How to Show Transitions of Time in Your Novel

Jill Williamson is a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms. She writes weird books for teens in lots of weird genres like, fantasy (Blood of Kings trilogy), science fiction (Replication), and dystopian (The Safe Lands trilogy). Find Jill on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or on her author website.

Time passing. How do you show transitions of time in your novel? Months have passed, or years. Or maybe it's only been a few minutes. 

I recently read Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, and I noticed that she did an excellent job with transitions of time. Here are some examples from that book.

  

“I lost track of time. Night and day passed through the windows of the coach. I spent most my time staring out at the landscape, searching for landmarks to give me some sense of the familiar.”

*               *               *               *               *               *

“The next few days passed in a blur of discomfort and exhaustion.”

*               *               *               *               *               *

“Fall turned to winter, and cold winds stripped the branches in the palace gardens bare.”

        
     

And here are some examples from my novella Ambushed.

When we got to Tucson, I texted Coach Pasternack, and he told me to join him the next morning at 8:00 a.m. for a short meeting with Coach Miller. I didn’t like having to meet the head coach before I even got a tour, but it was a game day, so I had to make the best of it. 

Grandma and I stayed the night in a Super 8 Motel and got up bright and early for my meeting. Though I’d done this before, it was my first time visiting one of the schools that had shown interest in me, and I was really nervous.

We met Coach Pasternack outside the McHale Center. He was with Arizona guard Jordin Mayes, who had a chin beard that reminded me of C-Rok’s buddy Ant Trane.

*               *               *               *               *               *

Grace didn’t show at church on Sunday either, and Arianna said she was supposed to have been back by now.

She didn’t answer any of my texts or Facebook messages.

It was kind of freaking me out.

So I walked over to Ghetoside—a Pilot Point nickname for the Meadowside Apartments where Grace lived. Her place was on the ground floor and faced the street. The driveway in front was empty. The lights were off. I even knocked on the door, but no one was home.

I let it go for a few days, but when school started and Jaz said Grace hadn’t been in class, I started going by her place more often.

And one night, the lights were on, and an old Honda Civic was parked in the driveway.

*               *               *               *               *               *

January breezed by. The same schools were still talking to coach about me, except Berkley had offered early, which made no sense to me until Coach said he’d told them I wanted to study computers and work for the CIA. 

*               *               *               *               *               *

I woke up in a hospital bed wearing a blue paper gown, feeling groggy.

 Another thing you can do, is write something at the start of a new chapter. For example:

Chapter 2

Three years later

So how do you show time passing in your writing? Is this something you struggle with? If so, take note of these examples, but also watch for time passing in the novels you read. It always happens.

Also, my publisher has put the first two novels in my Safe Lands trilogy on an ebook sale for the next two weeks. If they've been on your To Read list, now might be a good time to snap them up. Here are the links:

For Captives:

Nook ● Kindle ● CBD ● iTunes

For Outcasts:

Nook ● Kindle ● CBD ● iTunes