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

jannawrites · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 11, 2007

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

KAP · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 11, 2007

jannawrites said:
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 · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 11, 2007

a_sharp said:
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 · Nov 11, 2007

scarletpeaches said:
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 · Nov 11, 2007

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

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

blacbird · Nov 11, 2007

scarletpeaches said:
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 · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 11, 2007

scarletpeaches said:
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 · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 11, 2007

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.

WildBill · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 11, 2007

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 · Nov 12, 2007

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 · Nov 12, 2007

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 · Nov 12, 2007

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

And so on.

Bufty · Nov 12, 2007

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.

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

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