: Re: 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

@Dunderdale623

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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: "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.

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