History Main / DashedPlotline

* Although each book in the HarryPotter series takes place over the length of a year, most of the days - where the characters are simply going about their regular wizarding classes and not doing anything that's particularly plot-advancing - are skipped over.

* Each book in the ''Literature/{{Foundation}}'' trilogy is spread out over several years.

* Occurs frequently in ''Manga/DragonBall'', with multiple timeskips ranging from a year to two thirds of a decade. As the story was written on the fly and pretty much arc-by-arc, all but two of the skips come completely out of nowhere. The various skips are:

** 3 years after the Baba arc, where Goku trains in the wilds for the 22nd Budokai.
** 3 years after the Piccolo Daimao arc, with Goku training under Kami to face Piccolo Jr. [[RuleOfThree at the 23rd Budokai]].
** 5 years after the 23rd Budokai where Goku and Piccolo train for a rematch, interrupted by the arrival of Raditz.
** 1 year after the Namek arc where Goku seemingly dies, broken by Cyborg Frieza and King Cold arriving on Earth.
** 3 months after Frieza and King Cold are defeated, where the heroes train for the arrival of the Androids.
** 7 years after the Android arc, where Gohan attends high school and the plot eventually pivots to Majin Buu.

* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStar III'', true to its name, ''Generations of Doom'', takes place over three generations, with the child of the previous player character taking the helm as the new player character.

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[[folder: Literature ]]
* ''Literature/ThaisOfAthens'' has skips one-to-three years between most chapters, culminating in a nine-year skip in the middle of the last chapter.
* Each book in the ''Literature/{{Foundation}}'' trilogy is spread out over several years.

* The first half of part two of ''Literature/TheDeathOfAchilles'', which describes Achimas' life until his Moscow assignment, jumps many years between significant events in his youth, his turn to crime, and major assassination missions.
* The ''Literature/{{Belgariad}}/Malloreon'' prequels can skip centuries between chapters. Having main characters who are immortal makes this almost essential -- a biography of Polgara that tried to cover everything would make the Oxford English Dictionary look small, and her father's over twice as old as her.
* ''Literature/ACanticleForLeibowitz'': The three major sections of the book are each separated from one another by centuries of history.

%%* ''Literature/{{Accelerando}}''.
* Many of Creator/NealStephenson's books make heavy use of this trope.

* ''Literature/DarthPlagueis'', a StarWars novel by James Luceno, takes place over thirty-five years. The book is split into thirds (roughly speaking), each denoted by a major time skip. The second part takes palce ten years after the first and the third takes place ''twenty'' years after the second. The plot inside each of these thirds takes place over roughly two years.
** Another of Luceno's Star Wars novels, ''Literature/StarWarsCatalyst'', takes place over four years.

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead "Forest of the Dead"]], Donna's life [[BrainUploading inside CAL]] is a subversion. It looks like we're only being shown selected scenes that take place years apart, but then it turns out that ''Donna'' is only experiencing those scene changes as well...
** The [[Creator/PeterCapaldi Twelfth Doctor's]] MythArc has '''at least''' two big stretches of time between Series 9 and 10 that are not depicted onscreen: a 20-plus-year gap between the 2015 and 2016 Christmas episodes followed by his 70-plus year tenure at St. Luke's University as he guards the Vault beneath it with Nardole, during which he apparently never ventures far beyond Earth. While the {{Flashback}} scenes of "Extremis" do depict the event that ''connects'' the two time skips, what happened during those gaps is never depicted on screen. In addition, it is not clear how much time passes for the Doctor between the events of "Hell Bent", the Series 9 finale, and those of "The Husbands of River Song" to begin with. The ExpandedUniverse, particularly the two comics lines Twelve has appeared in (''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' and ''ComicBook/DoctorWhoTitan''), has worked to fill in the gaps between "Hell Bent" and "Husbands" and, less frequently, "Extremis" and "The Pilot".
** Due to TimeDilation affecting the spaceship they're on, Bill Potts's story on one end of the ship in "World Enough and Time" unfolds over several scenes spanning ten years total while the Doctor, Nardole, and [[spoiler: Missy]]'s story on the other end (as they try to figure out how to rescue her) takes about 30 minutes.
* ''Series/{{Rome}}'', which covers about 20 years in its two seasons, though oddly enough the two main characters, and even more oddly Lucius' kids, still age in real time. This was due to the series being cancelled part-way through Series 2, so the showrunners had to fly through history at an accelerated pace to get to where they'd wanted to finish the series.

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* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII''. The prologue takes place pretty much concurrently with the beginning of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'', with the Hawkes fleeing Lothering just as it is being overrun by the darkspawn horde. Act I then cuts to a year later, after the darkspawn have been defeated, but rather than return to Ferelden, the Hawkes establish themselves in Kirkwall, culminating in the Deep Roads Expedition that restores them to riches, if not to noble status. Act II jumps forward another three years, when the Qunari crisis results in the death of the Viscount and the elder Hawke being proclaimed the Champion of Kirkwall. Act III skips another two years to the events that directly lead to the Annulment of the Kirkwall Circle of Magi, which, in turn, kicks off the Mage-Templar war, alluded to in the FramingStory, which takes place yet ''another'' three years after that.

* ''VideoGame/MafiaTheCityOfLostHeaven'' is a collection of various episodes of a long MobWar spread over the years, recounted by the PlayerCharacter.

* ''TabletopGame/TheOneRing'': Each story is broken up into "adventuring phases" of active gameplay" and off-screen "fellowship phases" where the characters use a few months of downtime to do things like visit their homelands, recuperate from a strenuous journey, research obscure lore, undertake minor {{Sidequest}}s, and so on.

* The second duology of ''Liteature/ArciaChronicles'' is prone to multi-year skips between parts.

%%* ''ThePillarsOfTheEarth''.

[[IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused]] with a storyline peppered with those dashed StockBritishPhrases, wot?

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' has a prologue, three acts, and an epilogue, with 1/3/3/2 year skips between them.

* ''VideoGame/{{Firewatch}}'' follows Henry's almost-three-months-long tenure at Yellowstone National Park, but picks up individual days of his life, omitting weeks at a time. It can be inferred from the dialogue that he continues to bond with Delilah even when we are not controlling him.

* The first half of part two of ''[[Literature/ErastFandorin The Death of Achilles]]'', which describes Achimas' life until his Moscow assignment, jumps many years between significant events in his youth, his turn to crime, and major assassination missions.

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* ''Series/{{Rome}}'', which covers about 20 years in its two seasons, though oddly enough the two main characters, and even more oddly Lucius' kids, still age in real time.

* While some gaps are only a few months or less, years-long gaps happen between some works in the ''{{Deryni}}'' cycle:

* ''ThePillarsOfTheEarth''.
* ''Literature/{{Accelerando}}''.

* ''Literature/ACanticleForLeibowitz''.