May 21, 2024 • 27 mins
Don’t lose your readers. Just tell them what time it is.
The passage of time seems intuitive. It just happens, right? (Like, whether you want it to or not. Time and tide wait for no man, etc.)
Here’s the thing, though. If you don’t tell your readers that time is passing in your novel . . .
. . . they won’t know.
It seems wild, I know. It feels like time passing should be obvious. But I promise you, it’s not.
Luckily, conveying the passage of time to your readers is simple (and it doesn’t take a lot of words to do it!). And in this episode, I’ll tell you exactly how it’s done.
You’ll learn:
- Why you need to both show and tell time passing in your story
- 2 ways your readers understand that time is passing
- 3 techniques to “tell” your readers time is passing
- And more!
This is one of those elements of storytelling that feels tiny, inconsequential, like your readers will catch on without you needing to think too hard about it.
But trust me, it makes a big difference. I’ve read so many manuscripts that are missing any indicators of time passing. And they make me as a reader feel completely lost.
Don’t lose your readers. Just tell them what time it is.
Links mentioned in the episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
this strategy of just telling ushow much time has passed is
(00:03):
heavy on the intellectual,knowing and light on the
emotional feeling.
It's often paired with othershowing indicators of the
passage of time to create thatemotion alongside the knowledge.
But sometimes we just need toknow how much time has passed.
So just tell us and move on.
(00:54):
Welcome to your next draft.
This is episode 70, one of yournext draft.
Can you believe it?
I know that 71 is not somespecific momentous number.
It's not episode a thousand or ahundred, or even episode 75.
But 71 episodes still feels likea lot of episodes to me.
(01:16):
I mean, I started this podcastin November of 2022.
And since then I have produced71 episodes of your next draft.
That is 28 hours of content.
If you listen to the entirepodcast from start to finish
right now, In that time, I haveshifted from weekly episodes to
bi-weekly episodes, which whileI know it was a disappointing
(01:37):
move for many of you listenerson my end, it has really helped
free up more time so that I canwork with more writers on their
stories.
One-on-one.
So I'm really enjoying thisbiweekly rhythm, and I really
appreciate you sticking with mefor biweekly episodes.
That said it's been a couple ofweeks since the last episode.
And it's time to get back on thepodcast and talk editing again.
(01:58):
I promise all of this preamblereally is relevant to our topic
today.
And I'm going to show you how injust a minute.
But before we dive into novelediting, I want to give a quick
shout out to a new feature hereon the podcast.
You can now send me a textmessage.
Here's how to do it.
Go into the show notes for anyepisode, scroll down to the
(02:19):
bottom and you'll find a linkthat says, send me a text
message.
Tap that link when you're on amobile device and it will open
up a text message that will havesome numbers already.
Pre-populated in the textmessage field.
And if you type after thosenumbers and hit, send.
I'll receive a text message.
A couple of things to note.
If you decide to text me whenyou tap that link to send me a
(02:42):
message, it will.
Pre-populate the text field withsome numbers, not just in the
phone number line, but also inthe text message itself.
Don't delete those numbers or Iwon't receive your text message.
Those numbers.
Tell my podcast, host whichpodcasts the text should go to.
So if you leave them in, then itwill come to me.
And if you take them out, itwill go to no one.
(03:03):
The second thing to note is thisis one way texting.
I won't see your phone numberand there's no way for me to
text you back, but if you sendme a particularly cool thought,
you might get a shout out hereon the podcast.
This is a cool new feature thatwas just launched by my podcast
host.
And I thought I'd turn it on andgive it a try.
It's a quick and easy way tosend me your thoughts about an
episode.
(03:24):
I have no idea how it'll go orwhether it'll be a good fit for
this podcast, if it ends up notbeing very helpful to you or to
me, I'll turn it off.
But if you love it and you useit, I'll keep it.
And speaking of getting shoutouts here on the podcast,
there's one more thing that Iwould really appreciate.
If you're enjoying your nextdraft and you're listening on an
apple device, would you bewilling to leave me a rating and
(03:47):
review in apple podcasts?
I read every single review thatcomes through.
And I love, love, love to seewhat you're thinking about the
show.
Plus reviews really do help newlisteners discover the podcast.
They tell other writers thatthis is worth listening to so
that this podcast can help morewriters, edit great books.
So it's a win, win, win allaround.
(04:08):
And I won't just talk aboutshout outs.
I would love to actually shoutsomeone out.
This is a recent review fromrhizome stolen, who writes?
I discovered this podcastsearching on Google while stuck
in my writing process.
I write picture books, but theinformation here is so
unbelievably helpful, succinctand inspiring.
Thank you for creating this.
Thank you rhizome stolen forlistening to the podcast and for
(04:31):
your lovely words, I reallyappreciate it.
And that covers all of ourpreamble today.
Before we get into our editingtopic To recap, you can now send
me a text message if you like,and if you haven't yet left a
rating and review in applepodcasts, it would make my day.
If you did that now.
And now.
It's about time to talk abouttime.
(04:53):
More specifically, it is time totalk about how to show the
passage of time in your novel.
In the last episode of thepodcast, episode 70, we talked
about why it's so important toindicate the passage of time in
your story.
Here's a quick recap.
First it's crucial to establishthe setting of your story in
(05:14):
both time and space right away.
If you don't, your story will beungrounded and your reader won't
know when or where they are.
Next it's crucial to indicatethe passage of time throughout
your story.
If you don't, your reader willnot feel time passing.
It may be clear in yourimagination.
(05:34):
The time is passing, but yourreader won't pick up on it
unless you intentionally weavein clues to mark the passage of
time.
Without those clues, the readerwill experience the whole story
happening in a rush, a blur,like it's all happening right
now in real time.
