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Fast-forward?

Kinsman

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I've read many works of fiction that have pressed the 'fast forward' button to advance the clock but now that I'm faced with writing it myself, summing it up with "The days turned into months...." or some such just feels cheap or lazy somehow. I understand it's a valid technique. My actual challenge stems from the fact that while the MC is young and needs to be aged about a year or so, one of the antagonists still has things going on that follow a timeline. I've considered devoting a chapter to the villain, providing a second POV, but really want to avoid any chance of the reader forming some kind of association with him.

Advice anyone? Or perhaps point me in the direction of another book that handles this well?
 

lilyWhite

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Time-skips are a common way of progressing a story through long periods that aren't worth describing. The important part is establishing that time has progressed and that people have done things during that time—they haven't simply stood still, or certain parts of the world/characters froze in time while others continued to act.

Think the first Harry Potter book. It starts with baby Harry being delivered to the Dursleys, then jumps forward to when he's eleven and the inciting incident of the story takes place. But the reader is told about things that happened during the ten years between the first chapter and the second.

So in the case of your story, the antagonist can continue their plans during the time-skip. As long as you give indication that they're doing so, it'll be fine—if the protagonist heard periodically about what the antagonist is doing over that time, or if they hear about it shortly after the time-skip.
 

Ztwist

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As a reader I always feel a bit cheated by a time-skip because I get invested in the story right away and then find out there probably wasn't much to be concerned about after all. I just read one at the beginning of Gaiman's Neverwhere where the prologue dwells a lot on the weather and the MC feeling queasy and then suddenly it is three years later. If that was posted in the SYW section here everyone would have said just skip to where the story really starts! Use a chapter break and a phrase like, "Months later" and you are good to go!
 

Elle.

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Time skipping doesn't mean nothing happened during that period but as mentioned above you can hint later on at what's happened during the interval about the antagonist progresses and his plan.

As a reader I always feel a bit cheated by a time-skip because I get invested in the story right away and then find out there probably wasn't much to be concerned about after all. I just read one at the beginning of Gaiman's Neverwhere where the prologue dwells a lot on the weather and the MC feeling queasy and then suddenly it is three years later. If that was posted in the SYW section here everyone would have said just skip to where the story really starts! Use a chapter break and a phrase like, "Months later" and you are good to go!

Not sure how thoroughly you read the prologue about Neverwhere but it is a lot more than about the weather it sets up and hints at a lot of things that will happen (kind of foreboding) and pretty much set up who the MC is. By definition a prologue is often about something set up before when the story starts so based on your above comment there should never be any prologues.
 

benbenberi

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One of the key tricks to writing a book that other people will want to read is to leave out the boring parts. If there's a span of time where interesting story-stuff isn't happening, you not only *may* skip it -- you *should*. Nobody wants to read about days and weeks and months and years where everything is just life-goes-on, unless you're writing the kind of story where life-going-on *is* the story. Just move on to the time where the story picks up again. "Days turned into months..." is a perfectly valid approach. So is "Six months later...", or a timestamp, or any of a dozen other techniques. Putting in a scene or chapter break is conventional when you skip significant periods of time, but depending on the overall style & structure of the story may not always be required.

As for different MC vs antagonist timelines... if you're writing with the antagonist POV, by all means you can show the interesting things happening to them while the MC is in boring patch. If you're not writing the antagonist POV, don't. Whatever they do during the boring months you've skipped can be filled in like any other backstory when it becomes relevant to the POVs you're actually following.
 

Ztwist

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I felt cheated though because I wanted to know what happened next in the story and how the MC would cope. The character was about to set off to London for a new job but we don't apparently need to know the details of that because the real story starts 3 years later when he is already settled in his new life. I do imagine that giving away his umbrella in the rain is probably foreshadowing of something significant. The example came to mind because it left me thinking, "but, but....hey! what happened?" and the OPs question reminded me of that feeling.
 

benbenberi

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I felt cheated though because I wanted to know what happened next in the story and how the MC would cope. The character was about to set off to London for a new job but we don't apparently need to know the details of that because the real story starts 3 years later when he is already settled in his new life. I do imagine that giving away his umbrella in the rain is probably foreshadowing of something significant. The example came to mind because it left me thinking, "but, but....hey! what happened?" and the OPs question reminded me of that feeling.

