: Re: The style of interleaving separate stories in a book This is my first question on Writers.se; I'd normally ask such questions on EL&U, but I'm trying to expand my horizons. Let me know

@Tiffany377

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I've seen it called parallel narrative - which is probably more general than the structure you are referring to. The most common use of parallel narrative is when you have a multiple viewpoint novel, and each chapter (or every few chapter's) will alternate between the viewpoints.

There are benefits, such as giving you a wider view of the storyworld, letting you synthesize information that normally wouldn't be put so close together (which is likely why The Moral Animal is built this way), and giving you a convenient excuse to skip what might be a boring section in one of the narratives. If a couple of months pass between one interesting event and another in character A's life, instead of what would be a jarring time skip, you can go back to the other narrative which you have already conditioned the reader to expect.

As with any chosen structure, there are weaknesses as well. Overusing cliffhangers would definitely be one of the issues, though worse for me is that invariably some of the narratives are more interesting to any given reader than some of the others. Which narratives a reader will skim through is not going to be the same for each reader, but few are going to be 100% pleased with things. It takes extra effort as an author working in this structure to make each of the narratives as engaging as possible to limit this weakness.

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