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Time intervals!



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Mon Mar 19, 2007 8:48 am
Shadow Knight says...



Does anyone have any good suggestions on how I could go about skipping ten years between two chapters, without actually stating that ten years have gone by?
For now I've described a character from the last chapter as having grown a considerable amount, but people seem to find this confusing...
Cause i'm a one man,
I'm a one man,
I'm a one man,
I'm a one man revolution.
  





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Mon Mar 19, 2007 10:09 am
Mad says...



I wouldnt know any ways that you could clearly identify that 10 years had passed but there are many ways that you could give a rough indication.

(I havent read your story, I will get around to it though :) ) But what you would need to do is take out some key moments that normally occur at certain parts of life and weave that in to the plot.


Say your character had a brother, mention a wedding x months ago. If it is from youth to adulthood there are many physical features that you could remark upon. Maybe you could mention a certain festival in the first chapter that only happens every 10 years and then set it around that festival 10 years later.

I think that the only way to do this, without using some sort of numerical thing e.g. He was now 15 or 10 summers had passed, would be to take some key event that could be recognized by the reader.

These are just my ideas, I hope they help.
  





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Thu Mar 22, 2007 3:04 am
snap says...



What about two characters talking about an event that happened 10 years ago, perhaps one that was mentioned in the previous chapter? Just an idea.
  





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Thu Mar 22, 2007 10:05 am
McMourning says...



You could say something like:

As the years went by, he grew more and more mature. Finally, at his twentieth birthday, others realized he was not the little boy he used to be.
"One voice can be stronger than a thousand voices, " Captain Kathryn Janeway
  





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Thu Mar 22, 2007 10:36 am
Shadow Knight says...



Too clichè for my liking... I get your idea, but I don't think it'll work for me, due to my style of writing.
Cause i'm a one man,
I'm a one man,
I'm a one man,
I'm a one man revolution.
  





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Thu Mar 22, 2007 11:17 am
Writersdomain says...



There are many different methods that work, but the one I prefer is mentioning that x amount of years have gone by within the first few paragraphs. Not necessarily first thing, but around the second paragraph, I usually have a character thinking about what happened and mention something like, "It had been ten years since _____"

Used this in my second book where there was an interval of 20 months and it worked pretty well. :wink:
~ WD
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Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:12 pm
Jules the jester says...



David gemmel is a master of time jumping. he usually has the speaker telling a younger person about something that happened a few years ago. he tells them a very brief outline of it then they get distracted by an attack and such like and teh next chapter you begin the story.

Hope that has helped
  





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Thu Mar 22, 2007 5:34 pm
Firestarter says...



Haha, this is so weird. I was just about to come into this topic and see read David Gemmell to see how to do it well without being explicit.

It's just weird that Jules had exactly the same thought. The best way is to be very subtle about it. The reader wants to know, but they like to work it out by themselves. It's simply an extension of show, don't tell. You don't say "Ten Years Later," you show how ten years have passed -- the age on the character's face, grey hair, kids, marriage, changes. Changes is the okay. Highlight how something is different.
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Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:14 pm
Shadow Knight says...



I have done so, but the people reading it have been telling me it's a bit confusing to have a sudden time jump... However, I do know one particular character that can talk to a younger character to emphasis how much time has passed. But there won't be any attack to interrupt. :P
Cause i'm a one man,
I'm a one man,
I'm a one man,
I'm a one man revolution.
  





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Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:07 am
Goldenheart says...



Why not end the previous chapter describing something. A house, a tree, or something like that. Then, in the beginning of the next chapter, describe it again, but using the things that are different about it. Like if a house was new and well cared for in the previous chapter, begin the next one by describing the same house, but talking of the peeling paint, the weeds in the flowerbed, the loosely banging shutters... just a suggestion! Feel free to ignore it, 'tis alright.

All the best, (And I hope it works out for you!)

Goldie
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Sun Apr 01, 2007 1:13 am
Prosithion says...



End one chapter, and throughout the next, give hints that ten years have passed, but don't come right out and say it. Write the part so that the reader concludes on their own that ten years have passed.
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