When Does the Story Start?
What’s the starting point of a particular story?
Is it the earliest point in chronology? Is it somewhere in the middle of the action? Is it a point beyond the end of the story to be told, a point of perspective from which a narrator can relate something that once happened? And how do you know?
I admire the film American Beauty for many reasons, not the least of which is the point at which the story begins. The narrator, Lester, tells the story that leads to his death from a point in time after his death. Since his death is the climax of the story, you’d think this would drain the story of tension, but it doesn’t.
How would Lester’s story be different if presented chronologically? First, there would be no need of a narrator. The story could just “happen.” But the narrator’s perspective on events is exactly what embues the scenes with heightened significance. And it’s the narrator’s interpretation of events that reveals his growth, his arc.
Then there’s Groundhog Day, which could only accomplish its magic by giving us events chronologically.
I’m using film examples because they’re easier to find on YouTube, but the book parallels are obvious: chronological telling in Pride and Prejudice and Neverwhere, non-chronological in The Blind Assassin and Middlesex.
As I work on this new novel, I’m sure that a particular event must trigger the action. But it’s an event that happens in the middle of the events chronicled. So I’m faced with a story that has both “current time” events and significant back story. I know both sets of events are necessary to the story, but I’m not yet sure how to order the elements of current and past time to create a satisfying (to the reader) arc for my protagonist.
Robert McKee’s index card method seems calculated to help me figure this out in a way other outlining methods haven’t.
I’m not currently attempting to determine order. I’m still conjuring the story world and making scene outlines. For now, I’ll just continue thinking about the stories I most admire and how the order in which events are revealed to the reader make the story arc successful.