fragmented narrative
Story in pieces
A fragmented narrative is a story told out of chronological order or in disconnected pieces, requiring readers to assemble the whole picture themselves.
The technique appears in literary fiction, film, and television—flashbacks, multiple timelines, or scenes presented without obvious connection: The novel's fragmented narrative mirrors the protagonist's fractured memory.
The fragmentation may reflect psychological states, create suspense, or challenge conventional storytelling.
- flashbacksInvoluntary vivid memory episodes
- time jumpsNarrative temporal discontinuities
- stream of consciousnessNarrative mimicking uninterrupted thought
- temporal distortionAltered flow of duration
- montageAssembled sequence of images
metafiction · postmodernism · jump cuts · reconstruction · out of order · disorientation · scattered pieces · intertextuality · alienation · unreliable narrator · memory · lost time · spliced · cut and paste · identity · subjectivity · disjointed · surrealism