Shannon Dittemore is the author of the Angel Eyes trilogy. She has an overactive imagination and a passion for truth. Her lifelong journey to combine the two is responsible for a stint at Portland Bible College, performances with local theater companies, and a love of all things literary. When she isn’t writing, she spends her days with her husband, Matt, imagining things unseen and chasing their two children around their home in Northern California. To connect with Shan, check out her website, FB, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest.
Did I tell you all I finished my book?! I did!
Last week, I turned my YA fantasy into my agent and now I wait. She’s a busy lady, my agent–lots of fantastic clients to service and she’s opening a new agency this month–so it could be some time before she gets back to me. And as I wait, I’ve been thinking about how tricky it can be to show the passing of time in our stories.
You know what I’m talking about, right? You’ve covered all the important stuff in a particular scene and you’re just trying to get your characters to the next important moment. Just trying to fill the space on the page until you’ve written enough that can you feel comfortable saying TIME HAS PASSED.
When we’re trying to get our characters from this important moment to that important moment, we can easily stumble into meaningless, not-moving-the-story-forward, wasting-the-readers’-time kind of writing.
Sometimes it’s a necessary part of the drafting process. Sometimes, as a writer, you don’t know what that next important moment is, so you have to write yourself there. But, during edits, you have to come back and address the drivel. You’ve got to tighten up the nonsense and succinctly, stylishly, get us from here to there.
The Harry Potter movies are awesome at this. They use stunning visuals to move us through the school year.
Think of the Whomping Willow in The Prisoner of Azkaban. To mark the changing seasons, the movie-makers use the willow tree.
Toward the beginning of the school year, we follow a little bird as it flies through the castle, out over the grounds. We watch as the green-leafed Whomping Willow curls a branch tightly and then lets it swing, vanishing the bird in a burst of feathers. A funny surprise and one that tells us a bit about the tree.
Later, to ensure the viewers move along with the story from fall to winter, a single autumn-colored leaf is zoomed in on and we watch as it drops slowly from the tree, lazily falling to the ground. And then a wide shot of the tree and the Whomping Willow shakes off all the remaining leaves in one almost dog-like move. A lot of beauty and a little humor using a very important element of the story–the Whomping Willow.
The snarky tree is used yet again to show the change from winter to spring. We’re shown the icy branches melting away and with another dog-shake the branches are suddenly free of winter.
One last focus on the tree, as the final scenes of the film are unfolding, shows us that we’ve moved into summer again. The willow is full and lush and another misguided bird flies toward it, only to meet the very same fate as the first bird we followed into its branches. Nearly a year has passed and we’ve passed with it.
Using a powerful story element–the Whomping Willow is practically a character in this story–to show the passing of time, is creative and kills lots of birds (ha!) with one stone.
But how do we do this on a smaller scale? When we’re not ready to leave a chapter or even insert a scene break, how do we move our characters and readers to the next important moment in just a few sentences. Take this example from the book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:
“What’s next, Divination?” Ron groaned. “How are we supposed to make it up to the old bat’s tower on time from down here in the dungeon?”
Hermione gasped. “Oh! I just remembered! I have to go get something. I’ll see you in class.” She hurried off, leaving Harry and Ron to stare at her retreating back. But she didn’t show up to class at all, and they didn’t see her for the rest of the afternoon. In fact, Hermione didn’t materialize until well into the evening, climbing through the portrait hole into the common room with an armload of books. “I found all these at the library,” she said breathlessly, dumping the books on the floor between Harry and Ron where they sat curled up in their favorite squashy armchairs.
In this scene, we leave the immediacy of Harry’s and Ron’s thoughts and actions and we zoom out. We have no idea how they spend the rest of the day, except to trust that nothing out of the ordinary happens except for Hermione’s absence. We zoom back in on the trio later that evening when Hermione returns and the important stuff begins again.
The passing of time is both important and full of inconsequential stuff and JK Rowling does a good job moving us through it in just two sentences.
Today, we’re going to do the same thing in our writing exercise.
Your goal is to get your character and the reader from this moment:
“You’re going,” her mom says, stalking away. “That’s all there is to it.”
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t put on that dress and those shoes and show up to the prom alone.
To this moment:
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Mark says, his bow-tie flashing under the lights. “I didn’t think you had the guts.”
And you have to do it in no more than three sentences. That’s right. THREE! You can do this!
Leave your response to the exercise in the comments section below and come back throughout the weekend to see how your fellow writers addressed the prompt.
And remember, if you participate in the writing exercise, you can use the Rafflecopter to enter our drawing. A winner will be selected next week and will have the opportunity to ask Jill, Steph and me a question for an upcoming episode of Go Teen Writers LIVE.
