Nonlinear narrative

A narrative that presents events out of chronological order, across multiple timelines, or through disrupted sequences. Its arrangement makes the order of telling distinct from the order of events.

Anachrony: A departure from chronological order in a narrative, including flashbacks and flashforwards. Names the basic temporal disruption that makes a narrative nonlinear.
In Search of Lost Time: Marcel Proust’s novel sequence, narrated through memory, time, and the formation of an artist. Its recollections make subjective memory a governing structure for the narrative.
Fabula and syuzhet: A narratological distinction between the chronological story events and their arrangement in a narrative. This distinction precisely describes the gap nonlinear narratives exploit.
Chronological narrative: A narrative that presents its events in the order in which they occur. It provides the clearest alternative to reordered storytelling.
Flashback: A scene that interrupts the present action to depict an earlier event. Shows how a later point in the telling can reveal an earlier cause.
The Sound and the Fury: William Faulkner’s novel of the Compson family, told through shifting voices and disrupted chronology. Its fragmented sections make chronology and perspective inseparable.
Chronology: The arrangement of events according to the time at which they occurred. It supplies the sequence against which a narrative’s presentation can be compared.
Stream of consciousness: A literary mode that represents the continuous flow of a character’s thoughts and perceptions. It may disrupt sequence through mental association rather than deliberate timeline design.
Flashforward: A scene that depicts an event later than the narrative’s current point. Introduces future events before the story reaches them chronologically.
Citizen Kane: A 1941 film by Orson Welles that reconstructs a tycoon’s life through witnesses’ memories. Its nested recollections assemble a life without following its chronological sequence.

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