I apologize for the length of this post, but here goes... Specifically the ones in my current story, which is an important distinction to make. I like "downtime" scenes, as I like to call them, but for my current story which is pretty much near the end, I keep second-guessing myself. It's important to note that this story is written in first person, entirely from the PoV of the main protagonist, and therefore all scenes involve the protagonist and are limited by who she interacts with and how she learns new information. She also is a priestess in this fictional world of mine, meaning she realistically spends most of her time in the temple and can't just go out into the city anytime she wants. She's also in a special role within the temple and so she is finds herself restricted from doing whatever she wants (for example, it's not her place to shirk her duties, and it's preferred that she doesn't bother herself with duties that would be seen as beneath her title). And trust me, I've made a point to show that she's just as irked by this as even I am! During the days where she has no reason or permission to leave the temple walls and engage in the city is where I have plenty of quick time skips. These go over bits where nothing new or interesting is happening when she has downtime in the temple. But sometimes these time skips, as important as they are to show there's passage of time going on, feel lazy. Maybe that's just me being too hard on myself, but every time I do a time skip I find myself asking myself: "Could an actual scene take place here as opposed to a time skip?" But then I have to stop and ask: "Why should I force a scene to take place during boring downtime? Isn't it okay to have periods of time skipped over where nothing happens, just like how real life is filled with moments that have nothing happening?" And then I feel guilty about not having more interactions with certain characters in the temple, even though the protagonist, again, doesn't have all the freedom she wants to go hit up her friends at any time, as she has her own studies and duties to perform. I don't want to give the impression that the protagonist just wanders aimlessly and that events just happen to her without reason. I don't want to make up excuses for her to go out into the city where more dangerous and interesting stuff occurs, because that wouldn't feel logical or genuine (the temple has rules and permissions to follow for a reason). So either a scene of some importance, whether it's proving new info, or it's world or character-building, needs to happen...or no scene at all and I just skip over a chunk of time entirely. My worry is that there are too many time-skips like that. It's important to note that this is my first story I've written seriously that has a first person, limited, perspective. I am enjoying the challenge, and I do feel the PoV is appropriate for the type of story I'm trying to tell, I just am not very used to writing in first person in a story where the main protagonist is settled in one building/city/area and is restricted by traditions, culture, and circumstance. I like stories that are big adventures and have multiple changes in scenery, so this again is a big challenge I have posed for myself to try to make myself a better writer. And trust me, I LOVE this story, its world, and its characters. I just can't seem to figure out ways to make the weak points stronger (those being handling "downtime" and time skips). But I also need to stop myself from overthinking every scene and being hard on myself. If you read to the end of this post, thank-you! I'm sorry that this might have come off as incoherent rambling, but this is supposed to be a forum post, not a graded essay I need to turn in to a professor!
Hmmm I think you are having good thoughts about the pacing. I just reread the opening couple of scenes from Carrie. It starts with a brutal bullying incident, and the next scene is one character who witnessed it relaying it to another character. So the second scene was basically a downtime scene. We learned a little bit about the characters and how they felt in the aftermath, but the bulk of the scene reinforced things that were already hinted at or said outright. So I don’t think you should shy away from them. Readers need a chance to decompress and process what happened, like the characters who experienced it. Your downtime scenes can work to accomplish that. Obviously you’ll want to work in more: a little new information, a little backstory, etc. I wouldn’t sweat it too much personally. I like to go full speed ahead and clean up the carnage later.
I've read many a first person story where entire YEARS get skipped over with a sentence or two! Two years later, etc.... It's important to remember that you're telling a story here, not writing a diary. The bits that move the story forward are what need to be 'shown' to the reader, so the reader can experience them too. The day-to-day 'boring' bits don't need that real-time treatment. Just make sure the reader knows there ARE lots of boring days when your narrator has to stick close to the temple and perform her duties—which she resents. And maybe show us a bit of what the duties entail, at least near the beginning of the story, and show why she finds them boring (and maybe what she thinks about while she's performing these duties.) But once the reader understands what the boring duties are like and how often they occur, it's not necessary for the reader to experience them. Just refer to them, now and again. Three weeks of nothing but more temple duty was driving me nearly insane, but finally (such-and-such happened or so-and-so appeared) and my life got exciting again.
