A literary device and a question or three
There's a literary device that I believe has it's own name, but I can't remember what it is. It might just be bundled in with flashback, but it shouldn't be. It seems to me that it deserves a name on it's own (maybe I'll call it George ;-). I'm thinking of the situation where the author starts out with an event of some kind, usually shocking or completely confusing, then the majority of the rest of the piece is a flashback to what leads up to that event. There may, or may not, be a brief section at the end that takes the reader beyond where the story started. If you saw The Prestige (and if you didn't, why aren't you watching it *right* *now*? :-), you saw an excellent example of this. Rob Thurman's Nightlife also used this device to good effect.
What those two have in common is that the reader/viewer became so immersed in the story that we *forgot* to focus on waiting for the story to catch up to the event we were shown in the opening. (Yes, yes, I'm sure there's someone who'll say they never forgot it. Fine. Right. Moving on now. ;-)
I *love* this device.
I love it when it works, at least.
See, in the hands of a less-skilled writer, the reader is left spending the entire story watching for that opening sequence to be set up and *that*, my friends, can kill an otherwise interesting story. I find myself wanting to study the whys and hows of this device and see if I can't get a better understanding of the difference between its effective use and the ones that just miss.
So, on to the question portion of the post. :-)
Does anyone know if this thing has a name of it's own and if so, what it might be?
What stories/books/movies do *you* recommend that use it well?
Have you seen any writing meta out there on the net that discusses this (and if so, where, oh smart-assed flist ;-)?
What those two have in common is that the reader/viewer became so immersed in the story that we *forgot* to focus on waiting for the story to catch up to the event we were shown in the opening. (Yes, yes, I'm sure there's someone who'll say they never forgot it. Fine. Right. Moving on now. ;-)
I *love* this device.
I love it when it works, at least.
See, in the hands of a less-skilled writer, the reader is left spending the entire story watching for that opening sequence to be set up and *that*, my friends, can kill an otherwise interesting story. I find myself wanting to study the whys and hows of this device and see if I can't get a better understanding of the difference between its effective use and the ones that just miss.
So, on to the question portion of the post. :-)
Does anyone know if this thing has a name of it's own and if so, what it might be?
What stories/books/movies do *you* recommend that use it well?
Have you seen any writing meta out there on the net that discusses this (and if so, where, oh smart-assed flist ;-)?