Nonlinear narrative
Nonlinear narrative, disjointed narrative, or disrupted narrative is a narrative technique where events are portrayed, for example, out of chronological order or in other ways where the narrative does not follow the direct causality pattern of the events featured, such as parallel distinctive plot lines, dream immersions or narrating another story inside the main plot-line. The technique is common in electronic literature, and particularly in hypertext fiction,[1] and is also well-established in print and other sequential media.
Beginning a non-linear narrative in medias res (Latin: "into the middle of things") began in ancient times and was used as a convention of epic poetry, including Homer's Iliad in the 8th century BC. The technique of narrating most of the story in flashback is also seen in epic poetry, like the Indian epic the Mahabharata. Several medieval Arabian Nights tales such as "The City of Brass" and "The Three Apples" also had nonlinear narratives employing the in medias res and flashback techniques.[2] The medieval English poem Beowulf also utilizes a non-linear structure, focusing on events throughout the life of the titular character rather than describing them in a linear narrative.[3]
From the late 19th century and early 20th century, modernist novelists Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, Ford Madox Ford, Marcel Proust, and William Faulkner experimented with narrative chronology and abandoning linear order.[4]
Examples of nonlinear novels are:
Several of Michael Moorcock's novels, particularly those in the Jerry Cornelius series, in particular The English Assassin: A Romance of Entropy (1972) and The Condition of Muzak (1977) are notable for extending the nonlinear narrative form in order to explore the complex nature of identity within a multiversal universe.
Scott McCloud argues in Understanding Comics that the narration of comics is nonlinear because it relies on the reader's choices and interactions.