Question: Transitions

[Jason L.]

I've said this in another post, but I thought I could actually raise the topic with a broader audience: my transitions could leave room for improvement. I jokingly called it the soap opera rule of transitions, but that might be closer than I like to admit. DAMN YOU, THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS for ruining me.

(Also, why is she arguing to the back of this woman's head? Who does that?)

Okay, all joking aside...

It's not that I try to be overly abrupt. It's simply the way I think. Scene A has been completed. Scene B is in a different location, time, or POV. (Sometimes I feel like I did it for a commercial break because OH MY GOD IT IS APPARENTLY AGAINST THE LAW TO HAVE A TEN PAGE CHAPTER/SCENE IN MY WORLD.) (I'm working on that one.)

Those of you who have had to work on your transitions, what were some of the most helpful things that you had to do that finally made it click that you needed a graceful hand-off between scenes? Or do you just chuck it out onto the page first and fix the transitions in second draft?

 

[Brayati]

The best thing I did to learn about good forms of transitioning come from children's stories/movies. RL Stine has it down pat, and because it's for young people it has to be obvious. Movies aren't necessarily so easy to follow, but the first Kung Fu Panda has great transition moments. Movies do it through visual transitioning, books through other methods, but often forms of visual/action moments that naturally lead into the next 'frame'.
My recommendation:
Find your favourite storytellers of young people's fiction and find their transition techniques. Those writers are favourites because if it didn't work, kids wouldn't keep reading them. We learn from masters, and anyone who can hold the attention of a young person (aged 1-19, I'd say), even through radical changes, is a master.

 

[James Charles]

For me the best way is to throw it all down onto the paper first. Then go back and edit, see if it works, and clean it up....

 

[CageSage]

It might also depend on how you structure the cause-effect of the story (I'm thinking of domino effect). Knowing what causes a reaction can help design the transitions into the effect and build to the next cause.
Not sure if that makes sense, but seeking out the cause for each point of transition helps me define what the next reaction to the effect will bring about the next cause of the next big moment/effect.
Yep. Sounds weird. Call it a Chain of Events, because the cause-effect is continuous in the story until the goal is reached/lost/won/the end ...
Keeping the ping-pong effect out of the story when using a chain of events is important, or the story feels very episodic, which is why transitions and setting and POV changes can smooth the edges.

Good luck, and I'll be keeping a watch on this thread to help me learn it better.

 

[Hannah F]

For me the best way is to throw it all down onto the paper first. Then go back and edit, see if it works, and clean it up....

I'm with @James Charles Arlington on this one. I don't worry about transitions in draft 1. Some, I then find, have occurred naturally. Others need a bit of thought.
Great advice I've had regarding storytelling is: start each scene as late as possible into the scene and finish as early as possible. This surprisingly also helps smooth transitions.
The first sentence of your next scene is the crucial one. Go back to the four W's. Does the reader know who, where, when, what as soon as they start reading? And, as @CageSage said, what is the link? What in the previous scene is causing this scene to happen?
If you can create a turn-the-page moment at the close of the previous scene rather than a complete ending, the reader will be eager to pick up the story in the next scene/chapter.

 

[Jonny]

My own approach is one of: "If it feels right then it probably is right."

A bit like changing gear when driving - unless you drive an automatic that is. If you do drive an automatic and apply my logic then you'll definitely get those 10 page chapters. Maybe even longer depending on where you're going.

And as @James Charles Arlington @Hannah F have said. I don't feel it's a biggie in first draft. Just get it all down and you can then look in finer detail when you're tidying things up.

 

[Jason L.]

The best thing I did to learn about good forms of transitioning come from children's stories/movies. RL Stine has it down pat, and because it's for young people it has to be obvious. Movies aren't necessarily so easy to follow, but the first Kung Fu Panda has great transition moments. Movies do it through visual transitioning, books through other methods, but often forms of visual/action moments that naturally lead into the next 'frame'.
My recommendation:
Find your favourite storytellers of young people's fiction and find their transition techniques. Those writers are favourites because if it didn't work, kids wouldn't keep reading them. We learn from masters, and anyone who can hold the attention of a young person (aged 1-19, I'd say), even through radical changes, is a master.

That's fascinating! I have never read RL Stine. My younger brother, who never read anything, loved him, though. The fact that he did read gobble up those books probably should signal to me. I was just thinking of some of the books I used to read, like Bunnicula and The Celery Stalks at Midnight and The Westing Game. There must be reason I held onto those books after all these years. I wonder what they can teach me about transitions.