Fictional Time

As a writer you control time.

Time.

You control it.

There are four types of fictional time:

1. Scene
2. Summary
3. Flashback
4. Slow Motion

Within Scene all the important moments occur. It has its own little climax that stacks up on past scene and will be a foundation for future scene that properly builds up the tension until the main climax occurs. The best way to create a scene is to make it immediate and real using imagery and less abstractions such as "that's so beautiful" or "he's glorious" and the like. Try to use as many of the senses as you can in describing the setting or the actions of people. There's: "He was angry." And there is: "The heavy oak door usually requires great effort to move, but was slammed as he came into the room, stomping steps muffled by the carpet."

Summary can intensify the mood by delaying and creating suspense about what happens next. It can be used to contrast the present with the past. Think of summary as a summarization of what could have become scene. It's a choice to use summary rather than scene. Perhaps you want more of a contrast between what is important and what isn't.

Flashback becomes handy when you want to reveal information at the right point and not a moment earlier. The trick is learning how to transition into flashback, and how to get back out of it again. Analyze the books you read. Many of them use flashback. Begin recognizing the way the authors get out of flashback into the mainstream story again.

Every time I think of Slow Motion, I imagine movies where the cameras slow down time to show a rush of adrenaline and becoming hyperaware of what's going on. As a writer, you can slow down time in your writing for really important moments where you want to describe every single action and thing. The sense become more fine tuned. This is where you'd rely on each of the five senses in your wording.

Manipulating time in your stories help you emphasize certain portions more than others and set a pace for the story. There is no drama in the explosion itself, only in the moment right before. In the movies, there's a bomb and it's ticking down. It gets closer and closer to zero and the tension gets higher and higher. Then it'll explode or you'll be left in a state of shock that it didn't. It's not the explosion or lack of that causes the drama. It's the countdown, the moment right before.