How to Pass the Time in Fiction

How do you make hours, days, or weeks pass seamlessly when nothing of note happens during that time? Let's find out.

Unless you’re writing the next Ulysses, you’ll probably have to manage the passage of meaningless time in your novel; those wide swaths of minutes, days, weeks, or months when nothing notable happens, but you need to get your narrator from Here to There, and you want to do it so seamlessly that your reader goes along for the ride and doesn’t think twice about all the time you skipped.

It’s an oft-overlooked skill. When done well, you don’t notice it at all. Like good acting in your favorite movie.

So, how do writers do this? How do they account for meaningless minutes? How do they effortlessly skip over weekends or holidays without you noticing?

Let’s look at some examples.

In Pam Muñoz Ryan’s Echo, set in Nazi Germany, a young boy named Frederich learns that he must be sterilized under the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring. Frederich suffers from seizures and has a substantial birthmark on his face, both of which qualify as “genetically diseased.” (Even worse, he learns that his sister Elisabeth, a Nazi, wants to perform the surgery herself in “service to her country.”)

Chapter 12 ends with a conversation between Frederich and his father. Notice where Chapter 12 ends and Chapter 13 begins.

…

“Will … will I have to have that surgery?” asked Frederich.

“I already made an appointment with Dr. Braun. A week from Friday, we will discuss it. For our own safety, let us both promise that from now on …” Father put his thumb and forefinger on one corner of his mouth and pretended to zipper it. He smiled, closemouthed.

Frederich nodded. “I promise.”

But he doubted Father could keep his word.

~ 13 ~

Two Fridays later, Frederich waited at the factory gates after work, pacing in the cold October air.

See how easy that was? “Two Fridays later.” That’s it. About ten days passed between the chapters without blinking an eye. Will readers wonder what happened during those ten days? No.

That’s all well and good, but let’s say you want to make time pass within a scene, without a scene break or chapter break. Believe it or not, that’s pretty easy too.

Take a look at this excerpt from Lynne Kelly’s Song for a Whale.

I’d have in-school suspension for the next two days, starting right then. That meant I’d sit in one room all day, and my teachers would send my work there. Fine with me. Regular suspension would have been even better. At home I could fly through my schoolwork and then start on some radio repairs. That was probably why they didn’t do it—because they’d figured out it was too much like a vacation.

Then Ms. Shelton slipped in the worst part. “And you’ll have to apologize to Nina when you return to class.”

Maybe she’d forget about that.

By the end of the school day, I had a text from Mom. Get straight home after school. Of course Ms. Shelton had called to let her know of my sentencing.

Kelly made a day of school pass with one phrase. By the end of the school day. Easy-peasy.

Maybe you want time to pass because you want to bring a group of characters closer and/or move the plot a bit more quickly, but you don’t want (or need) to detail every activity and every conversation.

Here’s how Goldy Moldavsky does it in The Mary Shelley Club.

I’d found a pack of weirdos who liked the same things I did, and we shared a secret, which made every minute we spent together feel heightened—alive. We were doing something bad and it felt so good.

In fact, ever since the Mary Shelley Club had come into my life, I’d noticed I didn’t feel as anxious as I normally did. Memories from that terrible night on Long Island stopped storming into my mind unbidden. A club about fear was helping to rid me of mine.

All I wanted every day was leave the world of Manchester behind so I could hang out with the club, where we could shed our itchy wools and stiff button-downs to slip into our real clothes and be our real selves. …

The meetings were frequent, happening twice, sometimes three times, a week. The club had its own set of routines. …

Weeks have passed, just like that.

You may be thinking: But that Moldavsky excerpt is telling, not showing, and I thought we were supposed to show, show, show! Not always. Sometimes telling is the most effective way to propel your story forward. The trick is to know when to use it. You have to find that perfect balance. It’s not an easy trick to learn, but with practice, it becomes intuitive. But that’s a post for another day. :)

Happy writing, friends.