I’m still debating the whole chronological vs. topical thing for organizing the book content, and now I’ve got another debate bouncing around my brain:
If I stick with the chronological approach, should I start with the end?
Why am I debating this?
Well, there’s the obvious reason that it’s pretty boring and predictable to start the book in 1995 and finish it with the end of the site. Yawn, right?
But for me there’s a bigger reason: The story of the end of the site is gonna be kinda depressing and, if you were a big fan of @U2, maybe even sad. And one of the unwritten rules of storytelling and writing/creating content is that it’s generally better to end on an “up” note to make your readers/audience feel good about reaching the end.
In this internal debate, I can make a pretty strong argument that the (half)band’s appearance at our 20th-anniversary party is equally as compelling as how and why the site ended, while also being much more fun and upbeat and smile-inducing.
Not every movie tells its story in perfect chronological order (see Oppenheimer for one very recent example). Not every book. Not every article. And so forth.
We’ll see. Haven’t made up my mind yet, but it’s on the table. I’ll probably wait until the last minute to decide, once it’s all written and I can take a guess at how depressing/sad the end-of-site stuff is.
If you have any thoughts, I’m all ears!