And we did this and this and this….
I mentioned recently in passing that I hate skimming in writing. By skimming I mean I pass a significant amount of time where the reader needs to know that things have happened but I don’t want to show it. It would just take too long.
So my question for you this week:
How do you handle skimming in stories?
2 responses to “And we did this and this and this….”
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Abigail
always a writer 
If it’s important, then it should probably be dramatised; if not, then it’s probably best left out or covered in a couple of sentences (‘Over the next three years they walked from New York to San Francisco’). Another option is to start later in the story and just have some kind of flashback to the earlier part that happened long ago.
I’ve been wondering about this myself as one of the novels I’m trying to write has to cover the character’s parents being killed when she was a child and then move on a few years to the main story; I think the ‘start with the main story and give the background where needed’ option is likely to work best there.
See, when it is just a simple they got from point A to point B, that’s not hard. And even with the situation you have where it’s one event and then you can jump to the main story, isn’t hard. (I tend to like to elude to it personally, at least until it needs to be told.) It’s when I have no clue how to write the action, but those activities shape the character and his/her relationship, and it’s in the middle of the book. That always gives me writer’s block. :(