Five books, five storylines, twenty-five story segments, not in chronological order...

I decided to tell my science fiction saga in an unusual way.

There are five storylines, each featuring its own main character and a number of supporting characters.

In the first book, there would be the first story segment of each of the five storylines.

In the second book, there would be the second story segment of each of the five storylines.

And so on.

Because of this, the saga as a whole is not told in chronological order.

For example, one character, Catherine, is introduced in the first story segment of the second storyline as an eager young-appearing Space Patrol officer on her first assignment, but otherwise, we know very little about her.

Later in the saga, we learn everything that led up to Catherine being that Space Patrol officer all the way back to the moment her parents met.

Because the story is told out of order, we learn things out of order.

For example, in the first story segment of the fifth storyline, a Russian officer asks a character named Charlie a series of questions that make no sense to him, and then the officer shoots him with a strange weapon that paralyzes him. The reader doesn't know why this is happening until later in the saga, when events that led up to that questioning are revealed.

Some people will say, tell the story in chronological order, it's less confusing to the reader.

My response is, the world is full of stories told in chronological order, I want to try something different.

And actually, there are plenty of stories that use flashbacks, background stories, dialogue, dream sequences, and other narrative devices to tell parts of the story out of chronological order.

What say you?

Would you be open to reading a science fiction saga told in this unusual way?

Or would you prefer a story told in conventional chronological order?

 

I don't see why not as long as each of the story segments has a closed arc. But if you end each segment with a cliffhanger and require the reader to buy the second, third, and so on books to get closure, you might run into trouble: I don't think readers would buy five books when they are not closed stories by themselves.

 

Not a big fan of multi-volume stories, so I'm not your target audience.
The technique you describe is often used in crime stories when it is difficult to add much in the way of originality. Also, it is used to add complexity to a story that is not actually complex. It's not so common in science fiction, because originality and complex ideas are often the things Sc-Fi readers enjoy. By presenting the story in a random, not in sequential order could be just annoying, if you're not expecting the story to pan out that way. In truth, it is not possible to review a book until it's written.

 

All I can say is, it's a risk. If you can pull it off, more power to you. My recommendation is to make the time-skips as few as possible, and keep everything simple in terms of different story characters interacting. Avoid flashbacks, and only go back to the past if you have something new to show, not as a way of explaining something that will happen beyond that point.

I confess I have a story in mind that's kinda like yours, but it's still roughly chronological and all the characters eventually meet up. I guess the key here is to make sure that all your plot points are braided together well. You also may want to consider having one storyline for one book, but that's up to you.

 

Try to storyboard every plotlines first, and see if you can make them intertwine. That way you can plan to do a bare minimum narration necessary in however manner you want to present your narrative. Though you do need organising principles so that average reader can at least intuit such rule working under the hood, especially if it's a long tome.

 

I've decided to tell the story in chronological order. I could no longer see a reason to do otherwise.

 

Now I'm doing four storylines, six story parts each, 24 story parts total, mostly done.