Slowing and speeding up time can effectively enhance our stories, as my last post showed. It seems apt that this January post should discuss the mechanics of such manipulation. Just nine days ago felt like last year!
First, a confession. When I attempted my first novel, I wrote down everything my protagonist did, every hour of every day. How she woke up (oh, how I varied it—alarm clock! Rooster! Someone barging into her room!). Everything she ate (conflict—she didn’t cook!). You get the picture (oh how I overwrote, when the reader might have gotten the picture with only two examples!). But I had to start somewhere to get a sense of what it’s like to move through story in a world of your creation, and I did.
I’m not alone. In my work as a developmental editor I see a lot of clunky handling of time, so let’s look at some ways to bridge awkward time gaps that might be introduced once you pull all the non-crucial elements from your story.
Physically, a gap in time is represented by a gap on the page: a line break, chapter break, or section break (Part One, Book Two, etc.). But since every break in your novel is an opportunity for the reader to set down your book, you’ll want to take care with how you set it up. Let me show you how.
[Note paragraph break here, introducing a gap that might inspire you to set down this post. But I have raised a question, and if you want the answer to it, you’ll keep reading.]
Raise question, insert gap, woo reader
Bridging the gap involves raising a question to which the reader wants an answer, inserting the gap, and then wooing the reader back with a line as effective as the opening of your book. Think of this as a literal bridge, with tension suspending a path back into the story. Re-orient the reader as you hit new territory on the other side, so the reader knows where the characters now are in time and space.
Let’s look at examples from Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone, a novel that spans four decades and two continents.
The opening is devoted to the harrowing delivery of twin brothers at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia—131 pages of it. That is a long trip down the birth canal! The excessive word count—nearly one-sixth of the novel—shows us that the drama surrounding this birth is at the core of the story. The medically squeamish will be happy to hear that wound through the delivery story are threads that show the convergence of important characters and their backstories in a way that will set up the story’s seminal relationships.
After a prologue gets things humming, Verghese revisits how the mother, a nun, and the father, a psychologically disturbed yet brilliant surgeon, met and grew close. Backstory is an element that introduces a time gap, so let’s see how Verghese ramped back up to the current timeline:
For seven years Stone and Sister Mary Praise kept the same schedule. When he operated late into the night and into the morning, she was across from him, more constant than his own shadow, dutiful, competent, uncomplaining, and never absent. Until, that is, the day when my brother and I announced our presence in her womb and our unstoppable desire to trade the nourishment of the placenta for the succor of her breasts.
This time gap creates meaning: the only relevant thing the reader needs to know about those seven years was how Dr. Stone drew peace and strength from the ever-loyal presence of Sister Mary Praise.
By page 204, time has inched forward only six weeks. The headstone for Sister Mary Praise, who died in childbirth, has just been placed, but the story is about to pick up a little more forward momentum. Note the constant re-orientation to the timeline as the story now skips like a rock over the water of time, touching down only when something significant happens.
By twelve weeks, the twins had gained weight…
—two paragraphs later—
At five months, the boys had a riot of black curly hair…
—two pages later—
One very cold night when the twins were nine months old, and while the mamithus slept in their quarters, and when Matron had returned to hers, everything changed.
Part Three starts on p. 219 when the boys are toddlers. This isn’t stated outright, but we are clued in by phrases such as “…I beg to be carried. I want higher ground.”
We can imagine that they lose baby teeth and spill their drinks and ask “Why?” a thousand times—we don’t need to witness it, because that’s not what the story is about. Instead, the author ages the twins in ways that show how their lives are entwined. When a teacher finally notices a speech delay in one twin while the other is home sick in bed, we learn not only that they’re now old enough to be in school, but that one twin has been compensating for the other.
By chapter 25, the boys are 12 and political unrest has affected their family. Verghese offers us a couple of great examples of un-put-downable chapter bridges.
The end of Chapter 25 refers to Hema, the woman who has raised the boys:
She drank a glass of water that had passed through the purifier. She had just put the glass down when Almaz came running in. “Madam, don’t drink the water. They say the rebels poisoned the water supply.”
But it was too late because Hema felt her face burning red and then came the worst belly cramps of her life.
The opening of the next chapter refers to Ghosh, the father who raised them:
When Gebrew met us at the gate and said men had had come and snatched Ghosh from Missing, my childhood ended.
That chapter ends:
If this is what brave felt like—numb, dumb, with eyes that could see no farther than my bloody fingers, and a heart that raced and pined for the girl who hugged me—then I suppose I was brave.
And the next opens with high stakes begging whatever bravery our narrator can find:
Hanging seemed to be the fate of anyone who’d been close to General Mebratu. What spared Gosh thus far was that he was a citizen of India. That and the prayers of his family and his legion of friends. His imprisonment did more than suspend everything in my world; it took away any meaning life once had for me.
Adopt these mad skills and time gaps will no longer be scary voids into which your reader might fall. On the contrary, time gaps will keep your story humming, and the bridges you create will keep your reader oriented and engaged.
Are there techniques here that might be of use in your WIP? Have you ever struggled to maintain story tension over stretches of time? How have you handled it?
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About Kathryn Craft
Kathryn Craft (she/her) is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy. A freelance developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com since 2006, Kathryn also teaches in Drexel University’s MFA program and runs a year-long, small-group mentorship program, Your Novel Year. Learn more on Kathryn's website.
Kathryn, I always love your posts–practical, helpful, and clear. This is going in my bookmarks–great way to describe carrying readers along the story.
