Transition Scenes: How to Connect the Dots
A queer romance story isn’t just a collection of scenes melded together for readers to hop, skip, and jump along toward the required happy ending. Indeed, even TV shows and movies guide viewers through the visual story in a way that is natural to the way all stories have been told across genres and mediums. No, a story’s major scenes are weaved together with what are called transition scenes.
Transition scenes reveal both little and big emotions. They show major realizations from or about the characters. Finally, and most importantly, readers see the effects of the plot points and decision points that came before and that will follow them. With transition scenes in the right locations, an author consistently leaves a question in the reader’s mind that they’re eager to see answered.
Thus, stories aren’t so much about the what, but the why. To put it differently, the plot covers the protagonist’s external journey, the events they act and react toward. Transition scenes show why they act or react as they do.
“Without deft transitions, the manuscript flow becomes herky-jerky,” says author and writing coach Angela Ackerman.
So, today I’ll cover how to use external and internal transitions. To round things out, I’ll provide a few tips so you can connect the dots between the two.
Photo by Rui Silvestre on Unsplash
External Transitions
External transitions tend to be the easiest scenes to write. After all, it’s the opportunity to move the character literally through time and space without bogging readers down in directional details or tracking the character’s every moment. Remember, the characters and the plot should always be in motion, moving forward deeper into the story.
External transition scenes say a lot about your characters. Not only do they provide readers that necessary insight, but you show readers in better detail the world you’ve created. They inhabit that world along with the characters. Thus, they need to know when and where they’re going as the story progresses. Dr. Alyssa B Colton states,
Transitions, through the use of graphical devices (blank spaces, lines of asterisks, new chapters, etc.) help readers know when to shift to another time, place, or character’s point of view. We also use transitions like noting times of day, seasons, descriptions of places, etc., so the reader doesn’t get totally lost and disoriented.
A reader who is “lost and disoriented” will not stick around your story for long. Here are a couple approaches to changing physical locations and timeframes within your story.
In 5 Editors Tackle the 12 Fatal Flaws of Fiction (p. 33), Linda S. Clare writes, “Readers are willing to trade information for excitement, for the ‘what will happen next?’ feeling.” Changing places and times can exacerbate that feeling of excitement.
Changing Places
Authors most often use external transitions to change settings. A character can end one scene in their kitchen poring over different restaurant options they hope the other character will enjoy for their first date. In the next scene, both characters are in the top choice of restaurant the first one chose.
Despite the wind tugging on my scarf and numbing my cheeks and nose, I stand outside McClean’s Bar & Grill. Lorde is ten minutes late. Naturally, I take that to mean he flaked on me. That would be my luck. I finally decide I’m ready to try dating, and the first go-round, I get ghosted.
“Hey, sorry, the subway ran late!”
I turn to look into striking green eyes under furrowed, jet-black eyebrows. An apologetic frown that doesn’t fit plump and perfectly kissable lips. My diaphragm unknots, likely because every ounce of blood has gone south.
He’s gorgeous. I can’t do this.
“No worries!” is what comes out of my mouth instead. I jerk a thumb toward the door, and add, “Already saved us a table.”
In this example, the protagonists start the new scene in a different location. The new location will propel their relationship in one direction or another. Whether this date goes well or not will create a new situation the characters will then have to maneuver through as the story progresses.
Location transitions can come at the end of a chapter. Sometimes, though, it might be easier to use an empty line or other decorative image to indicate that change within the same chapter, as Dr. Colton suggests.
Changing Times
Similar to changing locations, readers need to be aware of the passage of time in your story. Historical romance author Jody Hedlund teaches, “With time transitions, a subsequent scene takes place at a different time than the previous scene. You can separate your scenes by minutes, weeks, months, years, centuries, or millennia.”
The length of time your story covers is largely genre dependent. Historical romance narrative arcs like Hedlund’s may take place over months or years. Queer romantic suspense may happen over a matter of days.
If readers don’t know when a scene is taking place, they can’t fit that scene into the logical progression of the surrounding story. Anchor phrases provide this opportunity to ground readers as needed.
- A few days later, Lorde sends me a simple text: I had a great time. Would love to do it again.
- Weeks pass by, yet we still manage to find new topics to talk about each night.
- I just saw him thirty minutes ago, yet the incoming video call lights up my insides all over again.
Shorter time jumps between scenes often use the empty line or decorative image within a single chapter. On the other hand, longer time jumps (i.e., when days or weeks (or more) pass by) are touched on in the early paragraphs of a new chapter.
Internal Transitions
In romance, characters change most in the in-between moments. Indeed, the “why” I mention above builds around the protagonists’ relationship, with themselves and each other. Readers understand in those scenes the character’s mindset or internal struggle. I’ve previously covered three types of internal conflicts. Each decision stemming from those conflicts is an internal transition, a moment of change.
Transition scenes give you the opportunity to show one or more of the following:
- Why these characters feel the way they do.
- Why they fight their feelings for so long.
- Why they realize they don’t want to move forward in their life without this other character at their side.
Even if the protagonist is in the scene with another character, inner monologue gives readers an inside track to that character. They see directly how the protagonist rationalizes or processes a recent experience. Better yet, readers understand how the character arrived at what they’ll do about or with that experience going forward.
Drop clues about the characters during these types of transitions. Lay the groundwork for what comes next, yes, but remember readers come to stories for the characters. By providing these internal transition scenes, readers see who your protagonist is. They learn about the protagonist’s fears and strengths. This makes the characters real, which pulls the reader ever deeper into the story.
Connecting the Dots
Connecting the dots should be all about which person has the most to lose or gain from what happens in that scene. South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker created their “but” / “therefore” principle when writing episodes. It’s a great tool for finding causality between scenes, big and small.
Here’s an example from my WIP’s current outline (subject to change, because of course it is):
- Protagonist B invites Protagonist A to dinner, therefore
- Protagonist A brings a dessert dish to Protagonist B the next night and shares a vulnerable moment, but
- Protagonist A questions Protagonist’s B motives for being kind, therefore
- Protagonist A’s ally forces him to get real about why he cut off Protagonist B so suddenly
Causality is at the very center of creating a smooth reading experience. Indeed, a great way to transition to a new scene is for readers to see your protagonist being confronted with earlier choices. As Connie J. Jasperson writes, an effective transition scene “reveals something new and pushes the characters toward something unknown and unavoidable.”
A character confronted by someone who they know has their best interests in mind? Even as they deny the logical arguments posed to them for fear of further vulnerability?
*Chef’s Kiss*
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
To Sum It All Up
To emphasize one more time, smooth transitions are key to creating a smooth reading experience. Gradual changes to characters, both externally and internally, make them more realistic. In fact, readers want and need those quiet moments between the action to catch their breath right along with your characters.
External transitions give readers a direct and sensory experience with the world your characters inhabit. A protagonist who goes to the isolated rooftop of a swanky hotel after a (good) tension-filled interaction with their love interest will most certainly have a lot on their mind.
By isolating themselves, they have a chance to get their mind and body restabilized. More importantly, they have time to plot their next move. You give reader a new environment (external transition) and a look into that character’s mindset in the aftermath of the previous scene (internal transition).
Author, writing coach, and literary genius Donald Maass says,
Step-by-step scene building is the business of advancing characters toward goals or away from them. Which direction doesn’t matter. What’s important is that the readers are constantly uncertain about the outcome.
Part of injecting your queer romance with uncertainty is weaving your plot points and decision points together with transition scenes. Effectively done, readers breeze through your story’s pages, eager to see what your characters choose to do next. Better yet, they’re gripped with learning why.
Reflecting On Your Story One Word At A Time!
