Timing issue

I hate books that take place on Wednesday!

Seriously, the way you've described it is a little confusing. I would give it to a couple of readers when you're finished and have them pay close attention to when the events are taking place. If you're really concerned about it, you could do what -- thinking of an example -- Laura Lippman does in Every Secret Thing: put the date and the time at the front of each chaper.

Will Lavender said:

I hate books that take place on Wednesday!

Seriously, the way you've described it is a little confusing. I would give it to a couple of readers when you're finished and have them pay close attention to when the events are taking place. If you're really concerned about it, you could do what -- thinking of an example -- Laura Lippman does in Every Secret Thing: put the date and the time at the front of each chaper.

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Yes- I would have to read it to see if I got confused. I think I could handle it though.

Can be done, in fact has been done effectively, but can be tricky, I suspect. You're going to have to keep the time references very clear, without being too stage-directy about it. I think you need to ask yourself the question, Is this technique necessary, in comparison to straightforward time-linearity? POV issues could become involved, as well.

But there's certainly no "rule" about it. How well it works is purely dependent on the individual piece, and would be a topic for discussion with an outside reader.

caw

Or you could just simplify it and say "Meanwhile, back at the ranch. . . ." Dispense with the specific times and let the readers figure it out for themselves. They are pretty smart.

Breaking up chronology can result in a choppy story. Have you tried reorganizing the scenes so they stay in chronological order? If a chapter covers an entire day, the odds are it's more than one scene (scene = unity of character, time and place, with no breaks for time/location to change, with a summary of "several hours later" or "for the next few hours, he did such-and-such until it was time to chase bad guys again").

So, character A does something important for the plot at noon on Wed., and the scene ends. New scene: While Character A is taking a nap, Character B does something at 1 pm on Wed., and the scene ends. New scene: Character A gets up and does something at 3 pm, and the scene ends. And so on.

Check your scenes, and you'll probably find spots where Character A is going to the bathroom and sitting around waiting or whatever, and you're skipping over those times anyway (Jack Bauer apparently never uses the bathroom, but even he gets a few minutes of rest every couple hours, usually when he's unconscious or locked up, and that happens off-screen), so there's a break where you can then skip to Character B's plot line.

Remember that you're not telling every minute of every character's actions over the course of the story, just the key moments, the ones that affect the plot.

JD