Skipping time in a novel?

[Bearman1]

Hello!

I am currently trying to plan out the second half of my WIP but I have come across a problem.

I'm trying to portray a world that is being ravaged by war. My problem here is that the first half of the novel takes place at the very outbreak of the war, so the land and the people are actually not ravaged at all. They are very energetic and they have a lot of resources ready for fuelling their armies.

What I want to do is skip time and move ahead 2 years, where the people and the countries are now really struggling to cope. So my question is this:

Has anyone else here jumped a few years down the line in their stories? If so, what were the benefits and drawbacks of doing so?

P.S Another problem I have with this doing this is that my WIP is very much a character driven story. Do you think jumping ahead 2 years would undermine their development?

Thanks!

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

A lot can happen in two years - especially in people's lives. Just ask yourself - what were the big issues in your life two years ago?And are they still the big issues now?

I think with this sort of time period elapsing, you need to make a formal break in your work - either a new book / sequel or at least a new part as in part I part II.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Waz]

Bearman1, jumping ahead can work quite well, and it's a great effect ending at a tragic moment and then seeing the tired and weary survivors later. I'm trying to think of a book that does it right now, but the game The Last of Us comes to mind. If you haven't played it, just watch the first 15 minutes of a walkthrough video.

It definitely does not undermine character development. Instead of seeing slow change, we witness the stark contrast in the characters after a difficult period of time.

 

[Bearman1]

Waz, The Last of Us is great reference, it's almost exactly the kind of thing I am going for.

I also like your advice Psychotick about having a formal break for the time lapse. The novel does follow 2 MC so I think I could work through the time period by focusing solely on 1 character and then moving back to the other after a long time gap and seeing how the world has changed around him.

Thanks!

 

[Steerpike]

I'm reading Among Others, by Jo Walton, which jumps from 1974 to 1979 very quickly, early in the book. Also, as I recall Susan Vreeland's Girl In Hyacinth Blue jumps time from chapter to chapter, going from modern times back to the 17th century over the course of the novel. As with so much in writing, it comes down to handling the writing well. The reader isn't going to care about time transitions if you do a good job writing your story.

 

[Svrtnsse]

My story is on a completely different time scale. It all takes place over a total of five days and I'm telling most of it from the character's perspective at a rather high level of detail. However, on a few occasions I do skip forward in time without retelling in detail what's happening throughout the entire time.

The way I do this is by switching from deep point of view to very distant narration. I switched from a very detailed description of what's going on to a very summary one. Events that take place over perhaps 20 minutes take up two chapters in the book, and then the entire rest of the afternoon goes by in two paragraphs.

Let's say I'd want to apply this technique to skip from the start of the war to the end of it. Maybe it'd be something like this:

Mark kissed his wife goodbye and with the taste of her lips on his tongue ha marched out oh the village, the sun on his back, the wind in his hair and the rifle on his back. He'd do his duty. He'd fight for justice and freedom, for his homeland, and for the love of his life.

War came, and death with it. Lands burned, friends disappeared and the world changed - forever. Five years, hundreds of battles, and countless tears later, Mark returned to the pile of rubble that had once been his home.

This is a quick and dirty example, but I hope it illustrates the point.