Your story doesn’t have to tell everything. With time skips, you can move the story forward without showing every moment in between. But how do you add time skips while preventing time-related errors in a work of fiction? In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about time skips, including when you should and shouldn’t add one.
Why Add Time Skips In Your Story?
Adding time skips to your story, as we mentioned earlier, allows you to jump ahead to the next important moment. But why should you even consider adding one? Here are several reasons:
- Show character development: Jump ahead to reveal how your character has changed over time.
- Show major changes: Reveal how relationships, settings, or entire societies have evolved.
- Improve pacing: Skip events that are insignificant to the story and characters, and essentially focus on moving the story forward.
- Focus on the aftermath: Show the consequences of a major event instead of depicting the event itself.
- Build suspense: Skip past an important moment and reveal what happened through its later consequences.
Tip: A time skip is different from a flashback. A flashback takes the story back to an earlier point in time, often added to provide context or explain a protagonist’s past. On the other hand, a time skip moves the story forward to a later point in time.
When Should You Add a Time Skip?
You can add a time skip when moving through time to help you focus on the story’s most important moments. Here are some situations where a time skip can work:
- Nothing important happens during the gap: If your characters spend six months living normally, don’t show all those months.
- Your characters need time to change: A time skip can show growth without documenting everything. Your character might return with new skills, beliefs, or relationships.
- Your world needs to change: A jump forward can reveal how a setting has evolved. This works amazingly well after wars, political shifts, or disasters.
- Your pacing starts to drag: If the story is slowing down, skipping ahead can maintain momentum and avoid scenes that repeat information.
- The aftermath matters: Some events become more powerful when you see their consequences first. So, skip the event and reveal what happened through its impact on your characters.
- You want to create suspense or tension: This can make your readers wonder what happened. When you return to the story, you can reveal the answer through dialogue, for example.
When Shouldn’t You Add a Time Skip?
Now, don’t fast-forward a story if there are events critical to the plot. Remember, the purpose of a time skip is to cut unnecessary events, not to hide essential parts of your story.
You should avoid a time skip when:
- A major plot event occurs during the gap: if the event changes a significant part of your story or your characters, a time skip could leave your readers confused.
- Your character’s development needs to be explained: If readers need to experience the struggle of a major change, jumping ahead can make that development feel unearned.
- The skip removes important emotional moments: Your characters may need to process their feelings. Skipping those moments can weaken their emotional arcs.
- Readers will lose track of the story: A large jump can introduce new characters, settings, conflicts, and new relationships. If readers can’t quickly understand what changed, the transition isn’t complete.
- You are avoiding difficult scenes: A time skip should improve the narrative, not help you avoid writing an important moment.
- You use them too frequently: Constantly jumping forward can make your story feel too fragmented. That can leave readers unsure which moments deserve their attention.
How to Write a Time Skip?
Once you know why your story needs a time skip, you have to figure out how much time should pass. Remember, the bigger the gap, the more context your readers will need.
Step 1. Pick the Right Time Skip
Choose a time skip based on what happens during the gap and what your readers actually need to see. A short gap may only require a scene break, while a longer gap can change your characters, setting, or plot significantly.
Short Time Skips
These gaps are usually a few hours or days and work nicely between scenes or chapters. You don’t need to explain it much, as the transition can often indicate that time has passed.
Medium Time Skips
Use this when you want to skip a few weeks or months. Consider what is realistically different in that timeframe: relationship goals, routines, or circumstances.
Long Time Skips
Long time skips are used when years, or even decades, pass without enough significant events to warrant a full timeline. Think about how your characters, relationships, setting, and central conflict can change before picking one.
Step 2. Write the Time Skip
Make the transition clear, but don’t bog the story down. These techniques below help readers track what has changed while keeping the narrative moving.
Include Clear Markers
Let the reader know, at least a little, that a time skip is coming or has already occurred. You can begin a new chapter, a scene break, a date, or a season.
Show, Don’t Tell
You can show the passage of time through changes your readers can picture rather than simply telling them how much time has passed. These details can also reveal how your characters, relationships, or surroundings have changed during the time skip. And yes, showing is better than telling.
Quickly Ground the Readers
Give readers enough information and context to understand where the story is at. You can do this with dialogue, setting details, character changes, or quick references to what happened before.
Quick Glimpse of What Happened
Some important events actually don’t merit a whole scene or chapter. In these instances, briefly summarize what happened during the gap. For instance, if a relationship has blossomed, you can add a quick scene with the couple holding hands together.
Stick to the Plot
Even with a time skip, you should not steer away from the main plot. If you jump ten years ahead, the next scene should pick up with something that moves the story forward rather than spending too much time on what happened during those ten years.
Final Thoughts
And there you have it! Adding time skips is not inherently lazy writing. When applied correctly, they can strengthen your story by helping readers focus on the moments that matter most. But do remember to be careful about the length of the gap and give your readers enough context to understand what has changed.