to fill or not to fill

[springs]

The first section of my book has quite a lot of jumps in terms of time between some sections. (I have to get the kids up a bit and quite frankly there is only so much crawling and such like anyone can write about.)

Anyway, I have filled quite a lot of them by slowing the action down a bit but I still have a couple and they seem to jar.

Am I better putting in a couple of filler scenes, which I could do pretty easily but which wouldn't neccessarily have any great relevance in terms of the plot, or am I better doing the 2 years on sort of thing? I generally hate that in books, would rather I was told it through the action, but I've tried that and it still doesn't seem to be resolving them all.

It's told chronologically and I don't really want to change the structure as for the most part I'm happy.

[AnyaKimlin]

I do the two years on thing or set up things so the reader knows how much time has passed. I prefer that to filler when I am reading

[Venusian Broon]

On the face of it, from what you've described - I'd say no to filler scenes with no relevance. It'll slow down things.

But if you need scenes at that point in the characters development, could you do some subtle foreshadowing of what will happen later to the character in his/her early actions, (you can be very, very subtle about it)

or perhaps if we are in a fantasy world with a strange society and rules perhaps a scene that shows we are in a different world? Sort of scene setting.

[The Judge]

My instinct is to say no to fillers, too, but a good deal might depend on exactly how many times you jump and for what lengths of time. If you are, say, going from age zero to 18 and showing us scenes at ages 1, 3, 6, 9, 14, 16 then it's going to be very jerky anyway, so a little bit of smoothing without outright padding may be necessary.

However, and without knowing the story in detail, of course, I would question why you are showing scenes of their childhood at all unless they are absolutely vital to the plot. I'd much prefer to go from age 1 to 18 direct. I hear what you say about doing it in chronological order, but a couple of flashbacks may well be preferable to slowing everything to a crawl and giving us scenes we don't want or need.

[Vertigo]

I don't think I would add more fill-in scenes but rather expand the scenes you have already so they don't seem to flash past quite so quick. Maybe use them to develop the boy's character a bit (I'm assuming he will be a major character as the book continues). For example (and here you would need to go for a slightly larger ship like a freighter as I suggested) you could have the twins disappear into the bowls of the ship and maybe get stuck somewhere or something. This would allow you to explore their characters a bit more and you could also have maybe Kare's powers appear under the pressure.

Edit:
The Judge posted whilst I was thinking about this! I like the idea of a flashback for this - I think it could work quite well with the added advantage of reducing the disappointment of the loss of Ealyn, Jane and Karia. In that section you have spent a lot of time building up their characters only to elliminate them, which could upset your readers. On the other hand if you delivered Kare to his Aunt's fairly early on, it would be quite easy to have him lying on his bed feeling sorry for himself at the loss of his family and do a flashback to life aboard the ship at that point.

You might have to remove the adult bit though if the POV shifted to the boy!

[springs]

Originally Posted by The Judge

However, and without knowing the story in detail, of course, I would question why you are showing scenes of their childhood at all unless they are absolutely vital to the plot. I'd much prefer to go from age 1 to 18 direct.

I do have the possibility of starting the book at a later stage, but I think the development of the protagonist as a child is pretty important for the later stages. And I think the childhood scenes are pivotal to a lot of the action in the adult scenes. I'll see if any of my lovely alpha readers jump in and say differently, though, if so I will consider this way. (But it does give me a massive back story problem and it removes the first cliff hanger.)

Originally Posted by Vertigo

I don't think I would add more fill-in scenes but rather expand the scenes you have already so they don't seem to flash past quite so quick. Maybe use them to develop the boy's character a bit (I'm assuming he will be a major character as the book continues). This would allow you to explore their characters a bit more and you could also have maybe Kare's powers appear under the pressure.

I guess I probably should have checked what it was that jarred; the number of jumps or that there wasn't enough time in each scene. (it has come up before and I have extended scenes, built the whole Ealyn/Jane relationship to bring the section along a bit more joined up). And yes, the boy is the main protagonist, so it's him that this section is here to set up - and the events of his childhood, obviously, have a big part in him as an adult.

