What I mean is when writing a story and you want to advance it like 3 or 4 months ahead; need some advice on that and or your thought on whether its a good idea.
For example, i am writing a story where I want to advance it 3 months ahead so i wrote the chapter that basically gives a rundown of what happened in those 3 months on emotions, sexual desires, where the relationship is head, etc. not much dialog and I like dialog lol. What are your thoughts on that? do people generally enjoy reading such chapters, etc?
Thanks
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Thoughts and help on jumping a story ahead
Exposition always has to be used with care. Are there events that happen in those three months that are important to the story? If so, you should be writing them out, not just glossing over them in an expository chapter. If not, may not be worth even including them. Just reference them in dialogue or someone's thoughts/reflections once you start the three months later. The only time I could see doing that is if they act as a bridge without being all that significant in themselves. And even then, you need to make them somehow interesting or people's eyes will glaze over. Maybe there's a story there that expands on, without advancing, the main story or something. IOW, you need to make it worth reading and not just a thousand or whatever words of "telling". Remember "show me, don't tell me" is considered a rule of storytelling for a reason.
And welcome to Lush! Always nice to hear from a new writer.
And welcome to Lush! Always nice to hear from a new writer.
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What seeker said pretty much.
You have a few options really.
Skip the 3 months with "Three months later..." where you could reference any important bits with reflective dialogue.
A short summary, but I wouldn't spend a whole chapter on "Over the next three months, our relationship carried on improving/collapsing and our sex life got better/worse." I suppose it depends how long your chapters are, but 2500+ words of nothing won't entice people generally.
Or
Go into detail, what about your relationship improved/collapsed, what were the obvious signs and actions.
What ways did our sex life improve (chance for a detailed sex scene, maybe). Or what ways did our sex life get worse with talk of missed chances and rebuffs.
Either way for both the sex and the relationship, how did it make you feel, what emotions did it stir up and what did it make you think of doing. EG in a cheating story, it could be looking at others where she works, nights out, etc.
I love dialogue too, but don't be afraid to not use it. I know some of the stuff I write, I get twitchy if I've written a whole load of narrative and not a lot of dialogue.
DO NOT make it a laundry list. That will just be boring.
Also make sure your timing is clear to you so later you are not referencing something that happened in the 3 months that no one knows of, without being ready for a character to explain it.
And yes welcome to the forum.
You have a few options really.
Skip the 3 months with "Three months later..." where you could reference any important bits with reflective dialogue.
A short summary, but I wouldn't spend a whole chapter on "Over the next three months, our relationship carried on improving/collapsing and our sex life got better/worse." I suppose it depends how long your chapters are, but 2500+ words of nothing won't entice people generally.
Or
Go into detail, what about your relationship improved/collapsed, what were the obvious signs and actions.
What ways did our sex life improve (chance for a detailed sex scene, maybe). Or what ways did our sex life get worse with talk of missed chances and rebuffs.
Either way for both the sex and the relationship, how did it make you feel, what emotions did it stir up and what did it make you think of doing. EG in a cheating story, it could be looking at others where she works, nights out, etc.
I love dialogue too, but don't be afraid to not use it. I know some of the stuff I write, I get twitchy if I've written a whole load of narrative and not a lot of dialogue.
DO NOT make it a laundry list. That will just be boring.
Also make sure your timing is clear to you so later you are not referencing something that happened in the 3 months that no one knows of, without being ready for a character to explain it.
And yes welcome to the forum.
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Quote by BlackGrlLuvsWhite
What I mean is when writing a story and you want to advance it like 3 or 4 months ahead; need some advice on that and or your thought on whether its a good idea.
Well, you can always try what I recently did.
Had the main character's car hit by a truck, putting him into a coma for over 6 weeks.
But in general, I tend to just do it I guess. If nothing of importance happens, just jump forward to the next time something does happen. In total, I jumped almost a year of that story because going on and on about the rehabilitation and time in the hospital would have been largely dull.
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