[Nan]

Is it odd in one chapter to alternate between two completely different plot lines that are happening at the same time? It seems effective to me, but I wanted outside input.

[Dawnstorm]

I don't think it's odd at all.

[Tony Williams]

It's commonly used. However, I find it a bit irritating if two (or more) stories keep running in parallel for too long. You need to plan how and when to merge them.

[Stephen Palmer]

There's no problem with this.

For a lesson in how to perform this trick successfully - except, with three lines - read William Gibson's Count Zero.

[Gkarlives]

Read Stephen Brust's Taltos series. He is very good and running multiple story lines. Taltos is the book where he runs three plots at the same time.

[James Carmack]

In a single chapter, be sure you have some sort of divider to distinguish the shift from one to the next. A lot of newbies try to be Nightcrawler and teleport all over the place. It's a mean thing to do to the reader. As long as you've got proper demarcation, there shouldn't be any problem at all.

For a larger treatment of parallel plotlines, I recommend using alternating chapters. Keeps things more cohesive that way. However, you seem to be talking about something that's both simultaneous and limited in scope, so the advice probably isn't applicable to this particular case.

[lin]

Pretty much anything by Gibson, actually.

By the way, if you think chapters are a problem for your "thread count", lose the chapters. Nobody says you have to have chapters.

[hippokrene]

No one says that you have to have chapters, but they have their uses.

I agree with James that in a longer work, breaking the POV shift into chapters feels better.

[lin]

I agree with James that in a longer work, breaking the POV shift into chapters feels better.

But breaking it where the plots demand or where it feels good to the writer also has its uses.

[James Carmack]

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, lin, but I don't see those as being mutually exclusive.