but non-linear narratives challenge our common thought processes. While we might experience life linearly, it’s rarely so simple. Our own flashbacks, encounters beginning in medias res, and the combination of separate narratives are the most realistic representations of the world.

Alternative, non-linear story structures allow you to enhance themes, characters, and reader experiences. Readers often piece together past and future details as the narrative jumps between timelines and stories. Let’s explore the origins of non-linear storytelling and how it has evolved into modern techniques.

Background and Context

The practice of non-linear narratives isn’t new. Early examples can be found in epic poems like the Iliad and Mahabharata. The Iliad uses techniques such as starting in medias res and flashbacks to fill out the story and share the motivations of the characters. In the Mahabharata, the frequent flashbacks and interwoven subplots that jump between timelines make this epic poem non-linear. Another early example is the collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales in One Thousand and One Nights or Arabian Nights, where non-linear storytelling is evident in the way stories are nested and interconnected.

The growth of non-linear stories can be seen through authors like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf in works such as Ulysses and Mrs. Dalloway. Both examples use the stream-of-consciousness technique. Consider your own thoughts; you don’t always think linearly. Small items, words, or events trigger memories, concerns, and hopes as you go through the day. Postmodern authors like Kurt Vonnegut further encouraged writers to embrace non-linear narratives to explore complex themes through fragmented timelines.

The popularity and acceptance of non-linear story structures in both literature and film have been on the rise. Non-linear storytelling allows for a greater emphasis on inner consciousness and fragmented narratives. Breaking conventional plot structures enables authors to delve deeper into character psychology and social critique. This form also impacts readers by encouraging them to question reality and the nature of stories themselves. Terms like metafiction and intertextuality are often associated with non-linear stories, but essentially, these stories make readers pause and ponder longer before the next quick distraction.

Types of Non-Linear Structures

The non-linear story structure is one that almost opens the box on creativity all the way. There are many options to tell a story, and much like a five year old, they make sense or sound like a wild ride. Approaching the non-linear story with structure may sound strange, but take a minute to think about what it takes to create a non-linear story.

The story as a whole works better if it linearly makes sense. From what I could find, most writers of this story form write the narrative in linear fashion first and then realize that the non-linear format can add more to their story. Speaking from the experience of attempting to write a non-linear story myself, it is still one of my back burner stories because I didn’t have the knowledge at the time to truly get it out. There are two categories, and possibly more, of non-linear structures to help structure the beautiful chaos of your story.

Reverse Chronology

Reverse chronology stories focus on flashbacks and retrogrades, revealing the final state of the character first and then moving backward in time. This often feels like a ‘Well, I guess I should tell you how I got here’ type of story. These narratives explore themes of memory and revelation, examining the impact on characters when they lack these elements and how it drives the resolution.

An example is ‘Memento Mori’ by Jonathan Nolan, which inspired the film ‘Memento.’ The story unravels by moving backward in time, gradually revealing clues about the protagonist’s situation. The protagonist has short-term memory loss and leaves clues for himself, revealed in reverse order to the reader. This builds a unique kind of suspense, as the reader pieces together what led to the opening image.

You can use reverse chronology to build suspense by focusing on gradual revelations and the layering of mystery. As seen in Memento Mori, dropping clues gradually throughout the story keeps readers intrigued. Each clue impacts both the reader’s and the protagonist’s perspectives as they are discovered. This leads us to the next tool: recontextualizing past events. Writers can recontextualize earlier events to reveal deeper meanings or hidden secrets, enhancing the suspense.

Parallel Narratives

Parallel Narratives are a common and popular way to write non-linear stories. This technique ties together multiple timelines or storylines, transitioning between them as the narrative progresses. Each timeline or story offers unique insights to the reader, while holding back information from the protagonist(s) or antagonist(s).

The multiple timelines approach often uses stories separated by time to reflect themes and character development. For example, in The Girl in the Letter by Emily Gunnis, two narratives are intertwined, with past letters and flashbacks heavily influencing the present-day storyline. These stories often indicate dates to clarify when events are occurring or present information through letters.

Using multiple timelines is great for building suspense, revealing important backstory, and creating connections between past and present that might not be immediately obvious.

Interconnected stories offer a chance to tell multiple narratives that don’t seem connected at first, but eventually tie together. Examples of this can be found in The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

In The Darkest Evening of the Year, two storylines depict completely different worlds and characters that appear unrelated. However, by the end of the story, you can look back and see how they align. This demonstrates how interconnected stories can serve as a great contrast tool, showing how two seemingly different people can be connected by one thing.

In Cloud Atlas, multiple perspectives reveal the world at various stages. This approach not only contrasts different times and places but also provides context. Each story adds weight to the next as you progress through the narrative.

Technical Considerations

While writing a non-linear narrative can produce a masterwork, there are technical considerations to keep in mind. This may be challenging for some and easy for others, but writing a complete non-linear story is a task that will take more effort in some areas. We’ll focus on some here, but know that this is not an all encompassing section.

Managing Time Markers

Time markers are essential when writing reverse chronology or parallel narratives. Since you’re intentionally breaking the flow of the story, you need to clearly show the reader where they are and when they’re leaving their current time mark. Small indicators like a date (e.g., “Fall 1945”) or a time frame (e.g., “A year earlier”) are quick tools that will help your reader immensely. These are examples of transitional devices.

Transitional Devices

Transitional devices help the reader move smoothly between different timelines or scenes. These can include:

• Flashbacks/Flashforwards: Signaled by the above examples. Sometimes you’ll see italics used or a different font, though I don’t see the latter as much anymore.
• Chapter or Section Breaks: Use these to indicate a transition. Note that section breaks might not translate as clearly in audiobooks, so use tone to separate the sections as well.

Knowing how you transition between your segmented story should also help you maintain consistency in your timeline tracking.

