How do you transition your MC from one room to the next?

[jannawrites]

I'm getting tired of saying something like "I put the knife down on the kitchen table and headed to the living room." It always comes back to headed to with me. Ack!

Got any new, lively suggestions?

[scarletpeaches]

Jump to the next scene in the other room. You don't have to transition anything.

[KAP]

I threw the knife and followed it -- and the ensuing screams -- into the living room.

Now THERE'S an entrance.

I agree "headed" is mundane. Can the characters walk to reflect their moods?

She stormed...
He ambled...
Drunk man staggered and swayed...
Cindy in her tutu pirouetted into...
Baby crawled, thoughts of mother's milk filling his mind, little pink lips forming a sucking oh in anticipation...

kap

[Voyager]

went to, walked to, strolled to, bee bopped my way toward, sashayed, floated, stomped toward, stalked across the floor to the, padded my way across the floor to, the list goes on and on and on.

[jannawrites]

Thanks kap and Voyager. I just need to put some more thought into it, I guess. I know I have it in me. I can do it.

[KAP]

Thanks kap and Voyager. I just need to put some more thought into it, I guess. I know I have it in me. I can do it.

Now MARCH yourself to your computer and get busy.

[a_sharp]

The kids were fighting in the living room again. I put the knife down on the kitchen table, figuring it was safer there. ScarletPeaches was on the floor, punching the daylights out of Keith...

See? One room with the knife, the next room with the fight.

[scarletpeaches]

Ah, but in that paragraph you're jumping from the living room, to the kitchen and back again. It would sound better if you said something like...

I put the knife down on the kitchen table, figuring it was safer there. I heard the kids fighting in the living room. Scarletpeaches had Maestrowork in a headlock on the carpet, while davids and thethinker42 swung from the chandelier...

[jannawrites]

The kids were fighting in the living room again. I put the knife down on the kitchen table, figuring it was safer there. ScarletPeaches was on the floor, punching the daylights out of Keith...

See? One room with the knife, the next room with the fight.

Nice.

[jannawrites]

I put the knife down on the kitchen table, figuring it was safer there. I heard the kids fighting in the living room. Scarletpeaches had Maestrowork in a headlock on the carpet, while davids and thethinker42 swung from the chandelier...

Remind me never to crash a party when you guys are there.

Now excuse me as I frolick to the kitchen for a snack.

[barnicus]

"Now excuse me as I frolick to the kitchen for a snack."

You've got the hang of it. :e2BIC:

[blacbird]

Jump to the next scene in the other room. You don't have to transition anything.

Peaches has this exactly right. Unless your character has something story-significant do on the way from one room to another (pick up a weapon to confront an intruder, for example), describing the movement from one room to another is nothing but useless stage direction, and a waste of word-space.

caw

[astonwest]

Depending on how far they're going, you can also use a scene break...for example, you don't have to show them going from the kitchen to the living room to the garage and out to the street...

[Judg]

This is the kind of stuff I'm going to be cutting out in the second draft. I find that I need to write a lot of things down to help me see things clearly, but it does turn into boring stage directions. Hopefully as I gain more experience, I'll be able to - ahem - head straight for a better way of saying it in the first draft.

*Judg transitions nervously out of this thread*

[maestrowork]

Do what movies do: cut to the next scene. Unless there's something interesting on his way to the other room, why even describe it? We KNOW how people go from one room to another. And if something interesting happens, describe what is happening instead of just saying "he headed to the living room." Maybe "He crossed the hallway and found a dead cricket on the carpet. Then two more dead crickets. And then a whole pile of dead cricket awaited him in the living room."

There are just so many ways to say "go to" so try to eliminate the crud.

[Azure Skye]

Jump to the next scene in the other room. You don't have to transition anything.

This is the approach I usually take but others have suggested some good alternatives that would be appropriate.

[Doodlebug]

Amble? Wander? Bee-bop? Skip?

Should the same rule for speech tags apply to walking as well?

I've been cautioned over and over again that writers should never use anything but 'said' when writing dialogue (for example, writing ' "That's funny," she giggled' is wrong, wrong, wrong). Should characters also do nothing but simply walk? :Wha:

[Provrb1810meggy]

This is exactly the thread I needed! I've been doing this a lot in my NaNo novel. I'll have to go back and change this during my second draft.

[Theognome]

I only put such transitions in if the transition itself is part of the plot action. Otherwise, I either make a new scene or just leave it assumed.

