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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/39595
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

As the title says, I'm looking for advice on how to handle changes of scene from one character to another, each in different places, but experiencing the same event.

This story is about a bushfire (in particular it's based on the [1967 Hobart bushfires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Tasmanian_fires) in Tasmania, Australia), and I want to write it around four or so different people in different parts of the town/surrounding area as they all experience the same fire. These characters are:

- A young housewife who lives in the foothills of the mountain behind the town and her struggle to help neighbours and herself save their houses and escape after the fires have taken hold of the area.
- A young man and his co-workers who work in the telegraph office and struggle throughout the fires to spread possibly life saving information.
- A man who leaves work and has to battle through the blaze to get home to his wife and children, never knowing until the end whether they are alive or dead (perhaps tying this into the first character, ie. she's his wife).
- A teenager girl who, after being sent home with her younger siblings, is left to escape with them on their own after not being able to make it home through the fires.

Now, my problem with this is _how do I switch between these characters without it being jarring for the reader?_

Do I just write a few chapters on one character then switch to another for a few chapters, and then another again? What about the passing of time as what each of these characters are going through is all happening at the same time?

Original score: 5