# Stories with good unorthodox structure **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 13, 2016, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114 "2016-04-13T19:43:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/41 "2016-04-16T16:43:07Z")
**Annie Hall** opens with Alvy telling us that he and Annie just broke up, just get that out of the way right there, and he’s sifting through the pieces of it, trying to figure things out, I mean just _a year ago we were in love_… …and so he starts telling the story of their relationship at a point where they’re already together, where they soon start reminiscing about their _past_ relationships, and those flashbacks-within-a-flashback set up the story of how _they_ first met and started dating, but the story doesn’t then unfold in order because like a rambling narrator he keeps breaking off to elaborate with a scene from back in time… …and the whole thing builds to a _montage_ of flashbacks, showing up in neither the order they happened _nor_ the order we saw 'em, because, hey, why start now? (He also muddies the waters by tossing in imagined conversations, sometimes not revealing for a while that, _no, this part never actually happened._) ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/42 "2016-04-16T23:50:00Z")
**The Night Circus** , by Erin Morgenstern. Chronological order is beautifully disrupted in the telling, and quite satisfying. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/43 "2016-04-17T00:01:14Z")
Cool; I get to be the first to mention Robert Silverberg’s _The Book of Skulls_. Tells a story with each chapter being a 1st person narrative from one of the 4 protagonists. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/44 "2016-04-17T00:19:34Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Actually I found \*Rashomon \*a bit tedious, once you’ve got the idea. That’s not how I remember it. ---
**Author:** ![Jane\_Elliot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jane_elliot/32/6166_2.png) [@Jane\_Elliot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jane_Elliot)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/45 "2016-04-17T03:05:40Z")
I recently bought _S._ [S. (Dorst novel) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._(Dorst_novel)) and I’m waiting for a quiet time to start it. I’ve been intrigued by the idea of a story told by marginalia. I also love _Possession_ by AS Byatt, the story of a grad student who finds something that changes the history of a pair of famous poets, complete with poetry written by both. I’m also fond of epistolary novels like _Dracula_. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/46 "2016-04-17T03:38:08Z")
\*How to be Both \* by Ali Smith is a novel about art and artists, with two thematically connected stories, one taking place in the renaissance, and the other in the present day. The books were printed so that some copies have the renaissance stuff coming first, and others have the modern day story first. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/47 "2016-04-17T04:32:01Z")
Musicals - “The Last Five Years” - Two person musical, he moves from the beginning to the end of their relationship, she moves from the end to the beginning, they cross in the middle. “Merrily We Roll Along” - told in reverse chronological order ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/48 "2016-04-17T08:27:56Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > The book Cloud Atlas has a structure where you get in the 1st story then the 2nd then the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th until you reach the middle and then you go back from the 6th to the 5th to the 4th etc all the way back to the 1st so that the structure is symmetrical, right? Taken straight from 1001 Nights, but simplified. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/49 "2016-04-17T09:18:36Z")
This far into the thread and no one’s seen fit to mention Tim O’Brien’s _ **Going after Cacciato** _?!? :eek: :dubious: :smack: ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/50 "2016-04-17T09:23:12Z")
With respect to cold openings, they don’t get much better than\*\* “It was hell’s season, and the air smelled of burning children."\*\* From _ **Gone South** _, by Robert R McCammon, one of my all-time favorite books. If this one doesn’t get to you by the final chapter, nothing will. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/51 "2016-04-17T09:46:09Z")
Pulp Fiction Kill Bill I & II ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/52 "2016-04-17T11:24:38Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > How did it change the way you think? > > Is there any rhyme to the way it switches between the storylines? An important aspect is described in [this section of the Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy#Cognitive_dissonance)on the book. The book can be bewildering as to what is supposed to be real and what is supposed to be a complete put-on. And it forces you into this more flexible view of reality, in a sense. No, there is no rhyme to the way it switches. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/53 "2016-04-17T12:17:51Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I can’t remember the title or even the details but I once read a neat Sci fi short story where the story you were reading was basically like an alien virus and the implication was that by reading it you were allowing it to multiply. I remember it being really cool and well done. I wonder if you’re thinking of Bob Leman’s “Instructions” [Instructions - Tachyon Publications](https://tachyonpublications.com/product/instructions/) Terry Bisson wrote a story called “macs” entirely composed of answers of various people to a reporter’s questions - with the questions themselves not given. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/54 "2016-04-17T14:59:44Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Terry Bisson wrote a story called “macs” entirely composed of answers of various people to a reporter’s questions - with the questions themselves not given. In THE ANDERSON TAPES, the gimmick was that _this_ guy is a small-time crook and his phone’s been tapped by local cops; and the diner down the street has been bugged by the Feds, who are out to nab a suspected drug dealer; and so on. So as you read the book, it’s easy to follow the plot: here’s the address of the building the ex-con has cased, here’s the date and time we’ll pull the heist, here’s a list of what we’ll need, I know a guy who knows a guy. But each passage is a surveillance tape from an agency that doesn’t share info with the others, so the story _told by the format_ is how The Government technically knew it all, if “The Government” was actually a thing: you see how _these_ officials heard him rave about the ritzy apartment building where his girlfriend lives; and how _other_ officials heard him say something later dawned on him about that building we were talking about yesterday; and how some _other_ other officials heard him describe how you could, hypothetically, clean out an entire apartment building in one night. As far as the third investigators know, it’s an innocuous conversation about no address in particular; they’d know what “I’m in” means, but they never hear that. The second later heard an “I’m in”, but didn’t know what it meant; other folks hear about a day but not a time – or a time, but not a day – and it’s all spoon-fed to us, but anyone listening in on parts of it just hears nothing worth mentioning. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/55 "2016-04-19T12:40:28Z")
Vonnegut’s _ **Slaughterhouse 5** _. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114/56 "2016-04-19T16:09:19Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > I wonder if you’re thinking of Bob Leman’s “Instructions” [Instructions - Tachyon Publications](https://tachyonpublications.com/product/instructions/) > > Terry Bisson wrote a story called “macs” entirely composed of answers of various people to a reporter’s questions - with the questions themselves not given. I appreciate the guess but I don’t think that was it. Another example (whose specifics I can’t remember) was Piers Anthony’s Incarnation book about Time was, as you would imagine, given it was about the living incarnation of Time, not structured linearly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-good-unorthodox-structure/752114.md?page=2)