Nonlinear Storytelling (PT70)

Alex and Nick discuss nonlinear narrative in television writing, from flashbacks to flashforwards. What are effective uses of nonlinear storytelling? When should you work with flashbacks, flasforwards or parallel storylines? What are dos and donts of nonlinear narratives? Are there drawbacks of out-of-order storytelling? Plus, we talk The Mick case and Amazon's Lord of the Rings. The Paper Team flashes around... SHOWNOTES Content Paper Scraps: The Mick and Amazon's LOTR (00:52) 1 - Brief history of nonlinear storytelling in TV and when to use it (04:52) 2 - Examples of effective TV nonlinear narratives (13:16) 3 - Dos-and-dont's of nonlinear (31:39) 4 - Drawbacks of nonlinear (35:23) Takeaways and Resources (40:43) Links "Protecting and Over-Protecting Your TV Script: Copyright, Ownership and Idea Theft" (PT23) Wikipedia's list of nonlinear narrative television series Primer FlashForward (TV Show) "Time's Arrow" (4x11 - BoJack Horseman) "Thanksgiving" (2x08 - Master of None) "The Visitor" (4x03 - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) "Get Me a Lawyer" (1x01 - Damages) River Song (Doctor Who) Resources "Slaughterhouse-Five" - Kurt Vonnegut "Nonlinear Storytelling" - Game Design Concepts "The 21st Century Screenplay" - Linda Aronson This episode brought to you by Tracking Board's Launch Pad Writing Competitions Use code PAPERTEAM to get $15 OFF when you enter a Launch Pad Competition Special thanks to Alex Switzky for helping us edit this episode. If you enjoyed this episode (and others), please consider leaving us an iTunes review at paperteam.co/itunes! :) You can find Paper Team on Twitter: Alex - @TVCalling Nick - @_njwatson If you have any questions, comments or feedback, you can e-mail us: [email protected]