“What Makes Great Fiction” There are many aspects in a story that play key roles in its quality and the overall view of by reader. Suspense, drama, love, conflict, and war, make movies great. However, what separates these movies and makes them stand out from one another? Yes, each movie has a different story with different characters, but there has to be something truly unique about it to make it memorable and a classic. The writing technique that I am going to focus on is narrative structure. Narrative structure isn’t as simple as it sounds. There are many styles and approaches authors and directors can take to keep the story from being too bland and uninteresting. In The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction it says that in order to write good fiction, the writer must take a more complex approach in portraying the story to the reader and the story must be original. A writer and director that has mastered these two things is the notorious director, Quentin Tarantino. A great example of how significant narrative structure is Quentin Tarantino’s use of nonlinear storylines. Nonlinear storylines can be seen in Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and Kill Bill. These movies seem to start in the beginning and play through without any suspicion to reader of it starting somewhere other than the beginning of the plot. As the movie progresses there are specific details that are missing that leave the viewer confused. The movie is displayed in a series of chapters that seem unrelated. Just when it seems like it couldn’t get any more confusing, Tarantino ties everything up masterfully to clear out any confusion in his final scenes. The way he does this enables him to be such a talented, unique writer and director. He takes an

Cromer 2 unusual approached to his story that allows them to appeal to the audience than the average movie. In Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction, which he wrote and directed in 1994, uses four separate chapters that are somewhat related, but the connection is unclear. The movie goes through several days in the lives of two mob hit men, a gangster, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and two petty thieves. As the movie unfolds, scenes earlier in the movie start to make sense. For example the two mob men appear randomly in street clothes and clearly seem out of place. At the end of the movie a final scene that was left out explains the reason for this occurrence. By the end, the movie picks up where it began at a local restaurant robbery; the viewers realize the movie started in the somewhat in the middle of the plot and jumped around to different scenes. This prevents the reader from predicting what will happen next and allows them to become indulged in the film by not letting them know what is coming next. The methods used by Tarantino make Pulp Fiction an overall amazing, unique movie filled with suspense and action. Reservoir Dogs is another classic gangster movie directed by Quentin Tarantino that displays a unique narrative structure. Like Pulp Fiction, it has a nonlinear storyline structure. The plot consists of a bank robbery with six random professional burglars assembled to complete the job. The movie starts out at a diner with the six robbers that are strangers and the man that assembled them to perform the perfect crime. It then skips to after the bank robbery where they were ambushed by a police informant that is a part of their squad. As the movie progresses there are details that we miss because the story skipped the robbery portion of the plot. The movie constantly goes back in time and shows scenes of the past to connect us to what happened. This is a brilliant method used by Tarantino and makes it a breath taking gangster classic.

Cromer 3 Arguably one of Tarantino’s best films, Kill Bill I and Kill Bill II display a perfect example of a nonlinear structure plotline divided into separate but connected chapters. It was originally suppose to be made into one feature but due to its length it was cut into two different volumes. The first volume is know as the violent one and is composed of five chapters. The film begins with the bride being shot in the head by Bill after a violent tragedy at a Texas wedding chapel. The plot jumps four years into the future and the bride has turned into a murderer. Constant flashbacks take place in the film to the time of the wedding chapel occurrence that reveal more facts that were left out of the plot in the beginning. As the plot unfold, the bride is awakes from a come in the present day. In volume two, the beginning of the plot takes place just before where volume one begins. The plot skips to the present day leads to a point where the bride is buried alive. While buried, the plot travels back into time where the bride was trained by Bill in China for martial arts. She uses her knowledge she obtained there to break through the coffin. The plot then precedes back into the present. Each film was nominated for the Golden Globe Award, and nominations for Best Female Actress and Best Supporting Male Actor were given. This brilliant tool used by Tarantino makes them truly unique and brilliant films. Their nonlinear structures appeal to the viewers and keep them constantly trying to figure out what is going to happen next while presenting them many twists and turns in the plot. These are just a few examples of how narrative structure can effect how the quality of the movie greatness and rarity. Tarantino’s nonlinear structure in his movies promotes his audience to focus on the movie and leaves them stunned and enthralled. Unique narrative structure like this is how authors can create great fictional writing. There are a few things authors need to be careful of when using nonlinear structure in their writings. First, if an author is going to use separate scenes, he needs to make sure he connects them in the end. Ways of doing this are by leaving key details in each scene that seem out of place but significant. These details will allow the reader to tie all the facts and separate chapters together in the end. Also, certain details need to be left out and not shown in order for the reader to know the entire plot. These details that are left out in the plot are placed back in the final chapters to once again to allow the reader gather everything up at the end of the story. Second, confusion must be avoided. It is very easy to confuse your reader when an author is trying to use nonlinear structure. In order to obtain a suspenseful storyline and confuse the readers is by not having too many split scenes and by not having too much time in between them. Too many scenes lead to a large amount of activity going on in the plot and will cause the reader to be overwhelmed with the different activities occurring in the story. Also, large time gaps between each chapter will lead to confusion of the presence of time with the reader. Keeping simple and small will is a better approach to nonlinear structure even though a few large time gaps are acceptable. An overall writing tool that can be used to create fictional writing is nonlinear structure. It allows the reader to stay in suspense while slowly revealing facts and information the plot left out in the beginning. When nonlinear structural writing is used properly, it creates a unique and brilliant result. Examples of this can be seen in the Quentin Tarantino movies such as, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and the Kill Bill series. There are also techniques authors need to be

Cromer 5 careful of when using nonlinear structure in their writings to avoid confusion and obtain the interest of the reader. When used correctly, nonlinear structure is a great aspect to use in your writings to create unique, suspenseful writing.