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Photo by Erik Mclean on UnsplashToday’s guest post is by author and writing coach Seth Harwood, who teaches a class on Show, Don’t Tell.
A writer recently told me she was struggling with her memoir structure. She’d written scenes about a difficult period in her life, and she wanted to include a memory from several years earlier that provided important context.
“How do I make sure the reader knows we’ve changed time?” she asked.
She recognized she was making a jump, but her solution was to put a date at the top of the section and hope that was enough.
It wasn’t.
Writing a date marker tells the reader when they are, but it doesn’t help them experience the movement through time. It doesn’t guide them through the transition. It asks the reader to do the work of bridging the gap themselves.
This is the pattern I see constantly: Writers recognize they’re making a jump, but they don’t understand that they need to build the bridge.
The cost you don’t see
Every time you make a jump without building a bridge, you’re spending down your earned Reader Capital—the reader’s trust in you as their guide.
Reader Capital is the currency of your relationship with your reader. When you guide them smoothly through your story, you build that capital. When you leave them to figure out where they are or whose perspective they’re in, you spend it—often unnecessarily or without realizing you’re doing it.
Spend down too much Reader Capital and your readers give up. They’ll put your book down.
Most writers understand they need to manage some transitions. If your character is in the kitchen and needs to end up at a bar across town, you know you can’t just jump there without acknowledgment.
But there are three specific kinds of transitions where writers need to be aware of building the bridge:
- Spatial transitions (moving through physical space)
- Temporal transitions (moving through time)
- Point of view transitions (moving between character perspectives)
Sometimes writers don’t recognize they’re making these jumps at all. But more often, they recognize the jump and still don’t build the bridge. They think the reader will figure it out. They think a chapter break or a date stamp is enough.
It’s not.
The solution is connective tissue. Connective tissue is the language you use to build a bridge between two different places, times, or perspectives. It’s the sentences that guide your reader from here to there.
Let’s look at each type of transition and what it means to build the bridge.
Transition type 1: Spatial (moving through physical space)
This is the one most writers are already tracking, at least instinctively.
Without connective tissue:
Sarah sat at her kitchen table, staring at the bills. She couldn’t do this tonight. She had to leave.
At Murphy’s, the bartender slid a whiskey across the bar to her.
The reader just experienced whiplash. Where are we? How did we get here? What happened to the kitchen?
With connective tissue:
Sarah sat at her kitchen table, staring at the bills. She couldn’t do this tonight. She grabbed her keys, drove to Murphy’s, and pushed through the heavy door into the dim, familiar space.
The bartender slid a whiskey across the bar without her having to ask.
The connective tissue doesn’t need to be long. It just needs to exist. Sometimes the connective tissue is a single sentence: She drove downtown. Sometimes it’s more detailed. But the key is recognizing you need to bridge the gap.
You’ve probably heard the familiar story of Virginia Woolf explaining that she’s had “a great writing day!” She’d succeeded in “moving her characters from the living room out onto the veranda.”
Truly, the great writer recognized that moving characters through space was no simple task, nothing to be taken lightly.
Transition type 2: Temporal (moving through time)
This is where writers start to struggle, because temporal jumps feel different from spatial ones. But they’re not.
Without connective tissue:
She stared at the letter on the kitchen table, unable to move. She thought about when she’d last felt this paralyzed.
She stood in front of the mirror, adjusting the collar of her dress.
The reader just experienced whiplash. Where are we? When are we? What happened to the kitchen?
With connective tissue:
She stared at the letter on the kitchen table, unable to move. She thought about the last time she’d felt this paralyzed, years ago now, when everything had seemed impossible.
Back then, standing in front of the mirror adjusting the collar of her dress, she’d had no idea what was coming.
Now you’ve built a bridge. The reader knows we’ve moved backward in time, and they understand why this memory matters in this moment. The writing can be as simple as: Several years earlier… or She remembered when… or Before all of this started…
Transition type 3: Point of view (moving between character perspectives)
This is the transition writers most often fail to recognize they’re making. If you’re writing in third person limited and switching between multiple point-of-view characters, every time you move from one character’s perspective to another, you’re making a transition that affects your reader.
Without connective tissue:
Chapter 7
The lab was cold. Martin examined the evidence bag, turning it over in his hands.
If the previous chapter was in Lily’s point of view, and now we’re suddenly in Martin’s head without any signal, the reader experiences a moment of confusion. Wait, whose thoughts are we hearing? Who are we following now?
What if there wasn’t even a chapter break or a section break? If we just moved to a new paragraph and found ourselves in Martin’s head? Whiplash.
I remember seeing this in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series, which I’m sure you know did quite well. With all the action suspense and excitement around these books, he had more than enough Reader Capital to roll right through this.
We don’t all have that luxury.
Here it is with connective tissue:
Chapter 7
Martin
The lab was cold. He examined the evidence bag, turning it over in his hands.
Simply putting the character’s name at the top of the chapter is basic connective tissue. It signals: we’re shifting perspective now. But you can do more:
Chapter 7
Martin had been in the lab for three hours when Lily’s text came through. She’d gone home, she was exhausted, she’d see him tomorrow. He should go home too. But he couldn’t stop staring at the evidence bag.
The lab was cold. He turned the bag over in his hands.
This version builds a fuller bridge. We understand where Martin is physically, what just happened with Lily (anchoring us to the previous scene), and why he’s still here. The perspective shift feels smooth instead of jarring.
Why writers don’t build the bridge
There are two reasons writers leave gaps:
1. They don’t recognize they’re making a jump. This happens most often with POV shifts. You’re so deep in your story that you don’t realize you’ve moved from one character’s perspective to another. The shift feels obvious to you, so you assume it’s obvious to your reader.
2. They recognize the jump but don’t understand they need to build the bridge. This is more common. You know you’re moving from the kitchen to the bar. You know you’re jumping from 2010 to 2004. You know you’re switching from Lily’s POV to Martin’s. You think the reader will figure it out. Or, in your head, all these transitions are crystal clear. Or you’re worried that this transition writing is pedantic and will bore your reader.
Sometimes it just feels hard to build the bridge. You’re worried about boring the reader and afraid of writing it poorly.
If I write “Six years earlier…” it’ll sound clunky.
If I write a paragraph about driving to the bar, it’ll slow down the pacing.
If I write some sentences here that say where we are and establish Martin’s point of view, it’ll seem amateurish.
Give yourself permission to do it badly first.
Write the connective tissue even if you think it’s awkward. Write “She drove downtown” even if it feels too simple. You can refine it later. But you can’t refine what doesn’t exist. The gap you leave by not writing anything is far more damaging than writing that’s rough or confusing.
The real skill you’re developing
Managing transitions isn’t about following formulas or learning elaborate techniques. It’s about developing awareness of the invisible decisions you’re making.
Every time you move through space, time, or perspective, you’re making a choice that affects your reader’s experience. Recognize that choice and guide your reader through it. Build the bridges.
In truth, there’s a finite number of transitions a reader will put up with over a given number of pages. More on that another time. First, focus on keeping your reader oriented. That’s how you maintain the trust that keeps them turning your pages.
Note from Jane: If you want to develop stronger scene-level skills, Seth is offering a Show Don’t Tell course that covers these techniques with examples and exercises. Learn more.
