If your novel or memoir juggles multiple storylines—different timelines, narrators, or settings—you might wonder how to keep it all cohesive.
In this episode, I share three craft techniques to make your separate narratives feel like parts of the same living story.
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Episode at a glance:
[03:47] Make your story lines explore the same core question from different angles.
When you switch from one storyline to another, readers should feel like they’re getting a new angle on the same essential tension. That’s what creates cohesion across time, space and character. Questions have tension. They don’t have easy answers, and that’s what makes them powerful for connecting storylines. Each character gives a different answer, and those answers speak to one another across time.
[09:33] Create Cause and Effect Across Storylines
Make what happens in one storyline directly cause or explain what happens in another, even if the characters never meet. The connection across timelines should deepen both storylines.
[12:43] Let Your Storylines Show Different Facets of the Same Theme
Use your storylines to show different facets of the same theme. Each storyline refracts your theme differently, showing it a completely different angle. The order you present storylines should make readers constantly reconsider what they just read. That’s when you know your themes are working together instead of just coexisting. You’re not building toward one truth. You’re showing that multiple truths coexist.
Links Mentioned In This Episode:
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandell
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Poisonwood Bible by Barabara Kingsolver
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