And all the events take roughlythe same amount of time that it
takes for your reader toactually read the book.
(05:56):
Now, if your story really doestake place in that amount of
time.
And the narrative is pretty mucha minute by minute blow by blow
account of it.
Then not rushed feeling thatyour reader has isn't
necessarily the worst thing.
I would still recommendincluding some indicators of
time just to allow your readerto reorient and recalibrate
every now and then, but they'rerushed feeling.
Isn't an inaccurate experienceof the story.
(06:18):
your characters are probablyfeeling a rushed intensity to.
But especially if your storytakes place over a period of
time, that's longer than a fewhours, which is the case for
most novels.
Then you'll definitely need toindicate time passing so that
the reader can feel that longerexpanse of time in the same way
that your characters do.
(06:39):
We want your novel to allow yourreaders to experience the story
the same way as your charactersdo.
And part of that is feeling timepassing as it goes by.
And finally marking time is agreat way to create tension in
your story.
We talked about a couple of waysthat you can create tension.
You might have backwards lookingtension where we see how much
(07:00):
time has passed since somethinghappened in the past.
Or you might haveforward-looking tension where we
see how much time is left untilsomething happens in the future.
So there you go.
That's your quick recap of thelast episode of the podcast.
If you haven't listened to thatepisode, I did just cover most
of the points that you'll findin it, but I would still
recommend heading back to listento it.
(07:21):
After you finish this episode.
You can findthat@alicesaidlow.com slash 70.
And of course that link is inthe show notes as well.
Now, what we did not talk aboutin the last episode is this.
How do you actually do this?
How do you indicate time passingin your novel?
How do you convey time passingto your readers so that they
(07:44):
feel it as deeply as yourcharacters do.
Well, there are a lot oftechniques that you can use to
indicate the passage of time.
And that's a good thing becausedifferent techniques have
different effects on the readerand you can use multiple
techniques to impact your readeron several levels at once.
Some techniques will trigger anintellectual knowing which is
helpful because it will allowyour reader to consciously
(08:06):
knowingly orient themselveswithin the story.
And that's important andvaluable.
But more than intellectualknowing we want to create within
the reader, an emotionalexperiencial feeling of time
passing.
And some techniques will dothis.
They'll create the feelingwithin the reader of time
passing.
Maybe even without the readerconsciously recognizing it.
(08:29):
They're just in the flow of thestory and you're giving them
cues that ping theirsubconscious and make them feel
time.
Pass.
You might recall that in my lastepisode, I started off with a
really long spiel about how it'snow may, and I'm going for all
of these lovely spring walks asthe weather warms up though, to
be quite honest, the temperaturehere in Georgia is lovely.
(08:49):
The humidity is a lot lesslovely.
The 75 degree Fahrenheit days,bring me a lot of joy.
The 60% humidity brings me a lotless joy.
So I'm enjoying my spring walkswhile I can.
And I'm letting them acclimateme to our upcoming toasty summer
heat and soggy humidity, whichis definitely on the horizon.
All that to say.
(09:10):
When I opened my calendar andthe date says May 21st, 2024.
I intellectually know that it ismay.
And when I step outside and Ifeel the warm sun and I breathe
the thick humidity and I feel alovely, cool breeze.
Thank goodness for that breeze.
I feel that it is may.
(09:32):
There's something I want you tonotice about these indicators of
time that I'm experiencing rightnow.
That intellectual knowing istriggered by observing the fact
of time passing.
We have measured the days andweeks, and months and years, and
we call this month may, and Ican confirm that data by
checking a calendar.
The subconscious feeling istriggered by experiencing the
(09:55):
effects of time passing.
As the earth rotates around thesun, the world goes through a
series of changes.
The effects of time passing arethe warmer weather.
The longer days, the higherhumidity, the flowers blooming,
the birds singing.
These are not directmeasurements of time itself, but
the impact that time passing hason the world.
(10:17):
This maps pretty neatly actuallyon the idea of showing versus
telling.
You create intellectual knowingin the reader by telling them
the facts of measuring time.
You create experiential feelingin the reader by showing them
the effects that time passinghas on the world, the characters
and the story.
(10:38):
Every novel needs its ownbalance of showing and telling
both showing and telling areessential to engage your readers
in your story.
And so you'll probably use bothtelling and showing techniques
to convey the passage of time inyour novel.
You'll probably trigger bothyour reader's intellectual
knowledge and their emotionalexperiential feeling.
You'll probably both measuretime directly and describe the
(11:01):
effects of time passing.
This is a both and situation,neither telling nor showing is
better or worse.
Your story needs both.
And the techniques that I'mgoing to share with you will
convey both.
I have a total of seventechniques in store for you.
I'm going to share them in orderfrom most telling to most
showing.
(11:22):
Uh, warn you now today we willcover just the telling
techniques.
We'll save the showingtechniques for the next episode,
So right now we'll cover threetechniques to convey the passage
of time that are squarely in thetelling category.
These are techniques thattrigger your readers,
intellectual, knowing, and donot tap into their experiential
feeling.
(11:43):
Then in the next episode, we'llcover four more techniques.
I have two techniques that arekind of a bridge between telling
and showing and two techniquesthat are fully in the showing
category.
So get excited for those.
For now let's dig into threetelling techniques to convey the
passage of time in your novel.
First up, we're going to startsuper on the nose, use numbers
(12:05):
or dates to mark your chapters.
This is a very clear and directway of communicating the passage
of time to your reader.
You are literally titling yourchapters with a countdown of
time.
This technique does not fitevery novel, but many novels use
it very effectively.
One such novel is funny story byEmily Henry.
(12:27):
It's Emily Henry's newestromcom, and it just came out
last month.
So I won't spoil it for you.
But I will read you some of thechapter headings.
