The ending placed first

An original account of an invented storytelling experiment.

I began my story with a character returning a medal. The next paragraph moved back to the morning when she had won it. My first reader said that knowing about the return made the celebration feel different. Instead of wondering whether she would win, he was trying to work out why she would give the prize back.

He also noticed the moment when another competitor was left out of the photograph. Without the opening, he might have read that detail as an ordinary disappointment. With the return already in mind, he suspected it would matter later. I had revealed an event, but I had not explained it. The gap between those two things kept him reading.

In your own words, explain two effects of placing the return of the medal at the beginning.