Ask An Author: "How do you deal with transitions in your writing?"

Each week, a new author will serve as your Camp Counselor, answering your writing questions. Liz Coley, our second counselor, has been a member of the NaNoWriMo community since 2006. In 2013, her 2009 NaNo-novel, Pretty Girl-13 , was published by HarperCollins.

How do you deal with transitions in your writing? (Transitions from thoughts and memories to present events, small time lapses, abrupt changes without using the word “suddenly” 100 times in your novel, and so on.) — Anonymous

Hi Campers! I’m the first one awake at “camp” this morning as the family snoozes on. In fact, that’s usually the case on vacation, and it has led me to some wonderful, but solitary adventures. The most memorable was shelling on Sanibel Island as dawn broke, and I set off in bare feet…

I’ve just opened this post with a handy time-jumping technique.

There’s a specific detail about what’s happening now,
followed by a generality,
which pivots and leads us back in time to another specific.

The visual of dawn along the seashore anchors the recollection in “scene mode” (as opposed to “thought mode”) immediately. Did you notice the verb shift tense or did it slip stealthily under your radar?

If you are already writing in past tense, more distant past needs to be told in pluperfect—using had to set it firmly in place.

"Hidden under the sand, the clam shell nicked my finger and a drop of blood welled. I sucked it clean, thinking about Sven’s lips the summer before. He had assured me that spit was antiseptic as he kissed my wounds, and I had wanted to believe him." (Okay, that didn’t happen.)

Coming back again from the past requires another pivot device. The more mundane (and trite) version of that is kin to: “A loud crash woke her to the present.” A stealthier move is performing a movie-like zoom-out with a specific image detail that links past and present.

"Sven had always carried bandaid for emergencies, but there was no bandaid large enough for the bleeding hole in my heart. The pinpoint of blood on my finger was all that showed, and it tasted bitter."

I’m still working on my time lapse transitions, generally being as straightforward as possible.

"The days flew…"

"Next Tuesday arrived all too soon…"

"How can a month seem like a year…"

After that, a general lead-in sentence or phrase that moves to specifics re-anchors the time period.

"When you need to lose twenty pounds to fit into a prom dress, two months disappear like a single day. The three hundred dollar gown hung in my closet, unwearable, and Bob was already on his way to pick me up."

Tah-dah! Two months gone.

As for the word ‘suddenly’… I use the Find/Replace function to seek out and destroy most of my suddenlies. A short, abrupt, vivid sentence can convey the sense you want of interruption or unexpectedness.

Next week’s Camp Counselor is Heather Mackey, author of the upcoming middle-grade fantasy Dreamwood. Ask her your questions here!