Chapter one.
Wednesday May 1st 108 days untilI can leave.
Chapter two.
Back in April before I knew Ineeded to leave.
Chapter three.
(12:47):
Saturday May 18th 91 days untilI can leave.
And it continues like this allthe way through the entire
novel, counting down the datesand the days until Daphne, the
protagonist can leave.
Another novel that does, this islooking for Alaska by John
Green.
Here are some of the chapterheadings.
136 days before.
(13:09):
128 days before.
126 days before.
And then a little bit later.
One day before.
The last day.
And then a really big eventhappens and the chapter heading
switched from before to after.
The day after.
Two days after.
And so on.
(13:29):
Both looking for Alaska andfunny story explicitly
foreground time passing byliterally counting it in the
chapter.
Headings.
If you're ever lost in thetimeline, just keep reading
until you get to a chapter breakand then you can recalibrate.
Notice too, how they're creatingtension with these headings both
forward and backward looking.
(13:49):
In funny story where wonderingwhat's going to happen in 108
days when Daphne can leave, whydoes she need to leave?
And where is she going to go?
And in looking for Alaska, we'rewondering 136 days before, what.
As the countdown ticks down intodouble and then single digits,
it feels more and more ominous.
(14:10):
And then the really big thinghappens midway through the book.
And we shift to counting howmany days have passed since that
happened.
And it's bittersweet to see thedistance between us and that big
event stretch longer and longerto leave that big event in the
past for first one day and thena few days and eventually 136
(14:30):
days.
So these are really effectivenarrative devices for these
stories.
They're not essential for everynovel, by any means, but they
work really well for thesebooks.
One thing that I do want to notehere is think about how heavily
this strategy triggers yourintellectual, knowing and notice
how it probably doesn't triggerany feeling at all.
(14:54):
136 days is very clear data.
It's an objective fact, aprecise measurements of time.
But it doesn't orient us in thefeeling of the world and the
characters in the story at themoment of 136 days before we
don't have an intuitiveexperiencial subconscious sense
of where we are in time and howthe days that are passing feel.
(15:19):
In fact, we're probably going toforget the number 1 36 until we
get to the next chapter 1 28.
And think, well, I know thecountdown is shrinking, so
probably the previous chapterhappened more than 128 days
before.
In order to know that eight dayshave passed, which is more than
a week.
I have to do math.
I have to pause my reading to doa quick calculation.
(15:42):
And asking your readers to do alot of math in the middle of
your book is not a way to conveyto them the feeling of time
passing the way that yourcharacters are experiencing it.
Unless your characters are alsoliterally doing a lot of math,
then we can feel the mentalchallenge of doing math with
them.
But again, that's not thefeeling of the passage of time.
It's the feeling of doing math.
(16:04):
I also want to mention one othernarrative device that lends
itself really nicely to markingthe chapters with dates like
this.
You might decide to write yournovel as though it is a journal
or a diary, your protagonist isrecording their life in a
journal.
And the book that we're readingis that journal.
And then real life when peoplejournal about their lives like
this, they typically date eachentry.
(16:26):
So journal style novels tend tobe written as a series of dated
journal entries.
A couple of novels written inthis style are Bridget Jones's
diary by Helen fielding and theconfessions of Georgia Nicholson
series by Louise Renison.
I'm honestly not sure you cantalk about journal style novels
without mentioning BridgetJones's diary.
Anyway, that's it for our firsttelling strategy to convey the
(16:49):
passage of time.
Mark your chapters with numbersor dates.
Use your chapter headings toliterally tell your reader when
each chapter takes place.
Now, like I said, that firststrategy won't work for every
story.
And if it doesn't fit yournovel, no need to force it.
We have several more strategiesyou can use.
(17:10):
The second strategy is one thatI suspect you'll find in just
about every novel.
It is not at all story specific.
It's a wonderful fit all toolhere it is.
Literally say how much time haspassed.
Truly.
For real.
Just tell us.
You might say.
(17:31):
Suzanne went to sleep.
The next morning, she.
Or we say our goodbyes and Iwatch him walk away until he
turns the corner and disappears.
Two weeks later.
Or three months passed withoutany word from him.
The next morning.
Two weeks later.
Three months past.
(17:51):
In all those examples, I amdirectly stating the amount of
time that's passed when thestory picks up again, we know
exactly where we are in time.
This technique is a great one touse when you're starting a scene
and orienting the reader towhere we are in the story.
Now, it's also really useful intransitions between one scene
and the next, and in summaryparagraphs, the compressed time
(18:14):
to move us quickly from oneimportant moment to another,
that comes a while later.
And since every novel is goingto have scenes and therefore
transitions between thosescenes.
This is a technique that you'llsee in most novels.
Here's an example of this kindof summary transition that
literally tells us how much timehas passed.
This comes from the lastgraduate by Naomi Novik.
(18:35):
Hauling Orion up to the libraryand shoving him into a dark
corner was my latest attempt toactually get him to do his
remedial alchemy assignment,Which was absolutely going to
disintegrate him before the endof the month, along with several
innocent bystanders and possiblyme, if he didn't buckle down to
do it.
I'd started making him show mehis progress every evening at
dinner.
(18:56):
And since there hadn't been anyin the week and a half, since
the last time he'd nearly gottenme disintegrated.
I dragged him out of bed atfirst bell, this fine Saturday
morning and marched him upstairsafter breakfast.
Did you catch it?
It's been a week and a halfsince the last time that, uh,
Ryan nearly got L disintegrated.
Also by the way today isSaturday, Although mentioning
(19:17):
that is jumping ahead a littlebit in terms of our list of
techniques.
Again, this strategy of justtelling us how much time has
passed is heavy on theintellectual, knowing and light
on the emotional feeling.
