Basically I have a story idea going. So far I have the opening written up which describes the main character reminiscing about the death of someone very close to her. I want to tell the story of where she is now with long spurts four years in the past to explain how she got here, who she's mourning, and why she's basically become an emotional basket case since then. I have a scene coming up where she gets knocked unconscious and I was Thinking on using that as a jump back point, maybe like this: ~ month, year, location Introductory paragraphs Knocked unconscious ~ month, past year, location Then same format to jump back to the present, maintaining a similar theme throughout except the trigger might be a song or something like that. Is this bad? Is there a better (or preferred) way to write a parallel story?
can't tell from that... would have to see samples of what you mean, to give an opinion... my best advice is to see how successful authors handle time leaps... historical novels will probably provide the most examples...
Deja Vu by Ian Hocking is a good example of that, the plot leaps all over the place. The second book in the series Flashback does it even more!!! Cheap on kindle.
