Thursday 27 February 2014

MOVING YOUR STORY FORWARD...

...AND BACK 
Image courtesy of Winnond/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Unless your story happens all in one day, it's inevitable that you'll be moving from one period of time to another. And, of course, you need to let your reader know that you have jumped forward - maybe only a day or two, maybe months or years.
How do you do this?
I think it's perfectly okay to write "Two days later..." or "Six weeks later..." or "The next month..." to indicate how far on the story has moved. But it's probably not a good idea to use the same phrases over and over again, all the way through.
Here's a list of possible alternatives I sometimes resort to. If you have some other ideas please add them to the list, or email me and I'll do it - let me know if you'd like your name and/or blog or website details added too.

PHRASES TO USE TO MOVE STORY FORWARD
  • A year passed. It was a happy one, punctuated by...
  • Day followed day, week followed week until...
  • It was a another week/month/year before...
  • Towards the end of that week/month/year
  • For almost 2/3/4 months... 
  • By the time summer/her birthday/Christmas had arrived...
  • During the days/weeks/months that followed
  • By June that year...
  • In the middle of November, three weeks later...
  • Over the next few months...
  • The weeks dragged on...
  • By the time...
  • She was glad when that particular day/week/month/year was over...
  • One Saturday in July they heard...
  • Once back at...she started to....
  • It wasn't long after...
  • Time dragged by until...
  • When they were home again...
  • It was a long summer... 
  • It didn't seem possible that a whole month/year had gone by since...
  • Nothing had changed since her last visit six months earlier...
...AND SOME WAYS TO MOVE BACKWARD
  • She could remember when...
  • She had only been nine or ten when...
  • That had been the year (some event occurred)
  • In her mind she was back at...
  • That had been before...had even thought of...
  • If she'd only known then...
  • The trees around the farm were taller...
  • She closed her eyes and was almost immediately back...
  • It had been a long time before...
  • The years fell away...
  • It had been during the Summer of...
  • It was strange to think her own grandmother had once stood here...
  • It was a smell/sound/tune that always made her think/reminded her...
  • She read through her diary of (year)...
  • She looked at the childish writing at the beginning of the book...
  • She picked up the photograph...

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