I have this short story. It's "finished" in the sense that I have told my characters story and there is nothing left to tell. HOWEVER, I feel that it is lacking in some kind of way (that and it keeps getting rejected.) I've fiddled with the ending and am satisfied with that part... but now I'm thinking about timeline. Its basically about a boy's descent into madness, starting with an obsession from his childhood(time travel and Superman) , and its developing over time until the end he skews reality (he actually believes he's Superman) to the point of him killing himself as he tries to achieve Superman status.. The timeline as it is now is chronological; this happened...that lead to this.... that made him do this, etc. a year later, I find it boring. I thought about maybe going backwards.... starting with the END and then taking readers back to how he got that way. still linear. now, at 11:00 at night and exhausted from the day, i think "he's obsessed with time travel, why dont i chop up the events and take the chronology out of it!?" pros? cons? My creative faucet has been running dry all week! This is the only dribble of creativity I could squeeze from it!
I think it's possibly a little more complex to pull off, but it's a grand idea and might be just the ticket! If you're playing with time travel, then why not?
When faced with questions like this (e.g. "Would this scene be better from the other character's POV") I figure the only way to know is rewrite it and see.
I think you have the right idea to play around with this. Experimental is really big in the short story world right now, and it sounds like you have the opportunity hear to create something more out of the box. I also do think that starting a story with a suicide is a much better option than ending a story with one. Just one more thing. I saw in your original post that you said you wrote everything you could put into this story. I don't think that's ever the position a writer wants to be in when it comes to their work. I'm sure you've hear arrive late, leave early. I think it's so true when it comes to writing, and often what we leave out of a story is as important as what we put in.