It's often paired with othershowing indicators of the
passage of time to create thatemotion alongside the knowledge.
And that's something that we'llget into more in the next
(19:38):
episode, when I share thoseshowing techniques with you.
But sometimes we just need toknow how much time has passed.
So just tell us and move on.
And the third telling technique.
Is in a similar vein.
Literally tell us the datewithin the text of the story.
This doesn't have to beextremely precise.
(20:00):
You might say.
On Friday, I skipped the bus.
Or for months, I didn't hearfrom him.
Then in early November I found aletter in the mailbox.
You can use this in the samekinds of places where you could
literally say how much time haspassed.
It's great for orienting areader at the start of a scene,
transitioning between scenes orcompressing time to summarize
(20:22):
events, which I mentioning thatlike the third thing in a list,
but compressing time tosummarize events tends to be a
tool for accomplishing the othertwo things.
Many scenes start with acompressed time summary of
events, and often the way thatscenes transition from one to
the next will be with thecompressed time summary.
Anyway, here's an example ofliterally saying the date.
(20:44):
This comes from tomorrow andtomorrow and tomorrow by
Gabrielle's Evan, which ifyou've been listening to this
podcast for a while, you know,this is a book that I just rave
about.
Here's the passage.
By the middle of January, shestill hadn't replied.
And he began to worry that hisemail hadn't been received.
He decided to send another.
a page later, this has followedup with.
(21:07):
Another week passed and shestill hadn't replied Harvard's
reading period was over.
Sam had finished all his examsand the new term was about to
begin.
Note that another week pastfalls under the second
technique, literally telling ushow much time has passed.
And that final sentence aboutHarvard's reading period relates
to another technique.
(21:28):
But that's one of the showingstrategies that we'll cover in
the next episode.
So I won't say anything moreabout it here.
What I really want you to seeright now is that first-line
from that first excerpt I gaveyou.
By the middle of January.
It's orienting us very early inthe chapter to exactly where we
stand in time so we can followalong as time continues to pass
(21:49):
throughout the scene.
Like the previous twostrategies.
This is a telling strategy onethat's based on intellectual.
Knowing rather than emotionalfeeling, this alone will not
make your readers feel timepassing in your story.
Although it will help themorient themselves whenever they
lose track of the timeline.
That said I've put this strategythird in this list because I'm
(22:12):
ordering these from the mosttelling to the most showing.
And we tend to have moreemotional associations with
these specific dates than we donumbers.
If I say November, I bet you geta certain idea in your mind of
what November is like.
If I say Friday, I bet you havean emotional reaction.
That's very different than if Isaid Monday.
(22:33):
These are names that we have fortime.
And we have a lot more livedexperience with them and
emotions about them than we doabout the concept of 136 days,
136 days basically conveys a lotof days, unless you do math to
figure out how many months, andthen you kind of map those onto
a calendar.
And now you have an emotionabout the names of the months
(22:55):
that you're missing, but 136days is just.
A significant chunk of the year.
We also tend to notice thesedates more when they're woven
into the context of the story,rather than listed in the
chapter headings, which are easyto skim without taking in the
information.
Saturday May 18th 91 days untilI can leave.
(23:16):
Is nice information to know.
But it's outside of the contextthat gives it meaning.
On Saturday I slept in is thesame day, but within a story
context that makes it stick inour minds a little bit more.
This is one of the reasons why,even if you do choose to title
your chapters with numbers ordates, That alone is not enough
to make your readers feel thepassing of time and your story
(23:39):
You'll need to add moretechniques, both telling and
showing to ground your readersin the story and make them feel
like they're living it at thesame speed that your characters
are.
And this brings us to the end ofthe telling techniques.
We have covered threestrategies, one.
Use numbers or dates to markyour chapters.
Too.
(23:59):
Literally say how much time haspassed.
And three.
Literally say the date.
These might feel too on thenose, but they really, really
aren't.
And when they're usedstrategically, they can help
your readers feel grounded andoriented within the story.
Like they've got a handle onwhat's going on.
(24:20):
Plus, you're going to pair themwith the showing techniques.
I'll share with you in the nextepisode.
So if you're feeling like youwant something a little more
subtle, Don't worry.
That's coming too.
Now, remember how I spent an ageand a half at the beginning of
this episode, talking about howcool it is that this is episode
71.
And we're on a biweekly podcastschedule, which means it's been
a couple of weeks since you lastheard from me.
(24:40):
And also I'm really enjoying thespring days in may.
All of those are tellingtechniques to mark the passage
of time.
I looked for every number that Icould think of to quantify time
passing here on the podcast,like the 28 hours that it would
take you to listen to thisentire podcast from start to
finish.
I promised it was relevant.
(25:01):
It was a little clunky and itwon't be winning any literary
awards or possibly podcastingawards either, but it was
relevant.
Now it's your turn to put thesetelling techniques to use.
And I have two assignments foryou.
The first one is to pick up abook that you love.
Read a few chapters and lookvery carefully for any of the
(25:21):
three techniques that I'vementioned here.
Where does the author literallytell you when the story takes
place or how much time ispassing?
How often do they mention it inwhat contexts is it in the
openings of scenes transitionsbetween scenes time, compressing
summary or something else?
And then your second task is topick up your work in progress
(25:42):
and read a few chapters.
I'd say.
I read at least three chapters.
So that enough happens that youmight run into some time
passing.
Where do you tell your readerswhen the story takes place or
how much time is passing?
How often do you mention it?
And in what contexts.
Are there places where, youknow, the time has passed.
(26:02):
But there are no indicators onthe page to share that
information with your readers.
And if so, well now, you knowwhat you can add.
And that is everything that Ihave for you today.
