Non-Linear Storytelling

By Carlos Maldonado, Aidan Thornbury, Michael Parry, & Patrick Badescu

What is a non-linear narrative?

Nonlinear narrative, disjointed narrative or disrupted narrative is a narrative technique, sometimes used so that events are portrayed out of chronological order.
- Does not follow the direct causality pattern of the events featured in order to tell sides of a story like parallel distinctive plot lines, dream immersions, or narrating another story inside the main plot-line.

Charlie Kaufman's screenplay explores a reminiscent world of dreamland which is an example of using a nonlinear narrative to capture the sporadic nature of the mind.
The reason this narrative is scrambled and it continually changes, is because "truth" in the story is always a function of, or always subject to, the vagueness of memory and desire, like in real life

In this case, it was cleverly used as the story's premise and allows absurdity of the mind to play out as "normal".
Much more interestingly, the non-linearity of Eternal Sunshine allows Kaufman to link memories (plot events) associatively, like sounds, developing themes, and repeating with variations which later change the feel of a scene by undermining and altering its context.

"in medias res" Latin for "In the middle of"
Non-linear storytelling isn't as contemporary of a style as one might think. It began in literature, particularly epic poetry beginning with Homer's Iliad somewhere around 800BC.

A linear plot unfolds from A -> B, B --> C, and so on, and the structure of the work is built around the chronological order of events.
A non-linear plot is assembled from the same events except that the events do not progress in chronological order. The same typical narrative structure is applied to a non-linear timeline so that the work still follows the story structure audiences are accustomed to.

Non-linear storytelling has been used by many writers and directors, each for their own reasons pertaining to the story and message they wanted to send.
Examples include: Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Lynch’s Mullholland Drive, and Shane Carruth’s Primer

Pulp Fiction – Non-linearity is used to inter-twine the life stories of three different protagonists. With linearity, this whole story would've not been possible in the first place.

Mullholland Drive – Non-linearity is used to show the inner fantasies and demons of the protagonist (Betty/Diane), and also to make social commentary on Hollywood.
Primer - Non-linearity is used to show what achieving a goal like time-travel would most likely do to people in real life. Creates a sense of realism and it changes the purpose of the film.

Initial reactions

How the audience immediately reacts to non-linear.
- Effect on perception and emotional involvement in the story
How our capability to become emotionally invested in the story changes when it is told in a non-linear fashion.

Psychologists showed a group of participants Alfred Hitchcock's 23 minute film "Bang! You're Dead," which is about a 5 year old boy who comes across a real gun and walks around town shooting people thinking it's a toy gun, in its original linear form, and in a non-linear form, and asked them to count how many times the word "gun" was said.
- Effect of the study: How the two groups were effected by the different styles in relation to their task

Gray area: ways of bringing the two styles together to create an abstract but still simultaneously compelling narrative.
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a combination of the two elements