I have a question about multi-timeline plots. I want to write a crime/mystery novel based in an English market/tourist town in the mid-eighties. Having read many crime/mystery novels it seems the modern trend is for multiple timelines, and even for one to know the bad guy(s) and their motivation from chapter one. I prefer a beginning, middle and end, as in the old ‘whodunits’. I still read Maigret and Sherlock Holmes. I figured that the single timeline might be less of a distraction and allow me to focus on getting some quality text on paper. But equally I might end up with a one-dimensional story that disappoints. I assume I’m talking plot design/structure here, but as a newbie I may have got that wrong. But any thoughts/help would be very much appreciated.
Honestly? I'd say go write the book and see how it shapes up. As you say a 'single-timeline' might be more focused, or more shallow. You won't know until you've put pen to paper and actually wrote the story. I'm not much of a crime/mystery reader but I had a Sherlock Holmes phase when I was younger. The idea that 'whodunits' are out of fashion makes me kinda sad. There's nothing, IMO, structurally wrong with one of those, so I see no reason why you can't write it that way.
