Jumping around along a time-line

I do know writers who write their books completely out of order, and they do it successfully. It comes down to how your brain is wired. Myself, I couldn't do it. But if it works for you, more power to you.

do you mean moving back and forth as the book progresses in a non-linear story? There are definitely books which do that.

non linear story are fun, I like them.

if you want an easy way to do write it. you can write the story in a normal linear order. and then change the chapter in a way that will create a non linear time line.
it will need some adjustment at the end and the editing is longer, but that is an easier way to do it.

anyway, good luck.

Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five comes immediately to mind.
Slaughterhouse Five on Amazon

If you've not read it - do.

jmurray2112 said:

I've started a new project, and the shape it took right out of the gate was that during character introduction and initial exposition, my chapters would jump in time from before an event, to after, to during, in no particular order. It's been a lot of fun, but it's my first experience with non-linear writing. I assume that at some point, it will stabilize into a linear progression, but I can't see that from here. For those of you who have experience with this, is that your experience? Does it stabilize? Or can a viable story continue to ping-pong like that? Thanks in advance.

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Did I misunderstand you? I thought you were talking about writing a linear story out of order (but presumably assembling the pieces in the right order once you had them all), but maybe you were talking about writing a non-linear story, where the timeline jumps around?

It's all in the execution.

To me, your question can only be answered when you've finished and your readers tell you if it was an enjoyable flowing read or not.

Good luck.

jmurray2112 said:

My apologies if I wasn't clear. That doesn't bode well for my writing career. My ultimate story is linear. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. However, the front end (so far) has jumped around the precipitating event that controls the time-line. I've done about seven chapters that bounce along it from front to back to during. My assumption is that I will reach equilibrium at some point, and then the middle and end will articulate themselves. My question was for those farther along than I. Is this a logical expectation, or could this go another way? Thanks for your time.

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As Bufty said, it's all in the execution. There is no way for anyone to tell beforehand. But I will say this: if the timeline is going to jump around at the beginning but later smooth out into a linear progression, then there has to be a good reason to tell the story that way. The jumping around must have an ultimate purpose and not merely be something you're doing because that's the way it's coming to you right now.

My new novel has a linear main story interspersed with flashbacks that jump around in time. I think it works quite well, though one of my two readers reported a little confusion, so I'm currently editing for clarity. Like pretty much all writing, finding the best way to tell your story is the key, so linear, non-linear or a mix is absolutely fine if it works.

jmurray2112 said:

My apologies if I wasn't clear. That doesn't bode well for my writing career. My ultimate story is linear. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. However, the front end (so far) has jumped around the precipitating event that controls the time-line. I've done about seven chapters that bounce along it from front to back to during. My assumption is that I will reach equilibrium at some point, and then the middle and end will articulate themselves. My question was for those farther along than I. Is this a logical expectation, or could this go another way? Thanks for your time.

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You write exactly how I write. I tend to write the most dramatic, exciting, and emotional scenes first. They never happen in linear order. A lot of times I actually write the ending first because it's usually an intense climax. I move from exciting scene to exciting scene. Then I backlog and fill in the gaps of what happened in between. Sometimes I don't even fill in the in-between because it's clear how the transitions happened. It's chaotic creation, but this is the way my brain works.

I find it's a lot more drafts than the linear author. The linear author spends more prep-time on the story outline, whereas people like us spend more time after the fact with our many drafts. Neither way is right or wrong.

Is your first draft done yet? You can always fix things in later drafts. Don't get too hung up on continuity while you're in the creation phase.

Probably the best example of this I can think of was the last episode of Star Trek: Next Generation, but that was quite different. It was the final episode of a serial, so all the characters were already pretty well known - and only one character jumps back and forth in the time line.

So execution is definitely key - just remember to keep track yourself of who does what in which time lines, as you don't want to corrupt between time lines where event C that happens in one timeline isn't dependent on on event A which happens in a different time line. (The whole parallel universes thing in action... )

jmurray, I'm doing something somewhat similar as far as nonlinear storytelling, and it has me a bit nervous, too! I do have a distinct purpose in mind and it will, as you say, settle into something more linear before getting jumbled again. See, the characters are, well, dead and telling their stories. But they died at different times, so they're starting off from different perspectives, though they're all telling the same story (they're related--a mother and two sons). It'll be linear as they tell that story, just with different voices. Then as one and then another dies as the story progresses, it'll get less linear again. Maybe. This is all very theoretical at this point.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you have a purpose and/or a vision and feel you have the technical chops to introduce just the right bits of information at the right time, then go for it!

That's how I used to write stories back in 2001 and I didn't realize it until my beta reader pointed it out. I would write one scene, pause it, go to another scene, and go back to the scene I was writing before the new one, like they do in soap operas, and for her it was hella confusing.

jmurray2112 said:

I love this place. Wish I'd joined a while ago.
Thanks for all the comments. I read back through what I'd written so far, and found the central thread that I'm pretty sure I knew I had all along. It showed me where all the bouncing about comes together.
I think that embracing the idea of listening to people telling you there's no single way to get there, and to just keep going can't be underestimated.

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Your way is the best way for you. You're doing a great job. Keep it up.

jmurray2112 said:

I've started a new project, and the shape it took right out of the gate was that during character introduction and initial exposition, my chapters would jump in time from before an event, to after, to during, in no particular order. It's been a lot of fun, but it's my first experience with non-linear writing. I assume that at some point, it will stabilize into a linear progression, but I can't see that from here. For those of you who have experience with this, is that your experience? Does it stabilize? Or can a viable story continue to ping-pong like that? Thanks in advance.

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Jumping around along the timeline or not, you're still arcing the character. Each scene, wherever on the timeline, pushes the character forward. Focus on the arc to stabilize it.