Story Time Skips
WWW #86 Time Skips
Have you ever read a book with a giant time skip in it? These can be useful if there is a gap in a plot where nothing happens but if that were the only way authors used it, I wouldn’t be talking about it today. Let’s explore some ways you should not be using time skips!
How a Story’s Time Skip Can Hurt
You might be thinking I am being dramatic, but I have a bone to pick with a few choices authors make with time skips. At best, a poorly placed one can be confusing; at worst, it can destroy your reader’s trust and make them give up on your book.
Time skips are important to mark the passage of time in your book. The beginning and end of these transitions need to be clearly outlined so readers can follow along. They are helpful if time has simply passed, to jump over repetitive training montages, to move to the beginning of a crux event, or to let time pass after something big has just transpired to give a clear look at the aftereffects. You can probably argue the benefits and cons of each but let’s see what can really damage your story.
Building up and Letting Down
An all too common (and probably the most destructive) time skip I see is when an author spends a lot of time building up to a pinnacle plot-point only to skip right past it. When a reader has put time into reading the book and has waited for this moment, this can be extremely frustrating. As the reader, I lose my trust with the author and ask myself, “What’s even the point?” “Will they skip something again?” “Have I wasted my time reading this?”
I won’t say which book, but I was reading a romance where the book built up to this couple rekindling their relationship. Here is how it played out:
They start to kiss.
The chapter ends and fades to black.
The next chapter starts with her in his bed. He is in the shower. They had apparently been dating secretly and hooking up for an indiscriminate amount of time. Has it been days? Weeks? Months?
She finds out a secret of his and they break up ASAP.
What was the point?! All within five pages! The entire book led up to the moment about them getting together and skipped the actual relationship part. I had to force myself to finish that one where they eventually got back together at the very end, but I couldn’t convince myself to care anymore.
Random Skips
A random skip can be perfectly fine! Time passes in real life and not everything happens in one day. But if you jump forward without letting your reader know, it can be very disorientating. I’ve read books where it’s suddenly a new season in the next chapter and I have to go back a few pages to make sure I didn’t miss anything or to see if my book was literally missing pages or not. As with any kind of transition, always make it clear!
Lots of Skips
If you are skipping around constantly or are trying to stretch out a story to lead up to a distant date, you might want to restructure it a little more or be very careful about how you lay it all out. This can be done well but I’ve seen some manuscripts where every new scene is a new day and a new place. Again, this can be fine! But ask yourself, am I organizing this in the most efficient way possible? If you have multiple scenes in one location but they all take place at different times and days, see if you could somehow combine them so they feel less repetitive.
Conclusion
I mostly wanted to vent about the book I just read. I’ve seen problematic time skips in both my clients’ work as well as in real life traditionally published books. Sometimes it is up to the discretion of the reader whether it works or not. Something can be done technically right with a smooth transition, but the bruised reader may hate it if they are looking forward to something. Keep this in mind because while everything you do might not land right, at least put in the work to analyze how a time skip could be jarring, if you are setting it up right, and if you are choosing to do it for an impactful reason. Make sure you are not just pushing the fast-forward button!