Angular bends (promontories and embayments) in rifted and passive continental margins are interpreted to be the precursors of curves (recesses and salients, respectively) in orogenic belts. Convergence at an irregularly shaped continental margin results in along-strike diachroneity of closing (and thus of orogeny) and in a variable trajectory of stress into continental crust. Both timing and sense of movement of intracratonic structures apparently have complex relationships to the progress of convergence at irregular continental margins.