Working with Time Period Shifts

kaku · Jun 30, 2005

Does anyone have experience writing a novel with significant time period shifts? I’m trying to come up with a way of telling a story about events that take place both in the present and five thousand years ago. At some point, I will merge the two by having the earlier events slowly filtered into the present so that the two stories merge (for example: archeologist finally pieces the puzzle together). I’d like to avoid flashbacks (they would be impractical with this great a time difference in any case) One thought I had was to tack a small piece of the earlier story on the end of each present day chapter until I had exhausted the material I wanted to share. I’m not sure this is the best approach.

I’d appreciate any ideas on how to make this work.

Regards,

Kaku

maestrowork · Jun 30, 2005

Try chapter or scene headings:

964 B.C.

Blah blah blah.

2005 A.D.

Blah blah blah

Or use different tenses. My "backstory" is told in past tense, and my present-time story present tense.

Or separate them into different chapters and put a date on them. No confusion.

TheNightTerror · Jun 30, 2005

One thing I always do is date everything I write. For example, at the beginning of each chapter, I put the date and time that the events of the chapter start at. For example, if I were writing about something that happened just now, I'd put:

Thursday, June 30th, 2005
2:14 pm

Just try something like that, maybe just putting years only rather than exact dates, see how it goes. Jumping between the time periods too much in each chapter might get confusing, I'd stick with one time period for each chapter. That way, anyone who gets addicted to the book could read all the chapters from the past first, then move ahead to the things that happened in present day, just for fun.

Working with Time Period Shifts

kaku

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

TheNightTerror