History Main / DashedPlotline

* The first ''Franchise/StarWars'' movies were spread across years - from Episode I, it goes 10 years, 3 years, 19 years, 3 years, and 1 year. The ExpandedUniverse filled in the gaps. ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' followed suit in being set 34 years after the last one, but then ''Film/TheLastJedi'' was an ImmediateSequel, and ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' was one year later.

* ''Series/TwentyFour'' does it not with episodes (since each episode picks up exactly where the last left off), but with seasons, which are separated by several year intervals.

** ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' is a series of flashbacks of various missions, some of which have a significant amount of time between them, the longest case being the jump from "Executive Order" in 1963 to "S.O.G." in 1968.

* ''Fanfic/DearJournalImCrazy'': Extremely downplayed, as the story takes place over the span of a few months, and some entries in Doug's journal are only a few days apart, The biggest TimeSkip was between April and July 1994. {{Justified|Trope}}, as Doug was at the psych ward at the time, and he wasn't allowed to have pencils or anything that could be used as a weapon.

* ''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.

* ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'' encodes this as a gameplay mechanic: players are assumed to have a "troupe" of alternate characters who can play {{Lower Deck Episode}}s while their mage {{Player Character}}s spend seasons or years doing lab work, researching leads, maintaining their status in MagicalSociety, performing upkeep on their HomeBase, and so on, any of which can be helpful or even necessary for a given segment of a story line.

* ''Anime/{{Mnemosyne}}'' consists of six episodes, with 1/20/14/30 year skips between the first five episodes (the sixth follows the fifth immediately).

** ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII'' starts in 2065, then after two levels (a mission gone bad and then you getting acclimated to your [[ArtificialLimbs replacement prosthetics]]) jumps ahead five years. [[spoiler:Then it's played with, in that the whole game after the second mission turns out to be a DyingDream version of events which occurred in 2064.]]
* ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' consists of various people (recorded in [[TomeOfEldritchLore The Tome Of Eternal Darkness]]) who've fought against the [[EldritchAbomination Ancients]] at different points in history with...[[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu varying]] success.

* The oneshot webmanga [[https://imgur.com/gallery/iLamIP6 The Tsundere Wife and the Crybaby Husband]] is a hyper-condensed example, compressing the romance of the eponymous couple from the moment they meet as young children all the way to their deaths [[spoiler:[[ReincarnationRomance and being reunited in the next life]]]] to a total of 6 pages.

** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'' is vague about the timeline over which it occurs and there are few dates given other than the year in which it starts. The only way to really be sure of when a memory takes place is by [[GeniusBonus knowing when]] events depicted or mentioned occurred in RealLife, such as the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Ayyadieh Massacre of Ayyadieh]]. The game frequently [[LampshadedTrope lampshades]] this trope by explicitly skipping over memories of Altaïr sleeping or traveling between cities, with the animus noting that a memory is being skipped for a more recent one.

* Likewise, ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' is a series of flashbacks of various missions, some of which have a significant amount of time between them, the longest case being the jump from "Executive Order" in 1963 to "S.O.G." in 1968.

** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'' is vague about the timeline over which it occurs and there are few dates given other than the year in which it starts. The only way to really be sure of when a memory takes place is by [[GeniusBonus knowing when]] events depicted or mentioned occurred in RealLife, such as the Massacre of Ayyadieh.

** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'' is vague about the timeline over which it occurs and there are few dates given other than the year in which it starts.

* ''Fanfic/JauneArcLordOfHunger'' does this with the chapter "[[Recap/JauneArcLordOfHungerLegends Legends]]" which follows the Mask of Nihilus's journey throughout the ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' timeline and oversees a period of four thousand years. The first time skip is set 300 years after Nihilus's defeat, during the Galactic Cold War between the Old Republic and the True Sith Empire. The second major time skip jumps ahead 3600 years during the reign of the Galactic Empire. The third major time skip takes place many decades later on the planet Remnant, around the time that the Great War between the four kingdoms had ended. The final time skip is set in the present day, approximately eight decades after the end of the Great War.

* Likewise, ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' is a series of flashbacks of various missions with years between them.

** About three years elapse between the end of ''The Quest for Saint Camber'' and the start of ''King Kelson's Bride''.

A form of "elliptical storytelling", where non-essential details of the plot, setting, or characterization are deliberately left out for the reader to think up on their own. Contrast ImmediateSequel, a work that starts right after the other ends.

[[folder:Web Original]]

* The oneshot webmanga [[https://imgur.com/gallery/iLamIP6 The Tsundere Wife and the Crybaby Husband]] is a hyper-condensed example, compressing the romance of the eponymous couple from the moment they meet as young children all the way to their deaths [[spoiler:[[ReincarnationRomance and being reunited in the next life]] to a total of 6 pages.

A form of "elliptical storytelling", where non-essential details of the plot, setting, or characterization are deliberately left out for the reader to think up on their own.

* ''Series/InsideNo9'' episode "The Twelve Days of Christine" is composed of scenes set on a different holiday or event in each month of the year, but each in a successive year, spanning 13 years of the protagonist's life in total. There's a reason for the montage of important life events -- [[spoiler:she's dying after a car accident, and we're seeing [[MyLifeFlashedBeforeMyEyes her life flash before her eyes]].

* ''Series/InsideNumberNine'' episode "The Twelve Days of Christine" is composed of scenes set on a different holiday or event in each month of the year, but each in a successive year, spanning 13 years of the protagonist's life in total. There's a reason for the montage of important life events -- [[spoiler:she's dying after a car accident, and we're seeing [[MyLifeFlashedBeforeMyEyes her life flash before her eyes]].

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''{{Literature/Foundation}}'' saga:

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': ''Literature/DarthPlagueis'', also 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.