Theognome

[KAP]

In my opinion, there are times when a character should walk (amble, skip, or charge) from one room to another within a scene. I don't end scenes and start new ones just to avoid a room transition. But maybe I have an inflated impression of a scene.

[J. R. Tomlin]

You don't necessarily have to switch scenes to skip the ambling/slouching/skipping movement though. He was in the kitchen when the doorbell rang so he went to answer it. No need to mention walking through three rooms on the way. :)

Besides I don't want to think about all the AW bodies he had to step over.

[Oliveman]

In my book, I use the way people walk as a sort of metaphor for the character - it may not always readily match up with what they say, but it is still revealing in some way, such as how they think of themselves.

More than anything, if you want the image of their walking to be there, put it in. Otherwise, imply that they walked by talking about the first place, then giving them a reason to walk, then showing them interacting in the next room. The reason is important, because otherwise it looks disjointed. ("Wait" said the reader, "Wasn't he just in the living room?")

[blacbird]

Think of what you're writing in terms of a movie (a good movie). Mundane movement about from place to place is the kind of stuff that winds up on the cutting room floor.

I just got through watching a very good movie tonight (The Big Lebowsky), and the Coen brothers are masters at handling this kind of stuff. A scene happens in the bowling alley, is culminated, and then Jeff Bridges and John Goodman are driving down the freeway and hilariously arguing about what idiotic scheme they have proposed to do next. I don't need to see them packing up their bowling gear, walking out the door, unlocking the car, starting it . . . etc. etc. etc.

Readers are generally smart enough to understand and accept that the transitional stuff has happened.

caw

[seun]

He skateboarded to the living room.
She swam to the living room.
They handglide to the living room.

And so on.

[Bufty]

If one has to think how to transition a character from one room to the next, there obviously isn't a valid reason for going there in the first place.

And finding a substitute for 'headed' isn't the answer.

[dpaterso]

He skateboarded to the living room.
She swam to the living room.
They handglide to the living room.

And so on.
...handglide? :Wha: Is that something like, "She grabbed hold of his cache and pulled him into the living room."?

-Derek

[seun]

...handglide? :Wha: Is that something like, "She grabbed hold of his cache and pulled him into the living room."?

-Derek

I was thinking of the Eddie Izzard bit about he/she hanglide they/we hanglided. Would help if I could spell.

[dpaterso]

Oops, so sorry, I saw entirely the wrong image. :)

Yeah, Eddie, makes sense now.

hang-glided, hyphenated.

-Derek

[Tracy]

Guys, I beg you - 'transition' isn't a verb. It's a noun. The verb is 'transit'. Please ....

[Voyager]

You forgot, 'they hanglid'

I was thinking of the Eddie Izzard bit about he/she hanglide they/we hanglided. Would help if I could spell.

[Wolvel]

I usually don't worry on how they get into the other room unless it is needed to move the scene along.

example: While I place the knife back in the drawer a loud crash fills the air from the living room. My heart begins to pound as I race in there to see the kids at it again.

[Oliveman]

Remember, though, that you set up a precident if you have a character walking back and forth between rooms. If suddenly you spring upon the reader an implied transition, they would notice. Set up a clear difference between when you show them walking around and when you have implied transitions.

[Stew21]

Can't the next sentence or scene just start with "in the living room,..."

[jennifer75]

I'm getting tired of saying something like "I put the knife down on the kitchen table and headed to the living room." It always comes back to headed to with me. Ack!

Got any new, lively suggestions?


I have a similar problem with the word "arrived". My MC is always on the go and the word arrived seems to come up alot! Any suggestions?

Example: we arrived at the beach, we arrived at the club, he arrived at two o'clock...

"we got there at..." just doesn't sound right to me.

PS ... I've used it 22 times through out my 36,000 words. Is that bad, or am I just crazy?

[Stew21]

Jennifer, just start the next scene with, At the club, or describe the club's appearance or feel, set a conversation that is obviously in a club. Have your character order a drink, etc.

[Joe Unidos]

Guys, I beg you - 'transition' isn't a verb. It's a noun. The verb is 'transit'. Please ....


Verb1.transition - cause to convert or undergo a transition; "the company had to transition the old practices to modern technology" convert (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/convert) - change the nature, purpose, or function of something; "convert lead into gold"; "convert hotels into jails"; "convert slaves to laborers"
2.transition - make or undergo a transition (from one state or system to another); "The airline transitioned to more fuel-efficient jets"; "The adagio transitioned into an allegro"

:D

[Akuma]

*walks into thread*

Wait, what?

