What is the best way to write scene transitions? Jumping from night to day? Monday to Thursday? 1873 to 2023? I’ve talked about these before, but it’s still an interesting thing to delve further into. What types of transitions exist? Which ones do we have in our arsenal, to once again use effortlessly?
You can look at books where the passage of time makes all the difference. Thrillers are great examples of this. There is often a ticking clock, and that helps create that sense of urgency. Thriller writers need to be the masters of transitions.
Generally speaking, I’d consider there to be three lengths of transitions that matter in books. One is when you have a few “relaxed” transitions, others cover months or years of time, and the rest cut in over days, hours, or short but defined periods.
A relaxed transition is sometimes just explicitly stated, but quickly. Often at the beginning of a chapter or scene. “The next day, I headed straight to work”, or “later that afternoon, Alan gave up trying to light the barbecue.” It’s a quick subtle thing.
It just happens, and you throw it out there. It’s subtle. The time changes, but it is seamless. You’re not bogging your reader down in mechanics.
A tighter example, that I’ve used before, is when someone like Michael Crichton places the time and date in the heading of his chapters. Each chapter in his thrillers are short and sharp, so there’s probably not going to be many scenes per chapter. That’s more formal than a “relaxed” transition that I described before. It’s not relaxed, but it’s also not too heavy. This is the last type of transition I was referencing: short but defined periods.
Finally there’s the long-term transition. It probably won’t do to use what I’m calling a “relaxed” transition here. (By the way, “relaxed transition” is just a phrase I’ve made up, it’s not an official term, but hopefully it does a good job of explaining that casual/less-regimented transition of time). The bigger, longer jumps in time, usually need to be marked in a significant way. Because it clearly matters more.
Now you don’t have to do the Michael Crichton up-front declared change for this to work. Not at all. Maybe it’s part-way through the next chapter that you finally demonstrate that a lot of time has passed. A character comes across something that makes them think of another character from years before, even though it was only the previous scene for us. “She pulled the paper out of her old jacket. It was an old receipt from when she last went out with Mike. My god, that must have been three years ago.”
So keep the reader aware of time. But only when it matters. And have fun with it, be creative. But I’d advise not being too clever, as you don’t want to confuse the people reading your story!
Andy Jones Online 