Moving Forward: Writing Smooth Transitions

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

The flow of a novel is an important and often overlooked aspect of keeping readers immersed in the story.

When I'm reading, I'm much more engrossed in prose that goes smoothly from one thought to the next and one scene to another. If the text is too choppy, it jars me right out of the story and I have difficulty getting back into it. It's like getting interrupted every few minutes when you're trying to focus--before long, you just give up.

A strong story usually has a strong sense of story flow. The author smoothly takes the reader from idea to idea, scene to scene, and chapter to chapter. The information shared is handled with care and readers aren't given too much or too little. Everything flows so effortlessly readers forget they're reading.

Weaker prose doesn't flow so well. Chapters end in odd places, scenes just stop, and paragraphs contain awkward phrases that jars readers right out of the story. Readers are reminded over and over that they're reading, and they notice the flaws more than the story.

Uncovering the Mysteries of Narrative Flow in the Opening of Stephen King's 11/22/63

By Jeanne Cavelos

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Studying the masters is a wonderful way to improve your own writing, and Stephen King is certainly one of the masters. Please help me welcome Jeanne Cavelos to the lecture hall today, to learn more about how King uses narrative flow in his novel, 11/22/63.

Jeanne Cavelos is the director of the Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization devoted to helping writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror improve their work.

Jeanne began her professional life as an astrophysicist working at NASA. After earning her MFA in creative writing, she moved into a career in publishing, becoming a senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell, where she edited award-winning science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels and won the World Fantasy Award. Jeanne left New York to pursue her own writing career and find a more in-depth way of working with writers. She has had seven books published; her last novel was Invoking Darkness, the third volume in her best-selling trilogy The Passing of the Techno-Mages. Her writing has twice been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award.

Jeanne is currently working on a near-future science thriller, Fatal Spiral. Since Jeanne loves working with developing writers, she created the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 1996, which quickly became one of the most respected programs in the world for writers of the fantastic. In 2010, she launched Odyssey Online Classes; live, intensive, interactive courses that use the techniques that have proven so effective at the workshop. Three online classes are announced each fall with application deadlines in December. The class Getting the Big Picture: The Key to Revising Your Novel will include the issues discussed in this article. Jeanne is also an English lecturer at Saint Anselm College, where she teaches fiction and nonfiction writing.

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For more information about Odyssey, check out this YouTube video.

Take it away Jeanne...