I now think I'm hijacking my own thread....

[Vertigo]

I would tend to say that if the boy is going to be your main protagionist then keep things as they are up to them going off in their own ship, then jump to the boy at his Aunt's place and use flashback. That would shift the POV over to your main protagonist earlier on. There would be no need to lose the cliff hanger as you wouldn't have to say what happened to his family until the end of the flashback. In many ways it might be more fun/interesting to explore his emerging powers from his POV rather than his father's.

Sorry sounds like I'm telling you to re-write the whole thing now but I'm not really. It could also allow little fillers in between scenes like:

"He turned over miserably remembering what happened two years later..." OK clunky but you get the idea.

[springs]

The other thing I could do which I'm playing with is removing Jane from the cliffhanger scene and using this as the prologue, then cut to Kare about 14 when his powers become more evident and build from there, which is what the main story does now anyway. In one way there wouldn't be any massive changes, in another way there is a huge back story in there that needs to be gotten into it somehow.

I think I'll play with that in the broadest sense of the word and maybe run it past the ones who've read the whole book and see their reaction.

To compound the problem, the sort of comments I get is that once it gets to the Kare sections it's much much better and I have been writing threads like since September. Maybe it's time to bite the bullet and stop trying to make the first section right and ditch it.

[Ursa major]

One danger of the filler approach is that, appropriately enough, you're approaching them as being fillers. That rather suggests that they'll be rather dull and not to the point, or they'll be dragging in stuff that you would have shown later. All of which begs the question of why you don't use flashbacks.

Flashbacks might have been (and probably were) designed to cherry pick relevant scenes from the past and present them when and where they're needed.


But flashbacks aren't the only solution. You could - and I don't know the structure of your book, so this might not be appropriate - frame these disparate (in time) scenes in, for example, a prologue. The framing scheme could be of many sorts, including:

• The protagonist, or someone who knows him well, singling out important incidents in the protagonist's youth. In effect, this is the flashback approach, but all brought together.
• The protagonist, or someone who knows him well, showing how the protagonist has developed by comparing his behaviour at different ages and in different circumstances.
• Like one of the above, but treated as a long quote from a history of the protagonist's life.

[Warren_Paul]

Originally Posted by springs1971

I do have the possibility of starting the book at a later stage

I agree with Ursa Major on the flashbacks thing.

That's what I did with Emylynn and Alyce in my book, started with when they were already grown and just made references back to things that happened in their childhood, like their mother dying giving birth to Alyce, Emylynn witnissing it at the age of 6 etc.

[springs]

That's sort of what I'm thinking of playing around with. there are a pretty rich selection of characters in the second part some of whom know most the protagonists from the first part one way or another and at least two of them are already established pov's.

Think of the material I'll have for that prequel when I'm rich and famous and wanting to do my nails rather than craft out a new book....

[Hex]

You know, I'm not a massive fan of "Two years later" things at the beginning of sections but because the time switches so often and it's important to know how long has passed in between, I found the hints and contextual information very difficult to use.

I'd just go for telling the reader directly at the beginning of the section, either in a mini-title or at the start of the first paragraph: "Two years later, Ealyn was walking to his ship when..."

[Glen]

Instead of the x no. of years later, you could try giving an absolute time, maybe at start of the chapter, and let the reader work out how much time has passed. A bit like this title from a movie (10 points if you can name the movie):
"Judea, AD 33, Saturday afternoon . . . about tea time"

[Vertigo]

Actually that's exactly the technique I plan to use for my great (probably never to be written) opus! Not sure it would work in this case though.

[Warren_Paul]

Originally Posted by Glen

Instead of the x no. of years later, you could try giving an absolute time, maybe at start of the chapter, and let the reader work out how much time has passed. A bit like this title from a movie (10 points if you can name the movie):
"Judea, AD 33, Saturday afternoon . . . about tea time"

Steven Erikson's Malazan books are an example of this. its always in the such and such year of Burn's sleep at the beginning of each chapter where there is a big jump in time (forwards or back)