Question about sequencing in a novel

I know that the word on the street is that prologues are bad. Hell, if Elmore Leonard says to avoid them, that's good enough for me. However, I am rereading Fight Club right now. Chapter 1 of that book is actually, chronologically, Chapter 30, and Chapter 30 should be Chapter 31. So technically, Fight Club starts with a prologue; it's just called Chapter 1. It's short, only about 5 pages.

An even more egregious example is in Joe Hill's Horns. He starts off the story in the main timeline, then in the next part, delves into a lengthy, multi-thousand word back story.

I find myself noticing this because I too have a multi-thousand word back story section in my novel. I thought about busting it up and sprinkling it throughout, but it's rather important that it be taken in as a block, much like the flashback in Horns. It marks the beginning of the MC's most important relationship, which comes to an end (of sorts) at the end of the novel. At this point, I'm sure I don't want to cut it up, so that option is off the table.

So would it better to make this chunk of back story Part I of the book (it's long enough to be chaptered in its own right)? Or to start with the main action of the story, find an A La Recherche du Temps Perdu moment, then flash back? Is there a way that is considered more appropriate? A style that people prefer to read? Do you feel aggravated when you start in one timeline, then are dragged backwards? Or is it worse to read several thousand words in one timeline, then find that the story skips ahead a few years?

BethS said:

By definiton, backstory is not main story. But sometimes we do need to show something that happened in a character's past. The question is: where to put it? And the answer always is: put it in the place where it's most relevant, where it changes the reader's perceptions of events and/or characters.

In most cases, that's not the beginning of a novel. It's somewhere later on.

And if it goes on for thousands of words, it needs to be in the form of a flashback (real-time scene), not exposition.

And finally -- it needs to be really, really compelling stuff.

Click to expand...

Maybe calling it back story is the wrong word. It's not exposition. It's story. It's the beginning of the conflict, which does a slow burn for four years until the rest of the story starts. I had it later in the story, but now I'm thinking of it as Part I. A novel that comes to mind that does this is Wicked. The first 62 pages of Wicked is about Elphaba's parents, her conception, and her very early childhood. Then, Part II, she's off to college. I'd argue that my Part I is more immediately relevant than Gregory Maguire's, since the primary conflict of the book starts in Part I for me.

That's the way I'm considering telling it now, rather that the Horns formulation of starting in the main timeline, then doing a very lengthy flashback. Either method seems valid. Just wondering if there was a compelling reason to choose one over the other.

Torill said:

I think this is a question that must be answered for the individual book and not in general. All the different options you describe might work, depending on the particular story.

In your case it sounds like it would be a good idea to start with the start of the relationship, told in real narration time, not as infodump. It's not a problem to have a story jump forward some years, that's often done. But I haven't read your manuscript, so can't be sure this is good advice.

Click to expand...

I think you've put it in a helpful way--where will it be most organic and not info dumpy. This doesn't necessarily advise me on which sequencing is the right one, only demands that I think about where it flows best. I'm leaning towards at the beginning, then breaking the book into three parts: start of relationship, crisis, end.

Torill said:

That's your answer right there.

Click to expand...

The question that comes to me, right up front, is this-- do you want to know, right out of the gate, who this character is? That she's a werewolf, that she has a fraught relationship with her uncle, and why? Or do you prefer a book that's coy about why she's strange and different, and why she appears to have a creepy relationship with her uncle? These are two very different books, even though the plotline is nearly identical in both, depending on the location of this chronologically first chapter. I wrote it one way, now I'm contemplating rewriting it the other way.

This novel writing thing is hard.