Thread: Reverse Chronology

Someone defined plot as “This happened, then that happened because.”

Why not, just for variety, make it, “This happened. But why/how/where did this happen?” And with each succeeding ‘chapterised’ answer, simply continue asking why/how/where.

The first of the “This happened” events, according to my formula, would be the pages in the book numbered as if they were Chapter Two, wherein our heroes, thinking they’d got away with whatever, are lying on the sand in Antigua sipping their pina coladas, when the local police march up and say, “Mr Blott? We have a few questions.”

And the pages numbered as for Chapter Three could detail what it was they had previously achieved, to be able to afford pina coladas in Antigua, and so on, backwards in time and space, until we reach a point that follows a conventional Chapter One, printed in the book where Chapter One normally appears.

After reading Chapter One, the reader would read their pseudo Chapter Two, in reality Chapter The Last, and say, “How/where/why did this happen?” By reading on, they would then find out, in each chapter, what had brought the previous chapter about.

I think it’s rather neat. It certainly gives the reader something to think about, something to keep them on their toes, which has to be a change from all the pap served up under the guise of regular commercial fiction.

Okay, the story might not jump all the way from Chapter One (Ch 1) to Chapter The Last (Ch 2), but there’s still potential to be different.

^ This is actually a good concept. I have an acquaintance in another site I am a member of who actually did this thing in a short story. It's around 1,500 words, give or take. It's a fan-fic, but he did the reverse concept quite well in my opinion, and you don't need knowledge of the actual lore the fic is based in to get it. Link's here.

The movie “Memento" did something similar, but I think it started at the very end and then continued backwards pretty much to the very beginning. More or less. Great movie, and I think this concept would be great for a novel too.

Seconded about Memento. Funnily enough, for all the times I've seen it I forget the end so when I go back to watch it again, I'm as fresh as if I'd never seen it before.

Ox, go with your ideas. They're doable and have been used before to a certain extent (just cant think where off the top of my head) so definitely worth investing writing time in.