Young Writers Society

So, I started my my novel-in-the-works a long time back and doing it in a linear way was not working out. I tended to think of scenes and then I had no idea where they fit in the linear time-line. So, then I decided to jump around. So, I decided I share the pros and cons of doing a non-linear novel.
Pro's

One doesn't have to conform to a rigid structure. I found that I have more freedom writing this way because I can write what I want and then if I don't see a place to stick it in, I can shuffle my scenes around without restructuring them.

One can see where they want to go. I look at my three time-lines and create scenes that get me to a certain point in the story

Con's

It might be a little confusing for others to follow

If people want to know where each scene/chapter fits in to the novel as a whole, one has to think in chronological order.

Does this make sense to anyone? I'm not sure if I'm explaining it correctly. What do you all think about this style?

As with any other style, it can be pulled off very well if you know what you're doing. I've read books with that sort of jumbled timelines, and loved them (first to come to mind would be Nicole Strauss' The History of Love, which switched between three PoVs and timelines throughout the book). I think the main thing you should worry about it making it coherent as whole; make each scene chapter/compelling enough that the reader will keep going in spite of the more or less inevitable confusion, and weave the different parts together in such a way that at the end, it all makes sense, and the connections are visible. Readers are not idiots, but they're not you--aka, the writer--either; there's a balance to be found between holding their hands through the chronology and letting them stumble around in the dark.

Ideally, if there could be some sort of justification to the jumping in PoV/time, it might also help, because it's easier to accept as part of the book when it's got a point other than 'it's easier to write that way'.

Thanks for the advice. I really don't know what I'm doing, since it's my first time writing in such a style. I think it adds another dimension to the story because when I wrote my first scene, I had the last scene in my second chapter be the first scene of the first chapter except it focused more on the other character. That let me go deeper into that scene and I (hope) that the reader gets a fuller view of that scene. Plus it tied the first two chapters together. I don't think that would work for every chapter though. I don't think they would be very confused because I ,sorta, put where the chapter falls in reference to the present at the beginning of each chapter. Does this make sense?