Thanks so much Tiffany! Thanks for reading. Wishing you all the best in 2020!
Thanks for showing us these techniques! I am trying something similar in my WIP: With the help of 4 short scenes I speed through my protagonist’s childhood, to show the reader the reason for his goals and yearnings. The scenes are meant as snapshots of his life before the main story starts. I try to do it without mentioning how much time has passed, but showing the protagonist getting older by the things he does, how he talks etc. In the last one I refer to him as “young man”, not “boy” anymore.
Later in the story, the plot moves through 14 consecutive days (but I do try not to spend too much time on things like sleeping and eating, although sometimes important things happen during lunch ;-)), then there is a gap of a couple of months, followed by another 5 days. In a short epilogue-like scene, another few months have passed.
Big thanks for reminding me to keep an eye on the “filler scenes” where nothing important happens – I probably still have a lot of these lurking around that need to be cut (which is good, as the word-count needs to go down anyway).
You’re welcome—I was editing out some filler from my own WIP when your comment rang in. It’s all a process, and revision is your chance to make your best decisions.
If the 14 days are the focus of your book, it remains to be seen if those “growing up” scenes belong in the opening, or as motivating backstory that you can fold through the events that are the true focus of the book. You know you’ve started too early if the question raised by your opening is the wrong one.
But as I said—it’s all a process. What works, works. Thanks for being here, J, and keep up the great work with your WIP!
Thanks, Kathryn. Yes, I have been thinking about these opening scenes. They are backstory, in a way, but by putting them together at the beginning, the reader (hopefully) starts caring about my (then still young) protagonist right away. It would be difficult to understand why my protagonist acts the way he does on day 1 without knowing his past. Plus the first scenes help the reader to get oriented in the world I created. – But I will stay open for (almost) everything. So far the few people that have read it liked the beginning. We will see. (I have already chopped off the original beginning of day 1, so who knows what will happen…)
As always, a wonderful lesson from a wonderful book. Thank you and a Happy New Year!
Thanks Vijaya, same to you!
Yep, facing this issue in my WIP, which involves an eight year gap, my MC going from heartbroken 16-year-old to brainy 24-year-old who is successful in life but whose heart has not moved on.
The trick is to make positives (conflict) out of negatives (inaction), that is, to make the time gap not empty but loaded, even a mystery. Why hasn’t he moved on? He is a mystery to his friends and even to himself.
I hope it’s working! Time will tell.
Ooh, intriguing solution, Benjamin! Now, of course, I too want to know why he hasn’t moved on.
I loved how you used portions of a novel to demonstrate your points. Seeing concrete examples of how an accomplished author handled something as tricky as creating gaps in time was eye opening for me. This post is timely for my WIP. I need to create some time gaps to cruise through a few years to get to the next major plot point. Through your post, I have a better understanding of how to do that now.
Your comment, “Note the constant re-orientation to the timeline as the story now skips like a rock over the water of time, touching down only when something significant happens,” is positively brilliant! I will think of that rock skipping over water each time I am attempt to make a temporal leap in my book.
Thanks for a great post, Kathryn!
Aw, this comment made me so happy, Sheree. Typing with a big smile on my face. Glad it can be of use to you!
I’ve found that time gaps are useful for slipping it bits of backstory. One of my characters is making a long drive back to his childhood home, for example. The reader knows where the character is, physically and emotionally, when the story starts. While driving, he reflects on the events that brought him there, as people will do when there’s little else to occupy their mind. By the time he gets home, the reader has the information needed to understand how and why he got into his present situation (which is not a good one) and is, I hope, intrigued enough to keep reading.
I agree that that can work, Christine, especially if before the gap you raise questions a) about what had happened to the character that made him/her act this way, and also b) left open a question about what will come next.
Hi Kathryn,
I loved the novel, CUTTING FOR STONE. A big complicated work that moves through decades. My novel moves through one season. I use phrases to indicate weather changes, and to increase the pace or tension and make sure the reader is with me, I’ll write: “At 0645 hours, the Singleton moving day,” or “David scanned the abode of the unemployed man—unpacked boxes, bare walls” or “The L&D staff always feared Labor Day weekend, worried things might get ugly..” to continually orient the reader. My novel is written from the POV of three different characters, their actions usually concurrent with the actions of others. Flushing out the past through memory (which I often reveal through dialogue or thoughts) helps fill in the the history of the story. It’s all challenging and I reread constantly to make sure my writing is clear and the reader eager to stay with me. As always, thanks.
Beth I love this: ” I reread constantly to make sure my writing is clear and the reader eager to stay with me.” That’s exactly what it takes.
I particularly liked how you embedded the time orientation within the context of story with that Labor Day example. But with all that concurrent action, you never once used “meanwhile, back at the ranch”? 🤣 #simplebuteffective
Thanks for showing us these techniques!
You’re welcome! Thanks for stopping in.
Thanks for this helpful and informative article, Kathryn. You give practical suggestions that all of us can keep in mind when we write our stories. I liked it so much that I plan to re-read it.
Thanks so much Catherine! I so appreciate your support.
Thank you, as always, for the pragmatic posts with concrete examples. It’s much appreciated, Kathryn.
BTW, is that a new cover for your book, or new just to me? Either way, it’s stunning.
You’re welcome Jan, thanks for reading. This is the original cover—I could not have been happier with it. And yet I just saw the cover connect for the audio book, which is intriguing in a whole different way. I’ve been quite lucky!
I can already tell that many of your comments on my WIP will address the seesaw of time. This post will help guide the revisions that will come!