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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/47655
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/47655
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

This question is about hiding from the reader the fact that I am skipping some steps. Worse, perhaps, I don't want to show them, and I may have no clue or intention of figuring out how these steps should go: I simply want to go from scene A to scene B, jumping over how that could possibly happen.

Some examples, to give a reference:

1. 

> **Scene A** : Bob meets Charlie on a chatroom. They are both using some random usernames.
> 
> **Scene B** : Despite not having given him any personal information, Bob surprises Charlie by knocking at his door.

How did Bob figure out it was Charlie? And how did he find the address?

2. 

> **Scene A** : Mary is tied up by the robbers who invaded her home.
> 
> **Scene B** : Mary is running outside while calling the police from her mobile phone.

How did she free herself without the robbers noticing? And where did she get the phone from?

3. 

> **Scene A** : Axel and Susan are stuck in the cabin under a snowfall so heavy that the door is blocked under the snow.
> 
> **Scene B** : Susan is crossing the frozen lake by foot.

How did she get out of the chalet, across a wall of snow?

These are scene jumps that serve the plot, but they may not reflect anything reasonable in terms of physics or logic. The obvious solution would be to edit the text to give the reader a hint of how the feat was achieved, or how it could be possible. This is not what I am looking for.

I am instead interested in pushing the suspension of disbelief, and would like to find a writing device such that the reader will not notice the jump while reading.

At first I thought that if the stakes are high enough one may just read through to see how it is going to end. However, at my first attempt the high stakes resulted in a higher bar for consequentiality and my two beta readers spotted that it was not clear how Bob managed to get to Charlie's hideout.

I wonder if it is an issue of POV. Perhaps focusing on one character during one scene, and on the other in the other scene can ease the transition. Or should I simply foreshadow it, e.g. " 'On the internet no one knows where you truly are.' thought Charlie. ". I may be wrong, but this sounds like an unrealistic gimmick to me: who is taking their time to think that while chatting online?

The question thus remains: how to smoothly fool a wide audience to such an extent that they would not notice an unexplainable step occurring between scenes?

Original score: 23