Transitions

[Garren Jacobsen]

So right now I am working on a second draft for my novel and one of the most common things I have noticed is that my chapter, scene, and POV transitions are a bit clunky. How have you all dealt with transitions to make them more smooth and natural.

 

[Trick]

I always do POV and chapter/section changes at the same time. It tends to help me and it varies the lengths of my chapters naturally, eliminating that clunky feeling. It also allows me to do cliffhangers when I want to, and those can be handy if not overused.

 

[Asura Levi]

In my case, whenever I had a transition of character in the same chapter I would leave some visible mark, a bigger space or ***

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I use the *** only when making jumps in time from one scene to another within a chapter. For POV shifts within the same scene, which I admittedly do not do terribly often, I simply slide from one POV to the next, making sure to clearly identify that we are now in the head of someone new. For example...

Jonathan leaned back a little, and Jeremy felt, more than heard, a creaking in his chest. A broken rib, maybe? It wouldn’t be the first time. His father fiddled with the clove cigarette, smoke still rising from the tip like a delicate white exclamation. “Between the sex, the drugs… the blatant stupidity… One lawsuit, one news story, and all I have built will be destroyed.” His father looked down at him, eyes dark with carefully controlled rage. “I am too close, now, to risk you destroying all with your antics. I have worked too hard, for too long...”

Jeremy narrowed his half-mad eyes. Close? “Close to what?”

Jonathan smiled, and it was humorless. “Oh, no, my boy. You’re not in a position to question me.” He tightened his grip on Jeremy’s hair and pressed the side of his face to the carpet. “All I want from you are promises, and apologies.” Jonathan took the little cigarette between his lips. The scent of burning cloves grew stronger as his breath coaxed the ember hotter and brighter. “And this time, you will mean every… single… word.”

Jeremy’s eyes widened with the first blossoming of true fear.

Aiden heard a scream as he touched the office door, and looked behind him to the cube farm. No heads popped up over the fabric walls in fear and curiosity, which was a good thing. Apparently, the boy had angered his father again. He waited patiently until the sound died away, and slipped quickly into the office, shutting the door quietly behind him before another scream escaped into the open behind him. No need to frighten the employees on a Friday. He stepped closer and watched Jonathan press the branding tip of a tiny cigarette into his son’s cheek. Jeremy let out another shriek and writhed in pain against his father’s hold, to no avail. Aiden waited for the noise to dissipate before he stepped closer and cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Jonathan?”

 

[Addison]

If a scene has a change in POV, Time or Place then the first sentence, or maybe three) lets the reader know. Sometimes it's plain and clear "October rolled in on the rain-heavy clouds." Other times it will be something like in a movie. Like Harry Potter 3, to show the transition they used the whomping willow (poor birdy ) It showed the changing seasons and each time, or most times, in the background there was just a brief spoken word to introduce the who and where. So if and when you enter a transition think about everything at the beginning of that scene that can help smooth it out.

 

[Penpilot]

It's always about putting the reader on sold ground. In chapter transitions, well, the fact that there's a chapter heading like Chapter 2, gives you a leg up, so all you're doing is setting the scene, letting the reader know where they are, when, etc.

Scene transitions, I usually use ***. It simple. After the *** It's again about setting the scene like the chapter transitions.

POV transtions within a scene, the simple way is to put an extra space between. But here IMHO you have to take extra care and try to make the paragraphs flow into one another more smoothly. Otherwise, it can be jarring. The way I look at it is like a movie camera. When you're in character A's POV, you're zoomed in. When you're about to transition into character B's POV you zoom out, then zoom back in. And again, take care to let the reader know clearly whose POV they are in.