I'll be back in a couple ofweeks with another episode where
we will dig into all the showingstrategies.
They are my favorites, and Ican't wait to share them with
you.
In the meantime, I encourage youto pay attention, not only to
(26:26):
your reading, but also to allthe signals in your life that
convey to you the passage oftime in reality in real time.
How do you know the time ispassing?
What do you notice?
If you feel so inspired, send mea text message about this
episode and if you're enjoyingthe podcast, I would be so
grateful if you head over toapple podcasts And leave a
(26:47):
rating and review.
That's all for now.
Until next time.
Happy editing.
this strategy of just telling ushow much time has passed is
(00:03):
heavy on the intellectual,knowing and light on the
emotional feeling.
It's often paired with othershowing indicators of the
passage of time to create thatemotion alongside the knowledge.
But sometimes we just need toknow how much time has passed.
So just tell us and move on.
(00:54):
Welcome to your next draft.
This is episode 70, one of yournext draft.
Can you believe it?
I know that 71 is not somespecific momentous number.
It's not episode a thousand or ahundred, or even episode 75.
But 71 episodes still feels likea lot of episodes to me.
(01:16):
I mean, I started this podcastin November of 2022.
And since then I have produced71 episodes of your next draft.
That is 28 hours of content.
If you listen to the entirepodcast from start to finish
right now, In that time, I haveshifted from weekly episodes to
bi-weekly episodes, which whileI know it was a disappointing
(01:37):
move for many of you listenerson my end, it has really helped
free up more time so that I canwork with more writers on their
stories.
One-on-one.
So I'm really enjoying thisbiweekly rhythm, and I really
appreciate you sticking with mefor biweekly episodes.
That said it's been a couple ofweeks since the last episode.
And it's time to get back on thepodcast and talk editing again.
(01:58):
I promise all of this preamblereally is relevant to our topic
today.
And I'm going to show you how injust a minute.
But before we dive into novelediting, I want to give a quick
shout out to a new feature hereon the podcast.
You can now send me a textmessage.
Here's how to do it.
Go into the show notes for anyepisode, scroll down to the
(02:19):
bottom and you'll find a linkthat says, send me a text
message.
Tap that link when you're on amobile device and it will open
up a text message that will havesome numbers already.
Pre-populated in the textmessage field.
And if you type after thosenumbers and hit, send.
I'll receive a text message.
A couple of things to note.
If you decide to text me whenyou tap that link to send me a
(02:42):
message, it will.
Pre-populate the text field withsome numbers, not just in the
phone number line, but also inthe text message itself.
Don't delete those numbers or Iwon't receive your text message.
Those numbers.
Tell my podcast, host whichpodcasts the text should go to.
So if you leave them in, then itwill come to me.
And if you take them out, itwill go to no one.
(03:03):
The second thing to note is thisis one way texting.
I won't see your phone numberand there's no way for me to
text you back, but if you sendme a particularly cool thought,
you might get a shout out hereon the podcast.
This is a cool new feature thatwas just launched by my podcast
host.
And I thought I'd turn it on andgive it a try.
It's a quick and easy way tosend me your thoughts about an
episode.
(03:24):
I have no idea how it'll go orwhether it'll be a good fit for
this podcast, if it ends up notbeing very helpful to you or to
me, I'll turn it off.
But if you love it and you useit, I'll keep it.
And speaking of getting shoutouts here on the podcast,
there's one more thing that Iwould really appreciate.
If you're enjoying your nextdraft and you're listening on an
apple device, would you bewilling to leave me a rating and
(03:47):
review in apple podcasts?
I read every single review thatcomes through.
And I love, love, love to seewhat you're thinking about the
show.
Plus reviews really do help newlisteners discover the podcast.
They tell other writers thatthis is worth listening to so
that this podcast can help morewriters, edit great books.
So it's a win, win, win allaround.
(04:08):
And I won't just talk aboutshout outs.
I would love to actually shoutsomeone out.
This is a recent review fromrhizome stolen, who writes?
I discovered this podcastsearching on Google while stuck
in my writing process.
I write picture books, but theinformation here is so
unbelievably helpful, succinctand inspiring.
Thank you for creating this.
Thank you rhizome stolen forlistening to the podcast and for
(04:31):
your lovely words, I reallyappreciate it.
And that covers all of ourpreamble today.
Before we get into our editingtopic To recap, you can now send
me a text message if you like,and if you haven't yet left a
rating and review in applepodcasts, it would make my day.
If you did that now.
And now.
It's about time to talk abouttime.
(04:53):
More specifically, it is time totalk about how to show the
passage of time in your novel.
In the last episode of thepodcast, episode 70, we talked
about why it's so important toindicate the passage of time in
your story.
Here's a quick recap.
First it's crucial to establishthe setting of your story in
(05:14):
both time and space right away.
If you don't, your story will beungrounded and your reader won't
know when or where they are.
Next it's crucial to indicatethe passage of time throughout
your story.
If you don't, your reader willnot feel time passing.
It may be clear in yourimagination.
(05:34):
The time is passing, but yourreader won't pick up on it
unless you intentionally weavein clues to mark the passage of
time.
Without those clues, the readerwill experience the whole story
happening in a rush, a blur,like it's all happening right
now in real time.
And all the events take roughlythe same amount of time that it
takes for your reader toactually read the book.
(05:56):
Now, if your story really doestake place in that amount of
time.
And the narrative is pretty mucha minute by minute blow by blow
account of it.
Then not rushed feeling thatyour reader has isn't
necessarily the worst thing.
I would still recommendincluding some indicators of
time just to allow your readerto reorient and recalibrate
every now and then, but they'rerushed feeling.
Isn't an inaccurate experienceof the story.
(06:18):
your characters are probablyfeeling a rushed intensity to.
