Readers try to satisfy their innate expectations of narrative by constructing sequences out of fragmented text. It's also reasonable to assume that all readers, while reading a multilinear or unordered narrative like a hypertext, will constantly be trying to impose an order on the fragments and place them within a sequence, usually a chronology. From J. Yellowlees Douglas's observations of her classes at NYU, we can see that all readers will follow the same general rules in constructing a narrative. In reordering a broken narrative given to her class, she finds that reconstructed narratives were "subjected to the criterion of plausibility and/or a knowledge of narrative expectations based upon other works" (End of Books 69). Douglas found her class trying to construct even implausible sequences in order to be satisfied with the narrative, as in one student's plot synopsis that begins with the protagonist shooting himself in the head and surviving (End of Books 80).

If all readers order a multilinear narrative in the same way - indeed, if every reader is programmed to look for narrative - then this is a factor that hypertext authors must be conscious of in writing. They can not simply embark upon a nonsensical project, throwing narrative to the trash heap with order, reason, plausability, and expectations, if they want their work to be readable and coherent.