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Q&A How do I cover many years with little activity without it feeling rushed?

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 islan...

posted 7y ago by ggiaquin16‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:42:05Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28971
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar ggiaquin16‭ · 2019-12-08T06:42:05Z (almost 5 years ago)
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.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-06-28T18:37:06Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 7