But especially if your storytakes place over a period of
time, that's longer than a fewhours, which is the case for
most novels.
Then you'll definitely need toindicate time passing so that
the reader can feel that longerexpanse of time in the same way
that your characters do.
(06:39):
We want your novel to allow yourreaders to experience the story
the same way as your charactersdo.
And part of that is feeling timepassing as it goes by.
And finally marking time is agreat way to create tension in
your story.
We talked about a couple of waysthat you can create tension.
You might have backwards lookingtension where we see how much
(07:00):
time has passed since somethinghappened in the past.
Or you might haveforward-looking tension where we
see how much time is left untilsomething happens in the future.
So there you go.
That's your quick recap of thelast episode of the podcast.
If you haven't listened to thatepisode, I did just cover most
of the points that you'll findin it, but I would still
recommend heading back to listento it.
(07:21):
After you finish this episode.
You can findthat@alicesaidlow.com slash 70.
And of course that link is inthe show notes as well.
Now, what we did not talk aboutin the last episode is this.
How do you actually do this?
How do you indicate time passingin your novel?
How do you convey time passingto your readers so that they
(07:44):
feel it as deeply as yourcharacters do.
Well, there are a lot oftechniques that you can use to
indicate the passage of time.
And that's a good thing becausedifferent techniques have
different effects on the readerand you can use multiple
techniques to impact your readeron several levels at once.
Some techniques will trigger anintellectual knowing which is
helpful because it will allowyour reader to consciously
(08:06):
knowingly orient themselveswithin the story.
And that's important andvaluable.
But more than intellectualknowing we want to create within
the reader, an emotionalexperiencial feeling of time
passing.
And some techniques will dothis.
They'll create the feelingwithin the reader of time
passing.
Maybe even without the readerconsciously recognizing it.
(08:29):
They're just in the flow of thestory and you're giving them
cues that ping theirsubconscious and make them feel
time.
Pass.
You might recall that in my lastepisode, I started off with a
really long spiel about how it'snow may, and I'm going for all
of these lovely spring walks asthe weather warms up though, to
be quite honest, the temperaturehere in Georgia is lovely.
(08:49):
The humidity is a lot lesslovely.
The 75 degree Fahrenheit days,bring me a lot of joy.
The 60% humidity brings me a lotless joy.
So I'm enjoying my spring walkswhile I can.
And I'm letting them acclimateme to our upcoming toasty summer
heat and soggy humidity, whichis definitely on the horizon.
All that to say.
(09:10):
When I opened my calendar andthe date says May 21st, 2024.
I intellectually know that it ismay.
And when I step outside and Ifeel the warm sun and I breathe
the thick humidity and I feel alovely, cool breeze.
Thank goodness for that breeze.
I feel that it is may.
(09:32):
There's something I want you tonotice about these indicators of
time that I'm experiencing rightnow.
That intellectual knowing istriggered by observing the fact
of time passing.
We have measured the days andweeks, and months and years, and
we call this month may, and Ican confirm that data by
checking a calendar.
The subconscious feeling istriggered by experiencing the
(09:55):
effects of time passing.
As the earth rotates around thesun, the world goes through a
series of changes.
The effects of time passing arethe warmer weather.
The longer days, the higherhumidity, the flowers blooming,
the birds singing.
These are not directmeasurements of time itself, but
the impact that time passing hason the world.
(10:17):
This maps pretty neatly actuallyon the idea of showing versus
telling.
You create intellectual knowingin the reader by telling them
the facts of measuring time.
You create experiential feelingin the reader by showing them
the effects that time passinghas on the world, the characters
and the story.
(10:38):
Every novel needs its ownbalance of showing and telling
both showing and telling areessential to engage your readers
in your story.
And so you'll probably use bothtelling and showing techniques
to convey the passage of time inyour novel.
You'll probably trigger bothyour reader's intellectual
knowledge and their emotionalexperiential feeling.
You'll probably both measuretime directly and describe the
(11:01):
effects of time passing.
This is a both and situation,neither telling nor showing is
better or worse.
Your story needs both.
And the techniques that I'mgoing to share with you will
convey both.
I have a total of seventechniques in store for you.
I'm going to share them in orderfrom most telling to most
showing.
(11:22):
Uh, warn you now today we willcover just the telling
techniques.
We'll save the showingtechniques for the next episode,
So right now we'll cover threetechniques to convey the passage
of time that are squarely in thetelling category.
These are techniques thattrigger your readers,
intellectual, knowing, and donot tap into their experiential
feeling.
(11:43):
Then in the next episode, we'llcover four more techniques.
I have two techniques that arekind of a bridge between telling
and showing and two techniquesthat are fully in the showing
category.
So get excited for those.
For now let's dig into threetelling techniques to convey the
passage of time in your novel.
First up, we're going to startsuper on the nose, use numbers
(12:05):
or dates to mark your chapters.
This is a very clear and directway of communicating the passage
of time to your reader.
You are literally titling yourchapters with a countdown of
time.
This technique does not fitevery novel, but many novels use
it very effectively.
One such novel is funny story byEmily Henry.
(12:27):
It's Emily Henry's newestromcom, and it just came out
last month.
So I won't spoil it for you.
But I will read you some of thechapter headings.
Chapter one.
Wednesday May 1st 108 days untilI can leave.
Chapter two.
Back in April before I knew Ineeded to leave.
Chapter three.
(12:47):
Saturday May 18th 91 days untilI can leave.
And it continues like this allthe way through the entire
novel, counting down the datesand the days until Daphne, the
protagonist can leave.
Another novel that does, this islooking for Alaska by John
Green.
Here are some of the chapterheadings.
136 days before.
(13:09):
128 days before.
126 days before.
And then a little bit later.
One day before.
