Passage of time?

Routine is boring, everyone has a routine, they don't want to read about it. You don't even have to say day passed into night. Just do a double return and start writing the new section of the story as if it were already evening.

I've never mentioned the passage of time; I just drop titbits into the story, mentioning the lighting or the weather or someone drawing the curtains or getting up in the morning so the reader knows roughly what time of day it is.

Unless writing the daily routine gives any deep insight to the character, I'd skip it. My rule is: if it's not important, don't write it.

As with everything, it depends.

Is the daily routine -interesting-? Does she go out back first thing in the morning to milk the leprechaun cows with their green milk and their strangely fuzzy udders?

As with everything, remember that it depends on what you want to accomplish with the scene. If the goal is to make the reader feel in their bones the tedium of the day, you may well want to draw it out...

...but it still has to be -interesting-. A guy could be doing the laundry seventeen hours a day, but if he has interesting stories to share with his coworkers, memories that act as scenes, or what-have you -- if whatever he's doing advances the story in a way that increases whatever sort of tension you're looking to advance, and keeps the reader awake and turning pages--then please do include it. If, on the other hand, one is just writing the daily routine because one doesn't really know what happens next . . . well, then a quick "The next morning, Bob..." is definitely in order.

Unless there's something diffrent in her routine that night then I would just double space and go on with the story. Time passing is very strange thing to me in writing because sometimes we feel compelled to comment on it in the text but in real life how often do you really comment on time passing? Usually its just, "Wow! It got dark fast!" and we move on. To me, time passes, there's no reason to describe it happening.

scarletpeaches said:

Routine is boring, everyone has a routine, they don't want to read about it. You don't even have to say day passed into night. Just do a double return and start writing the new section of the story as if it were already evening.

I've never mentioned the passage of time; I just drop titbits into the story, mentioning the lighting or the weather or someone drawing the curtains or getting up in the morning so the reader knows roughly what time of day it is.

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I agree with this.

The ol' four spaces between paragraphs works every time.

Or you could just pull a Virginia Woolf: "Time passed."

(I hate Woolf.)

Laurell K. has a formula?

I would definitely use the fast transition. Routine is boring.

You can, if you want, write however you please. There are no police who are going to take you away for failing to write in accordance with law. Just write well, and be honest to the reader, and you'll do fine.

(I have no idea what Laurell K.'s formula is, but I bet it involves Vampire + Sex X Pages = Novel)

Anya Smith said:

Routine is boring.

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What if the goal is to show how the normal routine has been disrupted?

I have no problem seeing routine if it serves a purpose.

Shadow_Ferret said:

What if the goal is to show how the normal routine has been disrupted?

I have no problem seeing routine if it serves a purpose.

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Sure, but it still has to be interesting enough to hold the reader's attention. "Because it serves a later purpose" can be used to justify so many slow and boring passages.

In Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams opens with Arthur Dent waking up, hungover, brushing his teeth, showering, getting ready to go out. Perfectly boring, except for Douglas's charming writing style and the tiny little mentions of a bulldozer every few sentences.

That's a routine that works.

Alana, it would be a masterful writer indeed who could take the thoughts of a depressed woman - whom we don't know yet - about how her life sucks and turn it into compelling writing. I won't say it can't be done, because somebody will haul up an example of when it has, but I'm willing to bet they can't think of a second one. It's hard to think of a less appealing opening to a book. In real life people either have to love the depressed person very deeply or be paid very well to listen to that kind of thing.