Moving From One Moment to Another

In the book, Princess of Thorns, the author, Stacey Jay, is trying to get her heroine from one room of the castle–where a lot of action has just taken place–to another room of the castle where even more action will move the story forward. To do that, she uses a beautifully executed transition. I’m going to share part of it here and I want you to pay attention. There are things she shows the reader and things she doesn’t show the reader. Both are equally important.

The golden hall leading to the throne room is even more magnificent than I remember. Floor-to-ceiling windows as tall as Gettel’s cottage line the walls, granting an unparalleled view of the city . . . I imagine the streets filled with laughing people. I imagine pleasure ships floating in a peaceful sea, waiting to take the adventurous out for a swim with the giant turtles. I imagine so hard that, for a moment, I swear I hear music–fairy pipes and fiddles calling all to dance–but then we arrive at the throne room and my paper-thin imaginings are burned away by the reality of a bonfire lit before an ogre altar and a scaffold of pale wood against the wall behind.

Gorgeous, right? Here’s what I love about it. The author doesn’t give the reader a play-by-play of the walk down the hall. We don’t see every footstep or know how long the journey is, but we understand that time passes. She SHOWS the clock ticking away by letting some time pass for the reader and when we arrive in the throne room, we do so comfortably ensconced inside the head of our character. 

But, the brilliance of this kind of writing is that the author doesn’t waste any words. There are many things the character could be thinking about, but this transitional moment is used to color the fictional world more fully. The author is world building while her character is walking. And it’s a lovely way to kill two birds with one stone.

I’ll give you another one. This excerpt is from my first book, Angel Eyes.

The cold air stings my face, but today I ignore it. I get lost in the quest for a great shot, and each time I think I’ve snapped one, I remember Jake’s earlier compliment and press on looking for another.

I have so many great shots to make up for. Rolls and rolls of them actually. Silly pictures of our adventures in the city. Of the life I sabotaged with negligence. I don’t let my mind wander too far down that path. When I do, my hands shake and photography becomes impossible. I allow tears only once, and quickly regret it. It takes forty-five minutes to regain my composure.

By midmorning I reach the creek. The shick-shick of my camera’s shutter sends a sparrow flying through the branches of a great red oak. Shouldn’t he have flown south by now?

This is just a small excerpt, but my goal here is to get my character far enough away from her home that an injury (spoiler, sorry) would be problematic. I do that by letting her mind wander and letting the reader see that. Like Stacey Jay, I didn’t want to waste my words, so I used these paragraphs to highlight the tragedy my lead is struggling with. It’s not world building, but this transitional moment is serving more than one purpose. 

And I think that’s the magic of staying with your character through transitions. Sometimes, we need to just get on with it. End the chapter, magically appear in another place. But sometimes it serves the story to get creative.