Creating transitions used to be easier. A confident, omniscient narrator would be your tour guide. Dickens, puffing on a pipe and cuing you to the goings-on. Austen, perhaps between sip of tea, luring you in with a wry statement and a few insights, putting everything in to context before plunging in. Sometimes, raising questions is more important that answering them.
Including all the elements of a transition in the right order ensures that the basic work of keeping readers involved and oriented is achieved. Most stories put time, place, characters present, and situation (including reminders) close to the beginning so readers aren’t confounded or distracted.
But it’s okay to tweak that. What if some of the transition information is in the cliffhanger paragraph and some is in the start of the next section? Provided the situation is dramatic, that split both prevents a large block of exposition and can make the cliffhanger more tense (because only a piece of the expected transition information is there).
Another alternative is the slow reveal. A mad scientist’s castle, for instance, could be described completely in a paragraph. The language can be wonderful and creepy and intriguing — doing a nice job as its portion of the transition. But it also can first appear in faint outlines as lighting flashes. Then a light can go on in a tower window. A scream can set the protagonist running toward (or away from) the castle. Assuming the former, more details may become visible as he or she gets closer. A large cage. Then a winding of bloody bandages. Finally a skull.
Spread out information, escalating, and including action and reaction (and, in a novel, the protagonist’s thoughts), a straight description can build anticipation.
It also is worth considering including more than needed explanations. A description can set a scene and raise questions (why is the old man holding an ax? Where did he get it?)
One reason for a transition is because it’s a good time to change over to another point of view character. But the change can also be from (the most common) third person limited for the protagonist to first person for another character (like the villain). That can add to the jolt, but a writer can also slow the action, especially after a fast-paced and or emotional scene. I know an author who is excellent at putting protagonists into agonizing situations in her first chapter (third person protagonist). And then moving to omniscient third person and providing a god-like view of the location (usually, a character in itself), while easing up on the rattled reader (that confident, omniscient narrator).
Similar to changing point of view is introducing an artifact. This could be a poem or a quote (made up or real) or a newspaper article. I’ve even seen an author insert the script of a commercial. Or the writer may talk directly to the reader, “breaking the fourth wall.”
Titling chapters might be considered a form of author intrusion. In the case of older novels (like Vanity Fair, 1848), it was expected that the chapters would include a preview like “In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open a Campaign.” John Barth used this technique (often to humorous effect) in The Sot-Weed Factor (1960).
Tone can change during a transition, too. Comic relief is the most notable example of this. Going from serious to funny pulls the reader away from the cliff for a moment of comfort. Of course, authors, smart enough to know how readers armor themselves against frightening and sad moment, and devious enough to use humor to get readers to let down their guards compose a sequence that goes, “uh oh, she’s in trouble,” “Oh no, this is gong to be really bad,” “Look at the clown, ha ha,” “Mayhem!”
Most radical is proceeding without any transition at all. Throw readers or audiences into completely new situations without any preparation at all and let them catch up. If a character has a psychic break, it might make dramatic sense. At the beginning of a story, where two (or more) threads will come together later on, part of the fun is anticipating how these different pieces will fit together and watching for clues. (Usually, the start has coherent, but separate plots with different protagonists or one protagonist at different times.)
Horror may jump around to unsettle audiences. Humor may abandon traditional coherence. I remember how I delighted at seeing Monty Python’s irreverence toward traditional transitions. (And how the shows totally flummoxed my parents.)
Taking chance by subverting standard transitions may engage an audience more deeply or in a more amusing way. It can also drive people away, so it’s taking a risk. In a draft, trust your muse. In revision, make the tough decisions. On that, more next week.
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