Plot keeps shifting in time.

[SimonDoom]

As a reader I feel a little cheated, especially with a first person narrative, if there's a big secret that gets revealed later in the story that my narrator knew from the beginning and didn't share. (Untrustworthy narrators aside...)

It might depend on tense, though. At the beginning of the story, if the story is told in present tense, the first person POV narrator might not know that something will become important until something triggers the flashback. There would be no reason, in that situation, for the narrator to reveal the flashback information to the reader.

In past tense it's trickier, presumably because when the starts it's been finished, and the narrator knows what is to come. I used third person limited past tense in my story, but I still wouldn't change it, because the alternative, which would be having two very short passages in the distance past to start the story, wouldn't have worked nearly as well.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I'd ask myself (if I were using the device) if the narrative becomes *more* meaningful when it's fractured like that, if being forced to think about the events out of order gives me some kind of insight the reader couldn't have had otherwise. And I'd probably avoid telling it out of order just to reveal some surprise. As a reader I feel a little cheated, especially with a first person narrative, if there's a big secret that gets revealed later in the story that my narrator knew from the beginning and didn't share. (Untrustworthy narrators aside...)

In my series I mentioned earlier in the thread, if I had written it in chronological order, it would have consisted of a half dozen chapters that began grim and kept getting darker, leading to a climatic event. Then there would be another half dozen chapters dealing with the aftermath. I did not think many readers would continue through the early chapters, so I developed the parallel before and after storylines. I do think that making the alternating chapters thematically "rhyme" as much as I could did give readers insight they might not have gotten otherwise.

I am confused by your remark about narrators not revealing secrets at the beginning of the book. Would you eliminate all suspense and the element of surprise?

 

[sweetandeasy]

In my series I mentioned earlier in the thread, if I had written it in chronological order, it would have consisted of a half dozen chapters that began grim and kept getting darker, leading to a climatic event. Then there would be another half dozen chapters dealing with the aftermath. I did not think many readers would continue through the early chapters, so I developed the parallel before and after storylines. I do think that making the alternating chapters thematically "rhyme" as much as I could did give readers insight they might not have gotten otherwise.

I am confused by your remark about narrators not revealing secrets at the beginning of the book. Would you eliminate all suspense and the element of surprise?

I think there are probably plenty of stories that play with time in intelligent ways that help the story, and it sounds like you've found a structure that works for your series. And parallel before-and-after storylines are probably much easier for a reader to follow than just jumping back and forth without some clear pattern to it.

As far as suspense, I love surprise and suspense, but mostly I love it when it grows out of the plot and the development of the characters. Or at least when it's a surprise as well to the narrator or the main character I'm following. Otherwise there's a chance I'll feel as if a character or a narrator I trust (*if* I trust them) has been withholding something from me in a way that doesn't feel authentic. Then I might feel that the emotional impact of the revelation hasn't been totally earned.

One of my favorite surprises in a story was in the book Mystery by Peter Straub. (Do books written 30 years ago need spoilers? Anyway, spoiler.) The book is written in limited third person and follows a teenage boy who befriends a reclusive detective. Late in the story we discover, along with the boy, that the detective is his father. It works because it's the boy we're following through the story, it's his headspace we occupy, not the detective's. If the situation were reversed and it was the detective's story, and we're inside his head, and then late in the book he reveals to the boy (and to us) that he's his father, it would be just as surprising but it would take me out of the story. That's what I mean that it wouldn't feel earned... because it's something I should've already known. The author could still tell the story from the detective's perspective, but the suspense would have to come from not knowing how the secret would be received. (For me! obviously. Everybody's different.)

 

[MelissaBaby]

I think there are probably plenty of stories that play with time in intelligent ways that help the story, and it sounds like you've found a structure that works for your series. And parallel before-and-after storylines are probably much easier for a reader to follow than just jumping back and forth without some clear pattern to it.

As far as suspense, I love surprise and suspense, but mostly I love it when it grows out of the plot and the development of the characters. Or at least when it's a surprise as well to the narrator or the main character I'm following. Otherwise there's a chance I'll feel as if a character or a narrator I trust (*if* I trust them) has been withholding something from me in a way that doesn't feel authentic. Then I might feel that the emotional impact of the revelation hasn't been totally earned.

One of my favorite surprises in a story was in the book Mystery by Peter Straub. (Do books written 30 years ago need spoilers? Anyway, spoiler.) The book is written in limited third person and follows a teenage boy who befriends a reclusive detective. Late in the story we discover, along with the boy, that the detective is his father. It works because it's the boy we're following through the story, it's his headspace we occupy, not the detective's. If the situation were reversed and it was the detective's story, and we're inside his head, and then late in the book he reveals to the boy (and to us) that he's his father, it would be just as surprising but it would take me out of the story. That's what I mean that it wouldn't feel earned... because it's something I should've already known. The author could still tell the story from the detective's perspective, but the suspense would have to come from not knowing how the secret would be received. (For me! obviously. Everybody's different.)

Thank you for the explanation. That makes sense. Any plot development, not just surprises, must grow organically from the plot.