As writers we have the
power to alternate the lineal order of events to create intrigue, to generate
expectations that hook the reader, or simply to delay that key scene that will
serve as climax in our story. For their way to begin narration, non-lineal
organization of plot can be divided in two groups:
There are books that
begin with a fact that takes place in the middle of the story, with the
characters already in the middle of the conflict, without previous
explanations, nor introductions or presentations. This technique is known as In
Medias Res, and it generates expectation and interrogation in the reader, who
will have no more choice than to keep reading to know the characters and the development
of the conflict. To tell the previous events, we shall go back in time with
retrospections or flashbacks. The In Medias Res technique is really old (Homer
used it in The Odyssey and The Iliad), but it is very active
nowadays due to our audiovisual culture and its tendency to “start really up”.
The second way to
begin narrations in non-lineal plots, is the technique called in extremis, in
which the first scene we tell is the last one in the story. With this we intend
to make the reader wonder which has been the path that led the character to
this point. After this beginning, the facts in our story can be ordered in a
chronological way from the beginning to the scene that opened the novel, which
is called circular structure or racconto. On the contrary, if we decide to tell
the facts in a non-lineal way, ordering them by their degree of intensity or
importance, we will be using a homeric structure.
When we have
structured our story in a synopsis, there is another step (there are several
other steps actually) that we will need to complete in order to have our argument:
incorporating sub-plots. As you may have guessed, sub-plots are practically the
same as the main plot, but with a secondary importance and a usually shorter length.
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