3 Ways to Write Scene Transitions
Moving from one scene to another in your short story or novel can be challenging. If your plot spans more than a day or a week, you've got plenty of time to cover.
How do you transition your scenes without jumping over crucial plot points or making the pacing feel rushed?
There are a few tips you can try when you're facing this problem.
Let's say you've started a chapter with your protagonist encountering people they don't like while shopping at the grocery store with their exhausted two-year-old. The experience is frustrating, so your protagonist is simmering while sitting at a red light on the way home.
The main action of the chapter happens when the babysitter arrives that night, but it's only 12 o'clock in your scene. You needed your protagonist to encounter the people that annoy them to establish motivation for the action later on.
You could jump time by teasing the action itself. Your protagonist could thrum their fingers on the steering wheel and glare at the red light.
They opened their arms to the resentment churning under their skin. It sank into their bones, morphing into electricity that kept [Protagonist] plodding through their day. The red light mocked their need to take action, but they could wait.
Because when the babysitter showed up that night, they would take their revenge out on the city.
That could be a great place for a scene break or even the end of your chapter, depending on how much you've written. The reader won't mind a time jump because their interest gets piqued. They'll want to know what revenge means for that character and what will spin out from the choices they make.
If you're writing a 3rd person POV story with perspectives from at least two characters, you can also transition scenes by switching narrators.
While one character completes a plot-relevant action, the other could move the plot along by being a bit further in the future.
Consider something like this as an example:
Sarah's heart beat wildly in her chest as the heavy words finally fell from her lips. It was just the two of them in that park, but it had felt like the whole world had watched her admit her love for Melanie in the molten gold rays of the setting sun. All she needed now was an answer.
[Scene break symbol or the start of a new chapter]
Melanie heard Sarah's heartfelt words echo in her ears long after she had mumbled something about needing time. Time to think, to process. Sarah had been so understanding, even when she dropped Melanie off at home right afterward and skipped their usual Facetime call that night.
It wasn't until Melanie woke up the next morning in a sweat that she realized she finally had to unearth her biggest secret—she had only started the friendship with Sarah because she'd been in love with Sarah's older sister since the second grade.
You could make that time jump into however long you needed. Play with the scene set up in particular and then give the page or two to whoever loves to read your writing. They could talk about if it felt like a rushed scene or if the time jump felt right for that moment.
Most of the time, I find myself struggling with a scene transition because the moment that I'm writing isn't finished.
Recently I was writing a scene with two friends in a wagon on their way to a new city. They have a great conversation that sparks some character development in-between plot points, but I could feel that conversation coming to a lull.
It felt like the right moment to insert a transition, but something didn't feel right.
I had to walk away from my work and come back to it to realize that I needed to wrap up the moment to move anything forward.
The solution I found was ending the conversation by making them appreciate their friendship more than before, based on what had been said, and then the protagonist ended the scene by reflecting on how they knew they could face anything in the new city with their friend by their side.
The next scene started with their wagon approaching the city walls after a night of sleeping under the stars. The reader will still understand that it took more time to reach their destination, but they don't have to read excessive details about the cold night air or hard ground under the protagonist's back to get to what they're most looking forward to—the arrival at the new city.
Nothing about that night would add anything to the plot, so dropping the overnight experience at the beginning of the sentence makes for a great transition to the next scene.
Make Your Transitions Clear
Whether you end a scene with a cliffhanger, a heartfelt moment, or by switching between points of view, your transitions should always help the plot.
You can always edit them while reworking the finished draft later or ask for beta reader opinions from the people who always love reading what you write.
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