Chronology.

It seems much simpler to create a story in a chronological sequence.

I’ve been reading Patrick Gale’s A Perfectly Good Man. In fact, having borrowed it from the library in August this year, as soon as I finished it I determined to read it again straight away, but this time reading it in the chronological order of the events. It was not as simple to list the chapters in chronological order as one might suspect, and took me much longer to work out the ‘correct’ order, and even then, I’ve had to go back and reorder a few that describe events in a short space of time at the end of the book. However, I am on the home straight in my reread.

In The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffeneger, Henry’s rare condition sees him travel forwards and backwards in time with no choice; so that the non-chronological ordering is dictated by that fact. Diana Gabaldon uses a similar conceit in her Outlander series, as does Octavia E. Butler in Kindred. In Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Heller himself later re-ordered his chapters to centre on the perspective of different characters in the events. The copy I read had notes for study of the book, plus a facsimile of Heller’s own notes in the notebook he took with him when conscripted, with details of the characters of his story and a timeline, running along a second axis.

Patrick Gale’s A Perfectly Good Man has a dramatic opening chapter. Although it certainly got my attention and made me read on, its events have had a far more emotional effect upon me in my rereading in chronological order. Reading in the order in which the events occur, the event with which he begins his book occurs about three quarters of the way through the chapters, and very shortly before the story ends.

Unlike the other examples I have given of non-chronological ordering in novels, this one has the most complex ordering I have encountered, which on first, second and even third viewing seemed pretty random and haphazard. However, I am convinced that there is a good reason behind the placing of each and every chapter. In part this may be to effect a gradual unfurling of knowledge so that the reader understands the motivations behind the main characters’ actions and changes in their behaviour.

I spent quite a lot of time organising the order of the chapters of my published book, Mellow Cello, which was published in the exact order I had arrived at. I did similarly with the stories of One Thousand and One Orcadian Nights, which is seeking publication presently. In both cases the time period covered was extremely large – the Paleolithic to the recent present in One Thousand and One, and the Palaeolithic to the distant future in Mellow Cello, but, ordering separate short stories, even when some of them link together over various time periods, pales into insignificance compared with the job Patrick Gale set himself, despite his whole book encompassing less than 60 historical years.

The time and effort Patrick Gale must have put into arriving at this ordering of chapters, each featuring events around one of seven main characters, evokes in me both admiration and amazement.

All photos by Mark and Gill Tennant of their time-pieces.
This one was Gill’s grandfather’s pocket watch.

Here are a few non-chronological books you might like to read:

• Patrick Gale’s A Perfectly Good Man
• Audrey Niffeneger’s The Time-traveler’s Wife
• Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred
• Joseph Heller’s Catch-22
• Diana Gabaldon’s Dragonfly in Amber
• David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas
• Margarita Montimore’s Oona out of Order
• Stephen King’s 11/22/63

John’s writing prompt last week (‘The Universal Turing Machine’) touches on similar issues to my blog, and I think it may have been Nigel’s ‘The Christmas Watch’ prompt that reminded me of my grandfather’s pocket watch. My own ‘Which path to take?’ touches on the ‘butterfly effect’ that alters the future, and in John’s ‘Writing, Retiring, Recording: My First Year on YouTube’ he does not write in strict chronological order, whilst Michael suggests letting someone else call time, in his ‘Need to finish your book? Have someone else hold the clock‘

My review of Patrick Gale’s ‘A Perfectly Good Man’ is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7857469182

I find the step away from chronology that many authors now employ, raises some fascinating issues, and questions, and creates quite a bit of organisational ability needed to make the most impact with one’s writing. It seems much simpler to create a story in a chronological sequence, or one that dips back into the backstory of memory after its opening, but as a writer, considering the impact of the ordering of events in their retelling is crucially important.