Mini-transitions

[Incanus]

Great. This thread is turning out even better than I had hoped.

Connective tissue--there's an appropriate phrase. Too little of that would be bothersome to me as well, though I imagine different readers have different thresholds about this--and other things as well.

In a few instances, I was able to flow from one section to the next. In other spots, I used the three asterisk break. But in altogether too many places there's that soggy tell-y stuff. Those are the problem.

I can leave a few of them, but what I need are more of those 'content' types of transitions Nimue brought up, as well as things like Caged Maiden suggested.

Creative thinking and hard work ought to get me closer to something I can live with.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Caged Maiden and Nimue are dead right here Bridge the gap using not only the passage of time, but content. For example...if I was writing something about a traveling party camping, instead of saying...

"That night..."

I could say,

"Storm coming," Vlr'aklr'glrad (lol) grunted. "We're in for a miserable night,"
But the rain held off through the night; there were only clouds churning and rumbling restlessly, punctuated by dull trembles of thunder...

See? It's not a great example but it illustrates what I'm trying to do. The bit about the storm bridges the time gap.

 

[Incanus]

Agreed, Aerie-Dragon. I believe this kind of 'content-bridge', when done well, should blend things together seamlessly. With the right flow, I bet most readers wouldn't even know they had just read a transition.

So, of course, it's no wonder my story has a bunch of cheap tells during the part I'd been working on--they take much less work and thought! Time to target them and dress them up nice.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Agreed, Aerie-Dragon. I believe this kind of 'content-bridge', when done well, should blend things together seamlessly. With the right flow, I bet most readers wouldn't even know they had just read a transition.

So, of course, it's no wonder my story has a bunch of cheap tells during the part I'd been working on--they take much less work and thought! Time to target them and dress them up nice.

Aerie-Dragon? That's a new one...

 

[Incanus]

Aerie-Dragon? That's a new one...

Oh, good. I endeavor to communicate with some originality, at least a little.

 

[spectre]

I've heard it's best to start in the middle of some action, so what I've been trying to do is change this:

---
The next morning, they packed up camp, ate a quick breakfast, and started again before the sun was up. After a few miles of hiking, the long previous day began to catch up with them.
"The doctor's gonna take both my feet next time I get a checkup," Toma said between heavy breaths.
---

To this:

---
"The doctor's gonna take both my feet next time I get a checkup," Toma said between heavy breaths.
They had packed up camp, had a quick breakfast, and started again before the sun was up. After a few miles of hiking, the long previous day was starting to catch up with them.
---

It's a crappy example, but you get the idea. I think pushing the "catch-up" a few lines down adds interest to the transitions. I have a bunch of them too.

i like the change. it's stalled to forestalled, much better

Sent from my Alcatel_4060O using Tapatalk

 

[Incanus]

^^Yes, I used this 'forestalling' method at least once or twice as well. Definitely handy.

So I just began editing the four chapters that have these transition problems last night. I read through the first two chapters and only found a couple of instances, and only one that really bothered me. So it may not be quite as bad as I thought it was. Or, it's as bad, but not as frequent.

I should be able to just do a (more or less) standard editing pass on this stuff, and see how that goes over.

But I thank everyone here for the helpful discussion on this topic. Good times.