How do I cover many years with little activity without it feeling rushed?
In a story that I am writing, due to some time travel issues, the protagonists will have to wait a number of years before the next stage of the story happens. Things that happen between then and now might be very boring (settlement building, general life).
For example, if Bob is stranded on an island, and in three years a ship will come to save him (which is the point of the story), how do I "skip" the potential story of him living on the island and surviving, without it seeming like I've cheated the reader out of content.
I don't know how to convey this without it seeming like I'm jumping around and rushing the story.
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You are writing a story, not a history. Were the characters of your story real people (which they are not) many things would happen to them in their day to day lives that are not in any way relevant to the story. Your story is not going to tell us how many times they went to the bathroom or brushed their teeth. It is going to focus on story relevant incidents.
This is just as much true on the large scale as it is on the small scale. Days, months, or years may sometimes pass without a single story relevant incident, and there is no more need to account for those day, months, or years than there is to account for the daily brushing of the teeth.
If a great deal of time has passed between one story relevant incident and another, you probably need to indicate this somehow, if only so the reader can age the character a little in their mind's eye. So say it and move on to the next story-relevant incident.
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Your example is kind of a bad one for this situation. If we did this, then, the movie like castaway would only be about 20 minutes long. Shows him being stranded, skip his surviving on the island, and then he is saved. You still want to designate time progression and time skipping without killing the important parts.
Make each chapter an event that happens. Start out with his struggles to do something basic like make fire, find a shelter, catch/find food. Next paragraph SHOW that time has progressed. Have it be him waking up the next morning and he scratches on the rock his next tally of dozens already there. He walks to the ocean to wash himself off. He notices he has a full facial beard in the reflection of the water. things like this designate that time has passed. Everyone knows a full beard does not grow in a day. After you do some time prepping like that, make the next event happen. Maybe this chapter he starts his first attempt to get off the island. Maybe a storm comes and ruins his last month's worth of foraging. End chapter, pick up or fast forward again. There are now hundreds of marks on the wall, he notices his hunting and tracking skills have significantly improved and then lead on to the next event of what ever you want to happen.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28971. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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