Writing Co-Lab

Moving from point A to point B isn’t always the best way to tell a story. Sometimes we find ourselves beginning at the end, hopping back and forth in time, or circling around events until our understanding of them changes. Non-linear narratives can make for fascinating reading, but writing them poses particular challenges. How do we maintain continuity, clarity, and suspense when our stories don't follow a straight line? How do we decide which episodes of a timeline to visit? How do we make forays into the past that illuminate, rather than bog down, the present? How do we keep the reader oriented in where and when they are in the story? In this class, we’ll discuss how authors time-hop successfully and why a non-linear structure serves the stories they tell. We’ll also dive into how we can craft our own “disorderly” narratives, and do writing exercises to support this.

Alanna Schubach is the author of The Nobodies (Blackstone, 2022). Her short fiction has appeared in the Iowa Review, Shenandoah, the Sewanee Review, the Massachusetts Review, and more. She lives in New York, where she works as a freelance journalist and writing teacher.