The last day.
And then a really big eventhappens and the chapter heading
switched from before to after.
The day after.
Two days after.
And so on.
(13:29):
Both looking for Alaska andfunny story explicitly
foreground time passing byliterally counting it in the
chapter.
Headings.
If you're ever lost in thetimeline, just keep reading
until you get to a chapter breakand then you can recalibrate.
Notice too, how they're creatingtension with these headings both
forward and backward looking.
(13:49):
In funny story where wonderingwhat's going to happen in 108
days when Daphne can leave, whydoes she need to leave?
And where is she going to go?
And in looking for Alaska, we'rewondering 136 days before, what.
As the countdown ticks down intodouble and then single digits,
it feels more and more ominous.
(14:10):
And then the really big thinghappens midway through the book.
And we shift to counting howmany days have passed since that
happened.
And it's bittersweet to see thedistance between us and that big
event stretch longer and longerto leave that big event in the
past for first one day and thena few days and eventually 136
(14:30):
days.
So these are really effectivenarrative devices for these
stories.
They're not essential for everynovel, by any means, but they
work really well for thesebooks.
One thing that I do want to notehere is think about how heavily
this strategy triggers yourintellectual, knowing and notice
how it probably doesn't triggerany feeling at all.
(14:54):
136 days is very clear data.
It's an objective fact, aprecise measurements of time.
But it doesn't orient us in thefeeling of the world and the
characters in the story at themoment of 136 days before we
don't have an intuitiveexperiencial subconscious sense
of where we are in time and howthe days that are passing feel.
(15:19):
In fact, we're probably going toforget the number 1 36 until we
get to the next chapter 1 28.
And think, well, I know thecountdown is shrinking, so
probably the previous chapterhappened more than 128 days
before.
In order to know that eight dayshave passed, which is more than
a week.
I have to do math.
I have to pause my reading to doa quick calculation.
(15:42):
And asking your readers to do alot of math in the middle of
your book is not a way to conveyto them the feeling of time
passing the way that yourcharacters are experiencing it.
Unless your characters are alsoliterally doing a lot of math,
then we can feel the mentalchallenge of doing math with
them.
But again, that's not thefeeling of the passage of time.
It's the feeling of doing math.
(16:04):
I also want to mention one othernarrative device that lends
itself really nicely to markingthe chapters with dates like
this.
You might decide to write yournovel as though it is a journal
or a diary, your protagonist isrecording their life in a
journal.
And the book that we're readingis that journal.
And then real life when peoplejournal about their lives like
this, they typically date eachentry.
(16:26):
So journal style novels tend tobe written as a series of dated
journal entries.
A couple of novels written inthis style are Bridget Jones's
diary by Helen fielding and theconfessions of Georgia Nicholson
series by Louise Renison.
I'm honestly not sure you cantalk about journal style novels
without mentioning BridgetJones's diary.
Anyway, that's it for our firsttelling strategy to convey the
(16:49):
passage of time.
Mark your chapters with numbersor dates.
Use your chapter headings toliterally tell your reader when
each chapter takes place.
Now, like I said, that firststrategy won't work for every
story.
And if it doesn't fit yournovel, no need to force it.
We have several more strategiesyou can use.
(17:10):
The second strategy is one thatI suspect you'll find in just
about every novel.
It is not at all story specific.
It's a wonderful fit all toolhere it is.
Literally say how much time haspassed.
Truly.
For real.
Just tell us.
You might say.
(17:31):
Suzanne went to sleep.
The next morning, she.
Or we say our goodbyes and Iwatch him walk away until he
turns the corner and disappears.
Two weeks later.
Or three months passed withoutany word from him.
The next morning.
Two weeks later.
Three months past.
(17:51):
In all those examples, I amdirectly stating the amount of
time that's passed when thestory picks up again, we know
exactly where we are in time.
This technique is a great one touse when you're starting a scene
and orienting the reader towhere we are in the story.
Now, it's also really useful intransitions between one scene
and the next, and in summaryparagraphs, the compressed time
(18:14):
to move us quickly from oneimportant moment to another,
that comes a while later.
And since every novel is goingto have scenes and therefore
transitions between thosescenes.
This is a technique that you'llsee in most novels.
Here's an example of this kindof summary transition that
literally tells us how much timehas passed.
This comes from the lastgraduate by Naomi Novik.
(18:35):
Hauling Orion up to the libraryand shoving him into a dark
corner was my latest attempt toactually get him to do his
remedial alchemy assignment,Which was absolutely going to
disintegrate him before the endof the month, along with several
innocent bystanders and possiblyme, if he didn't buckle down to
do it.
I'd started making him show mehis progress every evening at
dinner.
(18:56):
And since there hadn't been anyin the week and a half, since
the last time he'd nearly gottenme disintegrated.
I dragged him out of bed atfirst bell, this fine Saturday
morning and marched him upstairsafter breakfast.
Did you catch it?
It's been a week and a halfsince the last time that, uh,
Ryan nearly got L disintegrated.
Also by the way today isSaturday, Although mentioning
(19:17):
that is jumping ahead a littlebit in terms of our list of
techniques.
Again, this strategy of justtelling us how much time has
passed is heavy on theintellectual, knowing and light
on the emotional feeling.
It's often paired with othershowing indicators of the
passage of time to create thatemotion alongside the knowledge.
And that's something that we'llget into more in the next
(19:38):
episode, when I share thoseshowing techniques with you.
But sometimes we just need toknow how much time has passed.
So just tell us and move on.
And the third telling technique.
Is in a similar vein.
Literally tell us the datewithin the text of the story.
This doesn't have to beextremely precise.
(20:00):
You might say.
On Friday, I skipped the bus.
Or for months, I didn't hearfrom him.
