Writing Transitions

Storytelling to entertain means skipping the boring parts. Why narrate the time it takes a character to travel from one point to another or to dress or eat or perform other mundane activities? The reader wants meaningful action and gradually increasing conflict. By plotting the story so one event causes another and so on, we choose what happens and the order in which events happen.

There will be gaps in time and changes in setting and point of view from scene to scene, chapter to chapter. Authors signal scene changes by placing blank lines and a symbol, such as ###. We mark chapter breaks with a new page and chapter number or chapter name. Beyond these clues, we can craft transitions to smoothly transport the reader to the new time, place, and point of view.

Like shifting gears, transitions between scenes and chapters need to feel natural and not draw attention to themselves. Call it passing the baton or creating a bridge, transitions relate one thing to another in a logical path. Let’s examine different kinds of transitions.

Emotional Bridge

Move from one setting to another through the consciousness of the point of view character using an emotion (expectation, anxiety, fear). Make the transition quick like a movie cut. If the emotion that bridges the scene or chapter break includes a reversal, or irony, all the better to surprise the reader.

In The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, famous American Cryptologist Robert Langdon is in Paris when he is called by the police to the Louvre. At the end of the scene, he learns his friend wrote a message in his own blood as he died.

The final line hit Langdon like a kick in the gut.

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O, Draconian devil!

Oh, lame saint!

P.S. Find Robert Langdon.

For several seconds, Langdon stared in wonder at the photograph of Sauniere’s postscript. P.S. Find Robert Langdon. He felt as if the floor were tilting beneath his feet.

Place Shift

To take the reader to a different place, we cue the reader with phrases such as “meanwhile back at the ranch” or “a few miles down the road.” We skip the uneventful travel between point A and point B.

Number Shift

This scene transition deals with quantity rather than chronology. It is used to stack specifics of fact or narrative with transitional words such as: and, besides, and then, again, in addition, furthermore, likewise, first, second, third, last. Some words show cause and effect: because, consequently, therefore. Some words emphasize: indeed, clearly. Some words summarize: finally, in short, in conclusion, in summary.

Viewpoint Shift

Very useful when presenting the pro/con approach to a topic or event. In romance novels the chapters tend to alternate between the two main characters’ viewpoints. Seeing the same event from different perspectives offers wonderful possibilities for misunderstanding and conflict.

Examples: opponents say, yet, but, it may not be, indeed, another consideration, and on the other hand

Information Shift

Repetition. Using parallel structure in repeated phrases or words. Starting each paragraph in a section with the same phrase or name and then portraying the information or character of the person in the paragraph to build a complex, unified image. Can also pass the baton from scene to scene with a phrase used in one and repeated in the next.

Bill stared wistfully out the window. “I wonder what Andrea is doing now?”

“What am I doing?” In the parking garage, Andrea rested her forehead on the steering wheel.

Slide Shift

Order the information so the item you mention last can be at the start of the next scene or chapter, even though the next one heads in a different direction.

The planning commission determined they must identify hazards before they occur and prevent them. The Wilson Bridge is an example of that.

 

The 50-year-old Wilson Bridge spanned the Ohio River between Wheaton and Mayville. As a main thoroughfare for hundreds of daily commuters, the bridge was built before weight limits were mandated by state law.

Radical Shift

Usually separated by an empty space between scenes, this is a stop-and-turn change of direction. This is used in montage with images that by placing two dissimilar images together the viewer or reader will make a connection.

In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,  Indiana Jones and his father have been captured and are held in a castle in Germany. Their captor discovers that a diary with information about the location of the Holy Grail is being transported by Brody, a museum director. Indiana tells the captor he’ll never catch Brody because Brody is a master of disguise who speaks many languages. The scene cuts to Brody wandering a village trying to get someone to help him with directions. Brody’s ineptness hilariously contrasts Indiana’s description and Brody is easily captured.

Imagery Shift

Employ the language of your main character or the topic so the transitional figure of speech suits the text.

The electrician watched his wife’s reaction as if observing showering sparks from a downed powerline. His instincts told him to run.

 

The electrician escaped his wife’s high-voltage fury, and he didn’t stop running until he reached the safety of the neighborhood bar.

Time Shift

Moving forward in time is smoother than dropping backward, but these words are used to indicate a time shift: later, earlier, now, then, after, before, in a few days, some years ago, the following spring.

In Naked Heat, by Richard Castle, an author named Jameson Rook is shadowing a homicide detective. A criminal biker has a shootout with police and tries to escape.

The biker looked over his shoulder at them, and when he turned back, he was smirking. That was the expression Rook would always remember, right before he swung the laundry bag into the dude and knocked him clear off his hog and right onto the pavement.

 

A half hour later, the biker was in the jail ward of Bellevue Hospital, nursing a concussion. He was a true badass, not just the AR man but probably the leader, and wouldn’t break so easily.

Flashbacks

To avoid the use of the word “had” in the transition to a flashback, use the straight past tense instead. For example, instead of saying “Bill had been remembering” say “Bill remembered.” Follow the statement as if starting a new scene. Anchor the reader in time and place quickly through the point of view character’s observations, feelings, or actions. We know we are about to visit the past from wording like the following.

My fondness for archery goes back to my childhood. Every summer, we would…

Movies demonstrate these and other methods of transitions worth trying. Do you have a favorite example of a transition from literature or movies?