So in my first novel I have a couple of time skips (Not including the one from the prologue to the first chapter). I have thought about it a lot, but in the narrative these time skips are completely necessary. The main conflict in my story is my worlds equivalent to the Civil Rights Movement. It's something that realistically can't happen within a couple of months. This type of thing takes years to accomplish due to its nature. As such I can't really write what happens in all of those years, since action only happens in certain portions of the time. My first time skip is between the 3rd and 4th chapter, where the character goes from 13 to 16. My second time skip happens a little past halfway, and my character goes from 16 to 25. It's at these ages that the main action happens so that's why I skip to them. My question is how do I do a large time skip effectively? I know they aren't really used that much, and when done bad they can go really bad, but for my story to work as I intend for it to work I need to use time skips. My two ideas that I can do is either state at the beginning of the chapter the time that has passed (i.e. saying in italics "3 years later"), or I can describe the time skip within the narrative (i.e Through the dialogue of the characters). Are these viable ideas, or are there better ways to convey such a large time skip?
You definitely want to separate them by chapter, I think, instead of paragraph. Second, either indicate in the chapter heading or something that time has passed ("Nineteen years later" or something) or in the narration where you mention their age or how many years have passed or something. Edit: Oh, you already know this. Yes, those are viable.
I think you may be overthinking this. Time skips happen in damn near every novel I've ever read. The only difference between them is how long is skipped over. These are called narrative gaps. There's nothing wrong with them, and they are pretty simple to do without a reader thinking twice (which is probably why you haven't noticed them in a lot of novels). All you have to do is indicate a passage of time. You can do this with dialogue, chapter heading, setting, etc, etc. How you'd do it effectively in your particular story depends on context. Just let it flow naturally. Usually, if you've developed your characters well enough, the change in that character because age difference should be apparent. 13-16 is huge in maturity. I'd expect a character to be pretty different. 16-25 is...well...monumental, for want of a better term. Like I said, you may be overthinking this one, buddy. Hope this helps.
Ahh your probably right about me overthinking XD. I'm always so worried about little things that I forget when things are common or when they just happen... Anyway thank you for pointing this out. It really helps me in my thought process. These time skips have always been something that I saw as a hurdle, but now I think I'll be fine. Thank you again!