Then in early November I found aletter in the mailbox.
You can use this in the samekinds of places where you could
literally say how much time haspassed.
It's great for orienting areader at the start of a scene,
transitioning between scenes orcompressing time to summarize
(20:22):
events, which I mentioning thatlike the third thing in a list,
but compressing time tosummarize events tends to be a
tool for accomplishing the othertwo things.
Many scenes start with acompressed time summary of
events, and often the way thatscenes transition from one to
the next will be with thecompressed time summary.
Anyway, here's an example ofliterally saying the date.
(20:44):
This comes from tomorrow andtomorrow and tomorrow by
Gabrielle's Evan, which ifyou've been listening to this
podcast for a while, you know,this is a book that I just rave
about.
Here's the passage.
By the middle of January, shestill hadn't replied.
And he began to worry that hisemail hadn't been received.
He decided to send another.
a page later, this has followedup with.
(21:07):
Another week passed and shestill hadn't replied Harvard's
reading period was over.
Sam had finished all his examsand the new term was about to
begin.
Note that another week pastfalls under the second
technique, literally telling ushow much time has passed.
And that final sentence aboutHarvard's reading period relates
to another technique.
(21:28):
But that's one of the showingstrategies that we'll cover in
the next episode.
So I won't say anything moreabout it here.
What I really want you to seeright now is that first-line
from that first excerpt I gaveyou.
By the middle of January.
It's orienting us very early inthe chapter to exactly where we
stand in time so we can followalong as time continues to pass
(21:49):
throughout the scene.
Like the previous twostrategies.
This is a telling strategy onethat's based on intellectual.
Knowing rather than emotionalfeeling, this alone will not
make your readers feel timepassing in your story.
Although it will help themorient themselves whenever they
lose track of the timeline.
That said I've put this strategythird in this list because I'm
(22:12):
ordering these from the mosttelling to the most showing.
And we tend to have moreemotional associations with
these specific dates than we donumbers.
If I say November, I bet you geta certain idea in your mind of
what November is like.
If I say Friday, I bet you havean emotional reaction.
That's very different than if Isaid Monday.
(22:33):
These are names that we have fortime.
And we have a lot more livedexperience with them and
emotions about them than we doabout the concept of 136 days,
136 days basically conveys a lotof days, unless you do math to
figure out how many months, andthen you kind of map those onto
a calendar.
And now you have an emotionabout the names of the months
(22:55):
that you're missing, but 136days is just.
A significant chunk of the year.
We also tend to notice thesedates more when they're woven
into the context of the story,rather than listed in the
chapter headings, which are easyto skim without taking in the
information.
Saturday May 18th 91 days untilI can leave.
(23:16):
Is nice information to know.
But it's outside of the contextthat gives it meaning.
On Saturday I slept in is thesame day, but within a story
context that makes it stick inour minds a little bit more.
This is one of the reasons why,even if you do choose to title
your chapters with numbers ordates, That alone is not enough
to make your readers feel thepassing of time and your story
(23:39):
You'll need to add moretechniques, both telling and
showing to ground your readersin the story and make them feel
like they're living it at thesame speed that your characters
are.
And this brings us to the end ofthe telling techniques.
We have covered threestrategies, one.
Use numbers or dates to markyour chapters.
Too.
(23:59):
Literally say how much time haspassed.
And three.
Literally say the date.
These might feel too on thenose, but they really, really
aren't.
And when they're usedstrategically, they can help
your readers feel grounded andoriented within the story.
Like they've got a handle onwhat's going on.
(24:20):
Plus, you're going to pair themwith the showing techniques.
I'll share with you in the nextepisode.
So if you're feeling like youwant something a little more
subtle, Don't worry.
That's coming too.
Now, remember how I spent an ageand a half at the beginning of
this episode, talking about howcool it is that this is episode
71.
And we're on a biweekly podcastschedule, which means it's been
a couple of weeks since you lastheard from me.
(24:40):
And also I'm really enjoying thespring days in may.
All of those are tellingtechniques to mark the passage
of time.
I looked for every number that Icould think of to quantify time
passing here on the podcast,like the 28 hours that it would
take you to listen to thisentire podcast from start to
finish.
I promised it was relevant.
(25:01):
It was a little clunky and itwon't be winning any literary
awards or possibly podcastingawards either, but it was
relevant.
Now it's your turn to put thesetelling techniques to use.
And I have two assignments foryou.
The first one is to pick up abook that you love.
Read a few chapters and lookvery carefully for any of the
(25:21):
three techniques that I'vementioned here.
Where does the author literallytell you when the story takes
place or how much time ispassing?
How often do they mention it inwhat contexts is it in the
openings of scenes transitionsbetween scenes time, compressing
summary or something else?
And then your second task is topick up your work in progress
(25:42):
and read a few chapters.
I'd say.
I read at least three chapters.
So that enough happens that youmight run into some time
passing.
Where do you tell your readerswhen the story takes place or
how much time is passing?
How often do you mention it?
And in what contexts.
Are there places where, youknow, the time has passed.
(26:02):
But there are no indicators onthe page to share that
information with your readers.
And if so, well now, you knowwhat you can add.
And that is everything that Ihave for you today.
I'll be back in a couple ofweeks with another episode where
we will dig into all the showingstrategies.
They are my favorites, and Ican't wait to share them with
you.
In the meantime, I encourage youto pay attention, not only to
(26:26):
your reading, but also to allthe signals in your life that
convey to you the passage oftime in reality in real time.
How do you know the time ispassing?
What do you notice?
If you feel so inspired, send mea text message about this
episode and if you're enjoyingthe podcast, I would be so
grateful if you head over toapple podcasts And leave a
(26:47):
rating and review.
That's all for now.
Until next time.
Happy editing.
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