Don’t worry about the length! If we can’t handle a few measly paragraphs like this, then we’re poor readers. Anyway, it sounds like you’re basically writing a prison story, albeit one with a fancier setting, so I’d suggest looking at how other prison stories handle this problem. The best example I can think of is Stephen King’s novella “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” (or the movie, which is very faithful to it). The story is told through the POV of Red, a long-time inmate, and it spans something like twenty years. Most of that time is dull prison routine, and the story skips over it with only brief discussions of what happened between scenes. Even the assaults that the new guy Andy has to deal with are just alluded to as part of the routine, with only one of them mentioned in any detail. The frequent time-skips are quite effective at showing us the high points of that time while emphasizing the mundanity of what we don’t see. If it works here, I’m sure it could work in your story, too. You may also want to look at Mervyn Peake’s “Titus Groan”, the first novel in the Gormenghast series. That one’s not first-person—Peake head-hops gleefully from sentence to sentence—but the scenario is quite similar to yours, with a set of noble characters and their supporting staff all trapped by centuries of ritual that rule their lives. (Also, it’s an awesome book.) In both stories, the scenes that stand out are ones in which something interesting breaks up the routine, often giving a chance to reveal character. In Shawshank, those scenes are usually driven by Andy doing something unexpected, like locking himself in the warden’s office to play an opera record over the prison’s PA system. In Titus, the scene that stands out to me is the newborn heir’s christening, which consists of dull, complicated rituals that bore even most of the participants until something goes wrong and we see how they all react. So, if you do want to insert a scene to break things up, I’d suggest one of those approaches: either a secondary character does something that the POV character doesn’t expect, or some accident breaks up the usually-boring rituals. Maybe a character other than your MC does sneak out, and we see the aftermath. Maybe a bird or a bat gets trapped in the temple and and everyone freaks out trying to catch it. There are plenty of options. Good luck! And I do not apologize for the length of this post.
Thanks for the responses so far, everyone! I do realize that most of this is me being too hard on myself, since us artists are always are own worst critics. Even if my story stays as a hobby and never gets published, I still take these things far too seriously, especially if I'm writing in a style or writing a type of setting/story that's outside of my usual comfort zone. This is why, whenever I try to see if friends would like to read it and give feedback, I let them know that my biggest concern is with pacing, and am not looking for feedback on grammar (so far though, my friends have been just as distracted and busy as I have been, so I have yet to get much feedback from these folks I trust). I do have one big time skip, that being a 5-year skip after I spent the first 100 or so pages (well, with my font, size, and formatting it's almost 100 pages) introducing the main protagonist as a child, her being taken to a temple to train as a priestess, and all the struggles she goes through, friends she makes, etc. That was the one time where a time skip felt appropriate, as I was comfortable in the knowledge that I had set up the protagonist and world before skipping ahead and introducing the real inciting incident of the story's main conflict going forward. It's just the time skips within single days or weeks that can feel a bit unpolished to me...but again, maybe I'm being too hard on myself. I think my biggest issue with writing "downtime" scenes in this story is because it's all from the protagonist's PoV - I don't hop between other people's heads, not even the villain's, so every scene is entirely what the protagonist sees, hears, and does.
At the risk of sounding too reductionist, I was really helped by the advice that all story consists of either: scene, or summary. That said, my two cents is to put as many scenes as necessary, but no more than that to further the story. And if you have to have a time skip, don't mention it at all, or only as necessary for the reader to understand what actually happens. Ah, the inciting incident! Without knowing what that is - apologies if I have misread - it seems your protagonist is dealing with specific roles and restrictions "stuck inside these four walls" but that she does have reasons to leave the temple, as it was, for the city, at certain days. Since you've already established the protagonist you won't need to tell every moment of every day, will you? Who was it? Well I'm remembering a movie (obviously not same as writing) and it was described that the director and producer(s?) were in conflict and the producer wanted to cut out scenes. Well, the director arranged only very LONG scenes such that "there's nothing to cut to" in the reel! In a piece of writing however this can be overwhelming to the reader who won't have time to stop and digest; or it can be exciting. Hope this helps, sarka
