Passage of Time - Suggestions?

[mynameisluca]

I'm plugging away on Das Novel and have run into a little quandary:

How can I finesse the passage of relatively large blocks of time?

The real meat of the novel takes place four years after the protagonist and antagonist are forced to move in together due to wartime circumstances. I want to specifically include those scenes and am having a hard time deciding how to deal with the passage of time.

I'm not a huge fan of prologues, or flashbacks for that matter, and I'm bound to this time frame due to the historical events that provide a backdrop for my story.

So my question for you is - what is a good way to indicate the passage of long blocks of time in my text? Throw in a few asterisks and press forward?

[astonwest]

So my question for you is - what is a good way to indicate the passage of long blocks of time in my text? Throw in a few asterisks and press forward?

A new chapter is my suggestion...either with a "four years later" notation somewhere, or slip in a character's passing recollection about how it was hard to believe all that (meaning, the material in the previous chapter) was four years ago.

[Jonathon Michaels]

A new chapter is my suggestion...either with a "four years later" notation somewhere, or slip in a character's passing recollection about how it was hard to believe all that (meaning, the material in the previous chapter) was four years ago.

A chapter break is definitely a great suggestion.

As for the mention of the time, I like the second idea better when I'm reading, it's smoother, more subtle. Also, an object bought or acquired when they moved in together could break or be lost or something. Or maybe have one of them get tired of the couch or something and mention they've had it since they moved in...four years ago, of course.

[jules]

Sorry, all of those suggestions of how to establish the length of time that has passed sound very cliche to me.

I think it is better to establish the time in the text, rather than use a header, but the way you do it must be related to your story in some way, otherwise it will stand out like a sore thumb.

For instance, here's how I handle a gap in the novel I'm currently revising:

Chapter 20

...
"I just heard something that worried me," she said. "What's the Imperator?"

"She's the next ship due here, in about six months."


...
Chapter 21


Mike watched the Imperator's arrival from the planet's surface, first by telescope, and then, as she got closer, by naked eye.




Which clearly establishes that about 6 months have passed.

[James D. Macdonald]

What with this and that, five years passed....

[Julian Black]

Using dates as part of your chapter titles and subheadings could do it. As a reader, they don't bother me or break the flow of the story. However, you may not want to be that explicit about it--exact dates may not be necessary. As a writer, I tend not to use dates; I'm partial to opening a new chapter with a change of scenery that suggests the passage of time.

Right now, I'm writing a chapter that takes place well after its predecessor, and instead of gray skies, rain, and muddy roads the sky is blue, the air is warm and still, and grain is ripening in the fields. After the drama of the previous chapter, it is a tranquil scene. It could be six months later, or five years, or a century, but obviously time has passed since the previous chapter. Exactly how much time has passed is shown through dialogue, changes in the descriptions of the characters, and other details.

In my case, the readers will (I hope) know they are seeing the same location they saw in the last chapter because I make passing mention of a local landmark that figured prominently in the previous chapter.

The first person we see is a child, and when his mother calls his name we know that he is the infant from the previous chapter. He is now about three years old, and I am trying to show this through action and his speech patterns in dialogue, rather than explicitly stating it. At some point, we will know exactly how much time has passed, but what I am trying to do in the first few paragraphs is gently pull the reader into this tranquil setting after the drama of the previous chapter. Slowly, questions of who survived and what happened afterward get answered.

This kind of transition doesn't even have to take place in the same setting. I could have moved from the country to the city and done the same thing. Indicating that it is no longer wartime can be done in a variety of ways--food on the table that wasn't avaliable before, music drifting in through the windows instead of the sounds of gunfire, or a new building across the street that replaces one destroyed during the war all tell the reader that the war is over and life is returning to normal.

If the war is still going on, describing worsening circumstances--there is no food to be had, the roof is now collapsing after endless bombardment, someone has lost a limb--can do the same. The whole point is to establish that things have changed significantly, and get the readers wondering what these changes mean.


Of course, you can always take a more direct approach, too:

Four years later, Homer Buford Markus finally realized that he had been suckered.

"It was that damned dollar advance," he moaned. "I should have known..."

[maestrowork]

All very good advice. If you're not going back to the back story (meaning, your time line moves forward), then a simple "Fifty years have passed" might be enough.

[dblteam]

If your history is real history (I'm not sure if this is historical fiction or if you simply meant the history of the world you've created), you can establish the passage of time by reference to widely-known historical events. If the protags moved in together while Hitler was just beginning to invade his neighbors, for example, and then the next chapter starts some number of months after Pearl Harbor, people will instinctively understand the time lapse. (Not sure if that's four years, but it's relatively close.)

Valerie

[katiemac]

Whichever way use choose, have you considered a breaking up the novel into parts? Part One the past, Part Two the future occurences...

This is more for reader adaption than conveying the actual change in time. Like a chapter break, it will indicate something new, but to me the end of a part is more final, take a little breather, and keep going...

[Maryn]

katiemac, that's what I was going to suggest. If the timeline is strictly linear, part one (or book one), followed by part two after that big gap in time, works just fine for me.

I do think a bigger payoff or cliffhanger is required at the conclusion of a major section than at the end of a chapter, but that's usually do-able.

Maryn

[reph]

You could build a scene around a character's birthday celebration or lack of one – an excuse to mention someone's age.