First, thanks to everyone who responded to my "Cinematic writing in novels" thread. Greatly appreciated.
Now, I've written the first 3000 words of my novel which is based on a screenplay I wrote a few years ago. My story basically consists of two storylines. The first one takes place in my protagonist's childhood (5 y.o.), the other in his adulthood (25 y.o.). Between those two story lines there's a gap of twenty years during which nothing particular relevant happens, except for the fact that my protagonist trains in the art of swordsmanship and becomes a skilled swordsman (this is somewhat important).
A film director might use a superimposition, e.g. "20 years later", to show the audience that the following events take place twenty years later. In spec writing this is sometimes frowned upon so I used a visual device in my screenplay to imply the time jump. Problem is, this device, smooth as it is, won't work for a novel.
Since I rely so much on "show" in my novel, it feels awkward to have a large "tell" chunk in the middle of these two storylines to sort of tie them together. And I'm not too keen on the idea of using the dreaded "20 years later" either as it seems like a lazy, easy-way-out solution.
So my question is... when a story starts out in protagonist's childhood, jumps twenty years ahead and continues in his adulthood (think Braveheart), how would a good novelist go about writing this so the transition doesn't seem lazy and awkward.
If you know some good published examples, I'm of course interested in getting my hands on those. Thanks in advance.
Now, I've written the first 3000 words of my novel which is based on a screenplay I wrote a few years ago. My story basically consists of two storylines. The first one takes place in my protagonist's childhood (5 y.o.), the other in his adulthood (25 y.o.). Between those two story lines there's a gap of twenty years during which nothing particular relevant happens, except for the fact that my protagonist trains in the art of swordsmanship and becomes a skilled swordsman (this is somewhat important).
A film director might use a superimposition, e.g. "20 years later", to show the audience that the following events take place twenty years later. In spec writing this is sometimes frowned upon so I used a visual device in my screenplay to imply the time jump. Problem is, this device, smooth as it is, won't work for a novel.
Since I rely so much on "show" in my novel, it feels awkward to have a large "tell" chunk in the middle of these two storylines to sort of tie them together. And I'm not too keen on the idea of using the dreaded "20 years later" either as it seems like a lazy, easy-way-out solution.
So my question is... when a story starts out in protagonist's childhood, jumps twenty years ahead and continues in his adulthood (think Braveheart), how would a good novelist go about writing this so the transition doesn't seem lazy and awkward.
If you know some good published examples, I'm of course interested in getting my hands on those. Thanks in advance.