Would the story have been improved had Gaiman provided all the details of the character arriving in London, getting a place to live, starting his new job, meeting his co-workers, having breakfast, lunch and dinner many times, doing his job, buying shoes, going to the dentist, etc.? Would knowing any of these things have enhanced the actual story that followed? Did not knowing them leave any gaps in your knowledge that mattered as the story progressed? I've never read the novel in question (Neverwhere was originally written for TV), but I strongly suspect the answer to all those things is NO -- and therefore Gaiman made the correct choice in leaving out the stuff that didn't matter.

If you still feel you want the missing time filled in, well, that's what fanfic is for. It's not part of the story Gaiman was telling.
 

Elle.

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I felt cheated though because I wanted to know what happened next in the story and how the MC would cope. The character was about to set off to London for a new job but we don't apparently need to know the details of that because the real story starts 3 years later when he is already settled in his new life. I do imagine that giving away his umbrella in the rain is probably foreshadowing of something significant. The example came to mind because it left me thinking, "but, but....hey! what happened?" and the OPs question reminded me of that feeling.

Benbenberi pretty much explained it all, but basically this is not a story about how someone cope moving into the big city so it's not relevant and we don't need to know hence why it's not in the story, what happens next that is relevant to the story Neil Gaiman is telling takes place 3 years later. There is a lot more in that prologue too that is relevant besides the umbrella. Having read the book several times, the prologue is completely relevant and the opening 3 years later makes sense (in my opinion)
 

Kinsman

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Sooo, the general consensus is to tie off loose ends and then go ahead with the time-skip... I had almost decided on that, but felt uncertain. Then I thought of AW. "There's a whole community of folks (all of whom are likely more knowledgeable than me) who'd be more than happy to weigh in!" thanks! ;)
 

SwallowFeather

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Incidentally there's two ways to do a time-skip. One is to literally, movie-style"CUT" from one scene to the next. (If you're doing a whole year I would definitely do the cut on a chapter break.) You then drop in very clear hints that it's XX amount of time later and show some of the changes that've happened in the course of the scene.

The other way is to actually summarize, which is kind of what you were suggesting with "the days turned into months" etc. This is more like a montage in a movie--you think about what that year was like, what really characterized it, and you offer a few images of that. Images of hanging out with friends at the park, sledding in the winter, climbing trees in bloom in the spring, that gives the reader a sense of a year passing. (Seasons are so helpful!) Or if it's a much less happy kind of year, images of sitting depressed in a room,going to school and sitting at the edge of the group all alone, etc. Something that gives a feel for the year. It's a bit harder than the other method, honestly. But if you seem able to catch the hang of it, it can be rewarding.
 
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angeliz2k

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I have a four-year time jump in an older WIP. If I were writing it now, I would do it differently. We end part 1 with two characters embarking on new (figurative) chapters in their lives. Then we go to "Part 2", with a date stamp of 4 years later. I more or less let that suffice to tell the reader a long time has passed (I don't say "four years had passed" or "four years later, Caroline was blah blah..."). We know where these two were (literally) going and what they were embarking on, and we don't have to totally reorient our reader, just catch them up a bit. I start with one character arriving at a new place to meet up with her husband. She's taking in the place and thinking of the last 4 years because of the anxiety of being back in close proximity to said husband. We meet her son. A few chapters later, we meet back up with the other character, who is coming home and experiencing some newly-dredged-up thoughts and emotions after seeing an old flame for the first time in years. We meet his daughter. Again, it's a bit clunky for my money, and if I were to rewrite, I would probably give more weight to those years than vague reminiscences. I may yet go back and write a novella or short story about those missing years.

I've had other, less noticeable time jumps. I have a man telling the story of his long-ago childhood, so there's the expected glossing over of years. And I have denouements that kind of glide over a space of months or years, since we're past the main action.

That's just my experience.
 

Kinsman

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Swallowfeather and Angeliz2k, Thanks for the added input.

Angeliz2k, I think you've hit on something for me. I sometimes read what I think I see, rather than what's actually written. I think this is what you intended, but if not then it still helped. :hooray: Rather than drag the reader forward regardless of how they receive it (in 3rd person limited or omniscient), it might work better for me to move the story forward and allow the MC (or other POV) to "recall the events" of the time period passed. This would allow the highlights to be covered but sparing the reader from the hum-drum of daily development while also (importantly) keeping it from feeling like an infodump. I'm sure I've seen that done but as a reader (before I had any intentions of trying to write) I would've just accepted it and moved on rather than actually noticing and filing it away as a technique for me to use. I read differently now.