Do long jumps in time kill pace?

[scribbledoutname]

One of my current masterpieces in the making (hehe) is set over an entire summer holiday. It's one of those teen-discovers-magic-that-adults-have-no-clue-exists stories. I'd like it to be fast-paced, so I've made sure to skip from one incident to another and summarize the gaps between.

What I'm wondering is whether long jumps in time diffuse tension. My MC has a goal, which is to convince a group of magic users (in the village that she's staying at) that she's worthy of being one of them, but there are also other issues caused by the characters she meets and their goals (including the spiteful and slightly psychotic main antagonist). I skip from one problem to another and link most of the problems into my MC's main goal, but I can't help feeling that the time jumps -- even when they're summarized in just a few lines -- kill momentum.

Problems get worse, antagonists get more serious and the stakes increase (my MC needs her magic to ensure that her new -- and magically weak -- best friend doesn't get killed for pissing off the antagonist while trying to help), but there are weeks between each incident. At least, until the third Act, where all the dominoes fall during the course of one day.

Would you say I'm giving scene-to-scene momentum a bit too much importance here? Or are clear stakes and strong conflict within each scene all that really matters?

Maybe I'm underestimating readers' attention span by assuming that they'll drop out of a story unless they're dragged through it... :S

[WillSauger]

The timing could be a problem.

To think that things get worse, every couple weeks isn't much for development.


The question I have is: Why wait so long? Just line everything up.

Also, you need to connect the events together, and when you do this, each event occurs simultaneously.

[BigWords]

I've read a few "exciting moment of the week" novels, and they seem to feel more like proposed television series or something, rather than fleshed out works in their own right. It may help if you read how similar novels handle the situation, then apply what you have learned from those into your own writing.

[scribbledoutname]

I'd like it to last the entire summer. I want to create that sort of "holiday" feeling. You know when you go somewhere for a holiday and then you come back feeling it was awesome -- that kind of feeling. A bit like going to Narnia and returning, except the story's still in the real world, just where no one can see it.

I'm thinking more about the experience of reading the story itself than having some kind of super adventurous plot.

[Michael Davis]

My view for what its worth, depends on how you notify the reader of the jump. I prefer indirect vs actually dating the chapter. For example in my third novel BLIND CONSENT I used an eight year old 1974 Pinto to let the reader date the first chapter was establishing background from two decades ago. Book got four five star reviews and won the Rose award for 2009 so reviewers didn't have a problem with it. Course that's JMO, others may disagree.

[BBBurke]

If nothing of importance happens between the scenes, I don't think it matters how much time has passed. You just need to make sure that the time frame is spelled out in what you do write (so the readers can understand the passage of time). Make sure when you start a new chapter you give some reference to how much time has passed since the last.

And avoid creating a pattern if you're not going to stick with it. If all the chapters follow a two week break, and then you suddenly only take two day breaks, it will throw people off.

[RichardGarfinkle]

A long time jump can actually be used for good effect. You can, for example, have an event start at the beginning of the time jump and end at the end. Changes that happened during the jump get filled in as you need. The change is made very visible to the reader, and can be used by the writer to either hide or convey information.

[benbenberi]

Long gaps in time don't necessarily have to kill dramatic tension, as long as you keep the reader's attention focused on the incidents, not the time between, and so long as there *is* a strong forward thrust to the narrative, not just a series of this happened, then that happened, then something else happened.

Many authors have used the kind of structure you describe very successfully. (Frex, each Harry Potter book occurs over the course of a full school year, but we usually skip the long boring in-between bits that don't advance the story. Most books that are framed on an externally imposed timeline like this have to do much the same.)

[areteus]

A good book to look at here may be Gaiman's the Graveyard book. There you actually have what amount to several short stories spread over the life of the MC (from very young to teenager). Each one is a self contained narrative but also part of a longer story and there are gaps in time between them. Yours sounds like that but on a smaller scale. So maybe you need to structure it as a series of shorts, each short forming a chapter, and recap at the beginning of each chapter what has happened in the interim. So long as each chapter has a climax and closure to its own story and you link them together (with maybe a lead in to what needs to be done next) and, presumably, have a massive climax in the end which ties it all together then you should not have a problem with this structure.

[sciencewarrior]

I think it may be better to have fewer, larger jumps, than one little jump after each major scene. Jumping one week or one month doesn't make that much difference for the reader.

It also helps giving a reason why the characters have to wait. "We only acknowledge new members during the solstice", or "I have to wait for the black lotuses to bloom before I can brew my evil potion." In Mistborn, the time jump is justified by having to recruit, train, and equip an entire army.

[lorna_w]

No, it's fine to jump. "By the time of the next full moon, MC was ready for the first trial of the Elders." Readers are more bored with a blow-by-blow of that month than with a half a sentence making the jump. Jumps can even be made by titling chapters: Full moon. First quarter. Half Moon. or whatever.

I think it's a grand goal that readers not be able to put down a book. For this reason, consider carefully ending a chapter with a time transition, because that is where a reader may say, "ah, time to take out the garbage/go to sleep," and you don't really want them putting your book down, yes? You want it to be so exciting they drag it into the loo with them, read one handed while stirring the soup on the stove or tossing the ball for the dog.

So if a chapter end is where the time transition must occur, consider ending the chapter with MC stating a goal and/or reiterating the stakes: "By the next full moon, he had to be ready. Or else." End chapter. This is not where a reader would put it down because he just got reminded of the stakes, which are really high, right? Turn page, "The sun sank, casting pink fingers across the sky and, in the east, the full moon crested the eastern hills. MC shivered/did something interesting/tension is immediately restarted by a group of ominous shadows, the Testers dressed in black hoods, moving toward him." We the reader see the time has passed, it was painless for us, and we never got bored.

HTH