playing with time

[Listener]

So I've written this book and I'm working on the first round of edits. Most of the chapters have a pretty straightforward setup:

Present section
Past section
Present section
Past section
(repeat until ending with Present)

However, I have one chapter that goes like this:

Present section
Last week section
Past section
Present section
Last week section
Past section
Present section
Last week section
Past section
Present section
Last week section
Past section
Present section

Now, this happens in Chapter Three.

I tried to rewrite the chapter several times but couldn't pull it off without it sounding run-on or otherwise forced.

So... do you think it's appropriate to keep Chapter Three in that different time setup, even though it's so early in the book that it might confuse readers?

The book is a work of Adult Fiction (probably shelved under Erotica), but if you want to read the first bits to see how you think I should handle it, you can do so here: http://original.adultfanfiction.net/story.php?no=600095956 -- obviously the book is rated MA for sexual content and situations, and also adult themes and pervasive use of language. Chapter Three is pages 3 and 4 on that site. If you don't feel comfortable reading it, that's okay; thinking about it in the abstract would be fine too.

[Alasdair5000]

What about making the different structure an active feature?  Hang a lantern on it?  If the section doesn't work any other way is there any way you could present it differently, forewarn the reader or some thing like that?  I'm thinking of the Jeff Vandermeer trick of dropping bits of books from the fictional world the story is set in into the story, that kidn of thing.

[Bdoomed]

go for a Palahniuk/Vonnegut kinda confusing time thing that makes sense in the end.  you can divide ch. 3 into just those 3 sections together instead of intermingled, and make it confusing but have it all make sense at the end.

[Listener]

What about making the different structure an active feature?  Hang a lantern on it?  If the section doesn't work any other way is there any way you could present it differently, forewarn the reader or some thing like that?  I'm thinking of the Jeff Vandermeer trick of dropping bits of books from the fictional world the story is set in into the story, that kidn of thing.

Well, the whole book is written already, but you bring up a useful way to treat it -- have the main character (3rd person limited) use it as a story she tells her sister (which is happening in the present), and intercut the present with the past as per normal.

What does "hang a lantern on it" mean?

go for a Palahniuk/Vonnegut kinda confusing time thing that makes sense in the end.  you can divide ch. 3 into just those 3 sections together instead of intermingled, and make it confusing but have it all make sense at the end.

I tried that technique with chapter 12 and my alpha readers found it too confusing, so I went with what, for me, was a standard format.

[Russell Nash]

What does "hang a lantern on it" mean?

It just means point at it and say, "yeah, I know I'm trying to get away with something here, but trust me."  The best examples of Hanging a Lantern on something are in Joss Whedon shows.  Buffy never would have worked if they had to really explain everything they did. 

They need information on something, Willow jumps on the computer.  It not really something you can find on the computer, so Giles says, "You can really find that on a computer?"  Willow then responds with, "well So and so told me about it."

In the last episode of their time in High School Xander turns to Giles and says, "It's a good thing no one ever wanted to check these books out of the library."  And that covers why they always had the book they needed.

Maybe Al can clean up my description a little, but that's basically the point.

[Alasdair5000]

You nailed it:)  I first came across the term in the collected editions of 52, Mark Waid references it as a means of getting away with one of the clunkier mid-story plot points and that, by going 'Look, this is dumb!' they were able to hideously wrong foot their readers for what was ACTUALLLY going on.