How to Use Time Transitions to Improve Your Story Flow

Oct 23, 2008 by Mervyn Love

Most stories we write take place over a period of time. That time may be very short – even a few minutes; or long – over several years or generations or anywhere in between. But whatever it is, the reader needs to have a clear sense of how time is moving throughout the narrative.

Place your characters in time by some reference to when the action is taking place. For instance:

‘Jemima sat up startled. Of course, now she understood. The whole problem started the day Sally came to live with her nearly three years ago. Now it all began to make sense…’

So although we don’t yet know in what year the current action is set, we do know that Sally and Jemima have lived together for three years and that the ‘problem’, whatever it is, has been brewing for that length of time. This simple time framework has set the story up.

If we want to give the reader a more accurate picture we could say, ‘The whole problem began just after VE Day nearly three years ago.’ Now the reader can pinpoint the era more precisely.

Naturally, if you wish, you can be very precise: ‘It was 9.15 in the morning on Tuesday 27th March 2004 that…’ But if you do that there really needs to be a reason behind such an accurate point in time, otherwise it’s bordering on the pedantic and serves no useful purpose.

If some time elapses between two scenes try to give the reader a feel for what length of time this is. If your character is catching a flight from Gatwick to Cyprus you could write something like:

‘Stephen boarded the FlyMeRight 747 at Stanstead with his head in a whirl. Melissa’s final words to him had hurt more than he wanted to admit, but as he booked in at the Beach Palace Hotel in Paphos four hours later, he had reached a place of acceptance that his decision to leave had been the right one.’

This highlights another aspect to bear in mind when transporting your readers from one scene to the next. If you want to slow or change the momentum then taking the story forward in time is a good place to do it.

On the other hand it may well be necessary to maintain the tension and carry it forward from one action point to the next. So instead of the above we could write:

‘Stephen boarded the FlyMeRight 747 at Stanstead with his head in a whirl. He was still trying to come to terms with Melissa’s scathing outburst as he booked into the Beach Palace Hotel in Paphos four hours later.’

This neatly covers the journey time and also maintains the tension of what he’s going to do now that Melissa has dumped him. (If that’s what she did!)

Talking about tension, some stories are driven by the need to complete a task before a certain time. Stories such as ’24′ or those nail shearing action pieces where the hero has to find and disconnect a time-bomb before it reduces Greater London to rubble (which he always does with only one second to go on the digital readout) are prime examples.

Your story doesn’t have to be as nerve shattering as that, it could be something a little more reasonable such as getting a newly engraved cup to a prize giving ceremony on time. Will she make it in time or won’t she? Yes, ordinary life situations can be exciting too!

So, aim to use time transitions to take the reader through the narrative smoothly and with a clear understanding of how time has passed throughout the story.

Mervyn Love offers advice, resources, competition listing, markets and much more on his website, WritersReign . Subscribe to his free Article Writing Course here.