[WVWriterGirl]

I have transition problems, too, but not so much from one room to the next, but the "big" transitions. I've got things for my characters to do in "Place A" and then more stuff to do in "Place B" - getting them from A to B always makes me crazy, and is incredibly boring. Most of my pieces get stymied in the "traveling" phases. I mean, there's only so much "they traveled through the land" you can write without repeating yourself, right?

I can understand just switching the scene with a room-to-room transition, but what about over long distances? What's the best way to achieve that?

[Stew21]

A large bit of my current MS is in those moments of transition - because a lot happens for my character on the way to places. It's a journey rather than destination thing with my characters.

If that isn't the case for you, and nothing in particular happens on the way back to the pyramids (I like that example, KTC), then skip it and just show with action specific to the new location or with descirption of the new location.
yes?

[Chasing the Horizon]

There's a lot of different ways to transition, for both small movements (kitchen to living room) and long movements (one country to another, for example). I think how you handle these will depend a lot on your personal style. With stage direction there's a broad range of acceptable between too little and too much (similar to setting and character description), so whether you just skip or add a line for the movement really is a matter of preference. I'm fairly detailed with stage action, so I'll always have some mention of the movement, usually tacked onto the beginning of another sentence or as a dialogue 'tag' (Example: He followed her into the dressing area. "I still don't understand.") I've found stage action doesn't slow the story down as much if you use it as a tag or as part of another sentence. Obviously you don't want to use the same wording every time either.

I deal with long transitions (days or weeks and thousands of miles) on a regular basis in my writing. Unless something important happens along the way, I'll cut straight from one place to the next (usually chapter breaking in between). I start with describing the new setting, so it's easy for the reader to oriant themselves, and just keep going from there.

[blacbird]

If one has to think how to transition a character from one room to the next, there obviously isn't a valid reason for going there in the first place.

And finding a substitute for 'headed' isn't the answer.

This is an astute point, and useful writing advice in a broader context. Any time you get hung up trying to phrase for something, and it's just not working, one of the major options is that you simply may not need it at all. I've found that happens in my first drafts pretty regularly. There's a wee voice in there trying to warn me that what I'm attempting is not worth doing, and ought to be skipped.

I think it's part of Elmore Leonard's famous rules, the one about "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."

caw

[maestrowork]

Whenever I do describe a character going from one place to another, something other than the "trip" is happening. Something interesting.

Other than that, what's the point? Who cares if the person walks, runs, drives, or gets beamed up? If it doesn't reveal character, advance the plot, or strengthens the themes, skip it.

[jannawrites]

For me, the way the MC moves across a room is a direct indication of the mood she's in. For instance, the particular passage that led me to start this thread is when she's just received a threatening message from her eventual stalker. How she moves from the phone to the chair - where she sinks, lost in thought - will help show the distress she's feeling.

[maestrowork]

That belongs to "reveal character" -- so describe how she sulks, slumps, drags, etc. her way to the chair. Use a strong verb: I just gave you three. ;)

[jannawrites]

That belongs to "reveal character" -- so describe how she sulks, slumps, drags, etc. her way to the chair. Use a strong verb: I just gave you three. ;)

Excellent. Thanks!

[ACEnders]

Man....there is always so much to cut after the first draft! I didn't even think about this aspect...I was so focused on cutting on things like "Hey!" he shouted angrily. I've been told not to use adverbs. Now I shouldn't say "She went into the living room to find.." unless something happens along the way to the living room?

[FennelGiraffe]

Man....there is always so much to cut after the first draft! I didn't even think about this aspect...I was so focused on cutting on things like "Hey!" he shouted angrily. I've been told not to use adverbs. Now I shouldn't say "She went into the living room to find.." unless something happens along the way to the living room?
Never buy into any writing rule that says "never". ;)

I guess it's human nature to want a short and snappy "Never do X", but the proper version is always more nuanced, worded something like "Watch out for overdoing X" and "In most cases, doing Y instead of X works better."

Second, in my opinion, there's a huge difference between physical movement within a scene and physical movement between scenes. If your char is moving around during a scene, the action has to make sense. If she starts the scene stirring a pot on the stove, then yeah, you do need to mention she's going to the living room before you start talking about searching under the sofa cushions. (For the quibblers: even if it's an open plan great room, the sofa is probably not right beside the stove.)

However, "she went" is a little weak. Consider using a stronger verb. Maybe "She stomped into the living room" or "She trudged into the living room" or "She tip-toed into the living room." Then again, sometimes the stronger verb would be distracting and "she went" is just right. It's all about judgment and what works best for this sentence in this scene.