Timeline Tracking

Timeline tracking ensures that the story follows a logical path. When laid out chronologically, the timeline should make sense. If you’re not tracking your overall timeline, you’re likely to find misaligned events. For example, in my WIP, I once forgot that a character had already closed the front door at the end of the previous scene, and then had him close it again at the opening of the next scene. Simple mistakes like this can throw readers off and out of your book. So it’s even more important to keep the reader in mind as you write your non-linear narrative. I like to use Plottr to track my timelines. Plottr allows me to build multiple timelines on the same page and having a main timeline to lay everything else out on. (I’m not receiving any commission from this, I just have found this tool very useful.)

Point of View Shifts

POV can make or break your story. There have been great stories written by indie authors that have received lesser reviews because the POV shifts cause issues. The way you change perspective characters is just as important as why you change POVs. Non-linear stories guarantee POV changes of some form, so you’ll need to ensure that you take the extra time to assure they align. We’ll look at character perspective changes and temporal perspective changes.

Character Perspective Changes

Shifting between character perspectives is one of the most common POV shift methods used, but also the most poorly executed at times. The character perspective change focuses on shifting POVs between characters to allow for a different lens on the story, events, or character building situations. A great example of a straightforward character perspective shift is George R.R. Martin’s series A Song of Fire and Ice. Martin uses chapter breaks and identifies the POV character at each transition. This gives the reader a full perspective of the story as a whole and helps them keep track of the many characters in the series.

You can switch character POVs within a chapter, and there are plenty of authors who switch back and forth on the same page successfully. There is a danger in this practice known as head-hopping. That falls mostly under third-person narratives. The reason you hear so much grief about head-hopping is that readers often get confused, frustrated, or mixed up. This will result in closed books, books thrown against walls, and time spent re-reading that the reader doesn’t really want to deal with. You can find examples of this even in big books like The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Some scenes shift between thoughts and perspectives of different characters within the same scene.

The balance between transitions will vary on your story’s genre, but there are a few general practices you can keep in mind. Make clear transitions for your readers with the chapter or scene breaks mentioned earlier. Also, know what scene will best work with which character. You’ll be much happier when you don’t have to rewrite entire sections of scenes because you started off with the POV that gives the readers the lesser experience. I won’t say there’s right and wrong choices here, but knowing how the perspective will impact the reader’s view of the world will make your story that much better.

Temporal Perspective Shifts

The temporal perspective shift refers to changes in the time frame from which a story is told. These include flashbacks, flash-forwards, and non-linear narratives. The shift between times should be clear to readers, especially if certain characters appear in multiple timelines. This clarity can be achieved through tonal changes, detailed descriptions, or explicitly stating the time frame.

The tonal shift is what we talked about above. As writers, we’re not able to throw a gray filter on a flashback to show it’s the past, but we can shift the tone of the writing. If the character is intentionally thinking back, you can add a reflective tone that highlights where mistakes or decisions were made. Or, if they flash back to a time they were afraid, you might use shorter sentences with visceral descriptions to show the shock value it had. It’s easier to show a visualization for this through film, so check out this clip from The Bourne Identity to get a feel for flashbacks with a tonal shift.

Detail-oriented shifts can be shown by changes in the character between the time frames. Body language is a great tool here if you’re showing differences in confidence, age, or injury. For example, if we work off an injury, everything before the injury may be brighter, with hopes and aspirations brought up more, or the character shown as whole. The alternate timeline would be the present character showing how the injury impacted them. Often, this is a darker time as they’ve been worn down by chronic pain, the loss of a limb, or just the weight of aging.

Explicitly stating the time frame is probably one of the easiest ways to show the temporal perspective shift, but it can also be the easiest to overlook. You would think that readers would make sure they were locked in on any shift, but with so many different readers out there, you’ll most likely find many ways in how those readers read. A good way to prevent confusion is to pattern the time frames, especially for audiobooks. The back and forth gives a consistency to readers that makes them work less to keep up with everything.

Writing Exercise: Timeline Shuffle

Set a timer for 15 minutes and follow these steps:

1. First 2 minutes: Write down three significant moments in a character’s life on separate note cards or pieces of paper. Label them A (childhood), B (early adulthood), and C (present day).
2. Next 3 minutes: For each moment, write down one strong emotion and one sensory detail (smell, sound, or texture) associated with that moment.
3. Next 7 minutes: Write a scene that connects all three moments, but start with moment C, then B, then A. Use your sensory details and emotions as bridges between the time periods. For example, a smell in the present might trigger a memory from childhood.
4. Final 3 minutes: Read through what you’ve written and add one transition sentence between each time jump that helps orient the reader.

The goal is to practice creating smooth transitions between different time periods while maintaining a clear through-line that connects the moments emotionally or thematically. This exercise helps you develop the skills needed for crafting non-linear narratives while keeping your reader oriented in the story.

Conclusion

Non-linear storytelling offers writers a powerful toolset to craft compelling narratives that reflect the complexity of human experience. While it requires careful attention to technical elements like timeline tracking, transitions, and perspective shifts, the reward is the ability to create rich, layered stories that engage readers on multiple levels.

Whether you choose reverse chronology, parallel narratives, or interconnected storylines, remember that the key to successful non-linear storytelling lies in maintaining clarity while embracing the creative freedom this format provides. Your readers will thank you for the journey, even if it doesn’t follow a straight path.

Additional Resources

• “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud
• “Narrative Design” by Madison Smartt Bell
• Non-Linear Storytelling: Non-Linear Writing Tips and Examples is a short article that can give you an oversight into the non-linear story world.
• How To Write Nonlinear Structures was the most helpful video I found for me, and I hope you’ll find this walkthrough of some nonlinear films beneficial for helping your non-linear narrative.

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