Allow me to clarify, say you have a character who is at his house and realizes he has to be at the store for an epic showdown/duel he's participating in, over a gum-flavor disagreement naturally, and he's at his house at the moment, and the next important place for him to be is at the store, and there is nothing that develops the plot in transit, so isn't it okay to just glaze over it? "...he thought about it all the way to the store. Upon arrival he noticed the large sign looming above him..." Or do people feel withdrawn too much from the story you get jumped forward suddenly, without some kind of smooth transition?
This could be an opportunity to open up another window to the world and scenery around the character. It's also an opportunity to bore the reader who's more interested in the imminent fight coming up.
I ask because I have been blasting through my "travel" sequences, and I'm wondering if it's because I'm lazy, and could be better with more description involved.
Please, skip the travel if it's not important.
Now, it's best if the transition is smooth. There are a number of ways to do this. You can show a character leaving the house and then ***scene or chapter break**** he's at the store.
You can throw a quick sentence at the car trip as you suggested above, although this can feel clunky if there is a lot of action at the house and a lot of action at the store all back to back. This can be a very natural place to break the story. If, on the other hand, he spent very little time at home -- just long enough to do some important plot thing, then the one sentence transition is probably fine.
However, there is the concept of pacing to remember. You might need a bit of a breather between the two scenes. Or if the last scene was tense, you might want a breather in there.
So the short answer is: it depends. And pacing is a huge issue, too.
"If only we had a means for interstellar travel, Scottie, we could solve the food crisis."
"Put us into standard orbit around Proxima Centauri Three, Scottie, then let's go shopping." Jim then clapped his hands in anticipation.
I know. I'm being a wise guy.
If it takes a month to go to the store (don't ask me why) as a reader I would assume the character would have done something interesting. If the store is next door then the character is unlikely to do anything interesting and you would find yourself describing concrete pavements. If you have a very short transition I would assume the store was very close, longer the transition further away I would assume the store was.
Grant
I don't think the details of transporting Somebody to So-and-So absolutely have to be included---unless they add something to the story. At the writer's discretion, keeping in consideration what the reader will put up with.
I subscribe to the belief that any given scene of exposition needs to actually expose something important to the story and the world it is set in. And often, if not most of the time, I find long transitions that over-describe to be boring, long-winded, and slow. So I tend to stick to the story at hand, almost like jump-cuts in a film. But, it did occur to me that I might be simply justifying my own laziness.
Nothing really happens in the police car between the apartment and the police station. It doesn't further the plot to have it there. Nevertheless, as I tried to leap over it, the whole thing felt wrong to me. The thing is, there was stuff going on there, even if it wasn't action. The woman under arrest (my POV character) was feeling all kinds of things and dreaming up all kinds of wild scenarios about what might await her on the other side of that trip.
I didn't dwell on it (I think) but in the end, I did write the part in transit and I'm glad I did. I will therefore have to change my vote.
Obviously, this will depend upon exactly what is going on as to whether and how much you need to show of the trip, but especially if the character is anticipating something on the other side of the journey, there is likely something you need to show of their thoughts/feelings.
I think what he meant was I hadn't allowed it to work.
When you cut scenes on film, the whole scene cuts. When you cut scenes writing, the reader has to be given enough to go with you.
Alternately, one could just become a screenwriter.
Pace has been mentioned a couple times, and I really think it is a key issue. I've been thinking about this more, and I wanted to expand on my first statement.
I think pace is often a matter of detail (including internal thoughts.)
Christine's example highlighted this for me. From what was said, I assume the arrest had tension. The station probably had some tension, too. Maybe not. But it sounds as if Christine sensed a need for the story to slow down between the scenes. To me, that's pace.
If scenes shoot by rapidly, the story loses something. Some scenes need to slow down.
In OSC's Magic Street, I noticed the pace. It began with a rapid beat, but then it slowed down. Things progressed at an easy pace. Then, towards the end, things picked up. The scenes seemed to come quicker. Then after the climactic scene, it slowed down. Pace made the story better than it might have been, in my opinion.
So going back to Zero's original question:
quote:
so isn't it okay to just glaze over it?
Ultimately, it's Zero's decision. From what Zero said, the character was at his house and realized he needed to be at the store for a showdown. If the scene at the house was slow, perhaps packed with detail and internal thoughts, then it's probably time to skip to a tense scene. Quick transition. Describing the transition in detail might bore the reader, otherwise. The reader might think, "Come on, Zero. Get on with it." (I don't know his WiP, so I can't say which would be best.)
So, I think the "wrongest" thing to say in this thread is Yes or No to detailed transitions as a whole. For Christine it worked. For Tricia it didn't (and it may have been for a number of reasons.) For another author, maybe even for Zero, who knows?
It's an artful decision the author must make in each case. But I think pace is a key issue.