Overlapping Events

[Butterfly]

So, I'm writing a series. I'm on book 3 and I've run across a structural issue between volumes 2 and 3.

Basically...

Book 1 covers four main character POV with the introduction to (in particular) 2 secondary characters who become primary POVs in Book 2. Also introduced in B1 are a few more minor characters who return in B2, an B3. They have moved on to their own paths.

Book 2 also has four POvs, the two from B1 whose stories are picked up where they left on B1. It also has two new ones.

Book 3 goes back to three of the original POVs from B1 with one new. It picks up their story where B1 left off.

The issue I am having is with a secondary character who is in all three books and overlaps the events between the two groups of characters. He starts as one of the good guys in B1, and by the end of B2 has changed into an antagonist.

At the beginning of B2, the main POV abandons him due to the choices he has made. He is later caught up with half way through B2 and taken prisoner when the antagonist returns. It leaves a pothole regarding the events that occurred while they were separated.

B3 will plug that plot hole. Effectively the beginning of B3 opens earlier than the end of B2 where major changes had happened to the antagonist. B3 will see his search completed, rescue from his predicament and eventual escape from law forces to hunt for the missing member of his troop. It's kind of like the 'meanwhile' scenario. While one set of events are happening in the north, another related, is happening in the south and the antagonist moves between them.

(Have I confused you at this point?)

My concern is with the jump back in time in relation to events that have already happened in B2, that haven't yet happened in B3.

I don't particularly want to mix the POVs between books, mainly due to the flow of events surrounding these two groups of characters, and partly because of the location settings.

Does this seem like a confusing way to structure the story?

Does the plot hole being plugged in B3 seem jarring to you?

 

[Devor]

How many chapters would the "Meanwhile" section of B3 take? If it's possible to fit it in the prologue, that would be the most natural way to do it. If it's longer than that, you can still pull it off, but I would say you have to find ways to manage the drawback that it might feel jarring or confusing. For instance, you've got to make it clear very quickly and smoothly how you're handling the timeline and start to imply why it fits naturally with the story of B3 instead of B2. And you've got to make it worth the drawback.

Of course if you're really good you can get away with anything. But GRRM did it with the later books in ASOIAF, and I felt it those books were weaker for it. Then again, I think he knew how messed up that was and did it for deadline reasons more than story reasons.

 

[Vaporo]

Well, writing newbie here, but don't think the overlapping timelines would be jarring or confusing, if properly done, and you'd have to make sure that the audience knows exactly what is happening with the timelines.

However, I feel like the story would lose some of its tension if you know at the start of the story that the one character will turn into the antagonist. If the reader knows exactly what's going to happen, then you have to keep them interested in the journey of how the character got there, in which case it had better be a pretty interesting journey.

 

[Butterfly]

How many chapters would the "Meanwhile" section of B3 take? If it's possible to fit it in the prologue, that would be the most natural way to do it. If it's longer than that, you can still pull it off, but I would say you have to find ways to manage the drawback that it might feel jarring or confusing. For instance, you've got to make it clear very quickly and smoothly how you're handling the timeline and start to imply why it fits naturally with the story of B3 instead of B2. And you've got to make it worth the drawback.

It should take up the first 4/5 chapters, or no more than 8k words, if all goes to (the new) plan.

I think the problem is I didn't originally plan for it all to happen the way it has. It has just occurred as the story has grown and evolved.