Time Jumps Make Me Twitchy

This week I’ve been reading Kate Morton’s The Secret Keeper. It’s a bestseller, so of course it’s good. But it also contains huge time jumps, decades at a time, and for me to keep reading under those circumstances is a massive yes‑vote for the book. Normally, that kind of structure sends me skittering away.

Usually, when a book leaps across time, the only thing that keeps me anchored is the characters. In this case, it’s the secret, possibly secrets, at the heart of the story. The title is very apt.

I read a lot. It goes with the territory of being a writer. And the more I read, the more I find myself not only analysing the book in my hands, but also analysing my own reactions to it. Today, I’ve been thinking about my aversion to big time leaps.

Here’s the context: I write mostly historical fiction now, and when I use time jumps, they’re almost always forward‑moving — “a year later”, “one month on”, that sort of thing. When the story moves backwards, it’s usually through character reflection (“Tom remembered…”) or through dialogue (“I told you it was my father’s decision,” Anthony said. “Aye, I remember,” Tom replied).

What I don’t do is move backwards and forwards in big chunks. And this morning I found myself asking: why not?

My instinctive answer was, “Because I feel no need. I start my books at the beginning of the story.” But then my inner voice piped up: Maybe you’re missing a trick. Maybe this method you avoid is just another way of maintaining tension, mystery, and intrigue over a long period. Especially if the unanswered question or secret lies at the very beginning and its influence stretches across decades.

I had to concede the inner voice had a point.

But the truth is simpler, or perhaps it’s just my justification: as a reader, I find large time jumps jarring. With every leap, I have to re‑gather myself: where am I, who are the main people, which one do I care about most? It knocks me out of the story, and for me, that damages most books.

And yet… here I am, reading The Secret Keeper, time jumps and all, because the mystery is strong enough to pull me through.

Maybe that’s the real lesson. Any technique works when the heart of the story is powerful enough.

Do you enjoy books with big time jumps, or do they throw you off too? I’d love to hear your thoughts.