Struggling to fill the gap between scenes is something that happen quite often for me. How do you do it ? Typically, it happens to me whenever two consecutive scenes A and B are separated either in time or space. Most of the time, I work around it by moving to another part of the story with different characters. So, instead of having A -> B, I include another scene inbetween : A -> C -> B. But that's not always possible. And sometimes, it could even be a bad idea. Another thing that happen when struggling like this is the realization that showing in detail what happen to characters involved in scenes A and B while they move in space or time from A to B would probably be weak narrative, because nothing really interesting probably happen here. When that happen, I typically end up rethinking the whole scenes (at least the route between A and B) into something else that's much more powerful and develops a lot characters and subplots and may even sometimes give clues to the reader regarding the main plot-twist. But at this point, I feel like I keep adding more and more content that pushes farther away the resolution of the main plot. And adding way too much mystery is really not a good thing to do. So, how do you fill the gap between these scenes ?
By using something a science teacher taught me back in school xD He alway said "Use as many words as necessary but as little as possible." Sounds maybe a bit strange but it helped me in every situation like that. I open a new doc and copy the scenes in. Then I strip them of the characters and pick out the plot line in it. I clean them of every detail until I basically have the most important senteces that make the scene. Often no more than 4 or 5 in total. By the time I often find the solution to connecting both scenes properly.
The easiest thing to do is simply employ some transition words. If you can leave the previous scene or chapter with something pending, then pick up the next scene with an orientation phrase like: three days later, or when Jeff opened the front door to his mother's house, or start with something the reader was expecting to happen. This could be a conversation Jeff has with his girlfriend, whom he was heading off to meet in the previous scene. Or even as much as Jeff's graduation from college, when he was only a freshman in the previous scene. You can actually jump quite a time/space distance if you employ the right transitional words, without depicting scenes that aren't crucial to the reader's involvement with the story.
This is where writing chronologically probably has some benefit. I don't think of my story in terms of scenes. There are no gaps to fill in. It's not a puzzle you have to put together. It's a story. Stories don't have gaps between scenes, really. It least that's not how I view things as a writer or reader. To me, it seems like you are making things more complicated than they need to be.
Alternatives: * Reduce the number of transitions by sorting events and adding sub-plot in the same location. * At least use pauses for clarity when changing scene to simplify segmentation of context. * Break into sub-chapters named after the event or new character to make it easier to remember things. * Use implicit transitions by describing the next scene and what they are doing at the start. * If it's a long journey, do an inner monologue or see things along the way. Meeting people along the way is often distracting the readers with more side characters.
I’m trying to be less hung up on my transitions recently. In the past, I’ve felt the need to put every single second of the story on paper. I’m getting better about realizing when a scene is finished and a new one begins, and allowing the scenes to exist on their own without blocking them in with fluff on the other side. If your next scene starts across time and space, you might open with some description to help set the new scene and let the reader know that it’s in a different location, or that time has passed. Describe some new landscape that would not have existed in the previous scene, look at the weather to show the changing of the seasons and passing of time. If the character is this same as in the last scene, they might think about something from the previous scene and how it differs from the new scene to help create that distance both for the reader and the characters.
Scene changes are something I have always struggled with and continue to do so. However, I have found the tactic to look for ways to find a common link between the two scenes and use a transition sentence, as @jannert mentioned. Most recently, in my own WiP for a transition I was struggling with:- Isabel only came to appreciate the gravity of her miscalculation the following morning when she...
Don’t fill in the gaps. Use pace and rhythm of your writing to distinguish between events. When switching from one scene to another you should already of given the reader some idea of the wider picture so switching to another time/location will not seem out of place. Simply end the paragraph and leave a space. If you’re switching to a completely new introductory ‘scene’ start a new chapter. It may help to simply view these ‘scenes’ as events that happen. What happens between events is nothing worthy of note. Of course your narrative may be quite complex regarding how you move through the story. At the moment I’m working on something that takes place over around 200 years - the actual full timeline I have is something like 15,000-20,000 yrs so this is just a segment of the broader picture. If it is nothing more than they do x one month and then a month later they do y don’t sweat it. If you’re doing something more complex - like I am - then you need to be careful with how you keep the reader on track. The main character in my novel will span 200 years, but they are telling a story that is linear and unbroken. I’m just going to skip through time as she moves from person to person telling the same story (but the story will pick up from where it left off last time; with occasions where she returns to the same person years later to expose more of the story). Sorry, that’s an awful explanation ... it’s complicated! The point is if you’re story isn’t mucking around time in such a way I wouldn’t bother yourself worrying about a problem you’ve created. Once the EVENT is finished end the paragraph and move onto the next one. You can create a sense of how much time has gone by without mentioning it directly. Example: Setting -> Group of people about to embark on a journey over the mountains. Example one expresses the beginning of the journey whilst example two expresses the group much further into the journey. Example 1 : Little time has passed -> Brisk light drove the clouds like broiling steam from a pot. They teetered along the precipice indignantly. Cold wind bit deep into exposed skin. Dan beamed with pleasure, basking in the fresh crisp moment. Example 2: A lot of time has passed -> The light seemed to be wound around the mountains in restless slumber; clinging to clouds and sweeping in languid motions like the surface of some mist bubbling cauldron. The freezing air gnawed at their reddened flesh. Dan smiled with joy, absorbing the frigid, delighting in every given sensuous movement. If you don’t see the difference right away it is because it is subtle; I am not saying ‘they began ...’ or ‘they had been ...”. What I have done (note: I didn’t spend much time doing this!) is played with the use of tense, with ‘-ing’ giving a sense of times passage (basically think about past, present, perfect and continuous). My main focus was on word choice though - ‘precipice’ gives a sense of beginning, ‘broiling’ is a faster sounding term than ‘bubbling’, ‘teetered’ rather than ‘teetering’ (as the former form gives a sense fo finality to the action rather than something progressing through time), ‘cold wind bit deep’ it more instant than ‘freezing air gnawed’. Also, and importantly, I chose words based on their euphonic quality. More guttural and plosive sounds will startle where more flowing musical tones will slow the reader down (broiling, teetered, basking, precipice, indignantly, cold, brisk, restless, pot, crisp, skin as opposed to words like languid, cauldron, absorbed, sensuous, reddened, flesh, mist, surface, slumber and sweeping). Hope something there is useful GL
You could always just skip over the filler. In my story, my character is running late for work. He screams out, "I have to get to work!" Easter then writing some boring commute scene, my next paragraph reads: "He got to work." Also acts to subvert the expectation that I'd write about his commute.
It's a great question! It sounds like you're talking about scene/sequel structure. In the scene you push toward a goal. You'll have action and dialog. In the sequel you react to the last scene. You'll have emotion, a re-evaluation of the character's journey, and a decision to pursue a new goal. You should read the original book on it, Techniques of the Selling Writer, because of course a forum post can't even approach it all. It's an older book, but actually pretty good. I see Amazon says 4 and 1/2 stars, and that seems about right to me. It's a classic, I think.
