My story has seven main characters who, every couple of chapters, split up into groups to advance various plots and other things, but I am having trouble formatting the switch from group to group.
For instance, the 3 girls have gone off to do something and the four guys have gone to a coffee shop. I've told all there is to tell about the coffee shop episode, ending with a hook between 2 characters and now I'm ready to focus on the girls' adventure. But how do I make it very clear that to the reader that we are now elsewhere. Just starting a new paragraph as if I had been writing for the girls this whole time feels weird as does using words like "Meanwhile" or "on the other side of town" in the first sentence.
I recently read Lord of the Flies where the author used these little asterisks that ran across the page to illustrate that the narrative was switching from one camp to the other, or that a certain amount of days had passed.
My question is, which is the best way to show the reader that we have now switched to the other characters?
For instance, the 3 girls have gone off to do something and the four guys have gone to a coffee shop. I've told all there is to tell about the coffee shop episode, ending with a hook between 2 characters and now I'm ready to focus on the girls' adventure. But how do I make it very clear that to the reader that we are now elsewhere. Just starting a new paragraph as if I had been writing for the girls this whole time feels weird as does using words like "Meanwhile" or "on the other side of town" in the first sentence.
I recently read Lord of the Flies where the author used these little asterisks that ran across the page to illustrate that the narrative was switching from one camp to the other, or that a certain amount of days had passed.
My question is, which is the best way to show the reader that we have now switched to the other characters?
