Scene changes in a chapter

[msstice]

In many cases involving a scene change, I can avoid an explicit scene break by writing something like "When they arrived at Paddington station, half an hour later ..."

I have a scene change where a character falls asleep and is woken by a disturbance. I tried writing it the way I felt it should go.

As the moon slipped past the window, Brenda's eyes closed.

A brilliant light was shining in her eyes and someone was violently shaking her.

I feel that this gives the kind of jarring disconnect Brenda is feeling, but I wonder if this will confuse readers too much.
The alternative is

As the moon slipped past the window, Brenda's eyes closed.

---

A brilliant light was shining in her eyes and someone was violently shaking her.

Neither of this tell us how much time has passed, which is ok with me, but the second one prepares the reader to think of a transition.

What are your opinions on this?

 

[JS Wiig]

How about something like:

As the moon slipped past the window, Brenda's eyes drifted shut . . .

Bright light tore into her dream filled mind as violent shaking fully roused her.

 

[Wayne Mack]

Why avoid putting in a section break? When there is a change in time, location, or point of view, the continuity of the story has been broken. What advantage is there in not being explicit about it?

 

[ckatt]

I think about this kind of thing a lot myself though I can't say I have the best answer.

Since you don't have a location change and just a jump forward in time, I don't think the dividing line is totally necessary.

I might do something like:

As the moon slipped past the window, Brenda's eyes closed.

They opened again to a brilliant light and someone violently shaking her.

I'm okay not knowing how much time has passed but I do want to know how much time she feels has passed.

As the moon slipped past the window, Brenda's eyes closed.

It felt like they had only been shut a moment before someone shook her violently.

It all depends on the mood you want. For my taste, I'd avoid the more passive sounding was shinning and was shaking as I think that lacks the immediacy of an abrupt awakening.

As the moon slipped past the window, Brenda's eyes closed.

A brilliant light shone in her eyes and someone shook her violently.

Now, drilling a little deeper and maybe getting off-topic, the problem I have is that I would think that the shaking, not the light, would do more to wake her.

As the moon slipped past the window, Brenda's eyes closed.

Violent shaking hurtled her from slumber, and glaring light stung her groggy eyes.

Maybe that one goes a bit over the top...

Which option is best, I think, depends more on context than anything else. You might want to first decide the effect you want from the scene transition then decide how best to achieve that in this instance.

 

[ckatt]

Why avoid putting in a section break? When there is a change in time, location, or point of view, the continuity of the story has been broken. What advantage is there in not being explicit about it?

My understanding is that marked scene breaks are considered not as smooth and many editors will tell you to avoid them.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

My understanding is that marked scene breaks are considered not as smooth and many editors will tell you to avoid them.

Not SFF, but my editor has no issues with scene breaks and even suggests adding the odd one if she feels it’s helpful.
I’ve never come across anyone who has issues with scene breaks, except maybe in short stories if they’re intrusive, but I guess as usual it’s a case of finding a balance between too many, causing the flow to stutter, or too few, overloading the reader with long sections.

 

[HareBrain]

I think your original one is fine. I think having the violent shaking first, then the light, might suggest more immediately that she's being woken up (and also perhaps better reflect what she actually is aware of first).

 

[msstice]

Thanks for the responses. I see that there are proponents on both sides. I'll try the experiment without the explicit scene break with a quick clue that time has passed.

The moon was high in the sky, casting a magical white glow in the room. Brenda's eyes closed as she wondered what kind of cheese the moon was made of.

Someone was shaking her violently and yelling something. She scrambled up in the pitch black darkness.

 

[paranoid marvin]

As the moon slipped past the window, Brenda's eyes closed.


Those sentences make me wonder - does the moon cross the sky? Your sentence seems to suggest that it does. In all honesty I've never sat by a window through the night to see what happens! The moon slipping also doesn't seem to sit right with me, I'm not exactly sure why; her eyes slipping shut seems more appropriate?

Perhaps an alternative would be:

As the moonlight began to fade, Brenda finally slipped into sleep.

or

As the moon dipped below the horizon, Brenda's eyes closed.


A brilliant light was shining in her eyes and someone was violently shaking her.


I'm not sure if 'in her eyes' is necessary; an awareness of bright light is what she would wake to . As it was an absence of (moon) light that sent her to sleep, I agree it should be the presence of light that she is first aware of. , and maybe 'piercing' is more appropriate than 'brilliant'? And I think that if you add 'woke her from sleep/slumber' , it would ease the reader into the transition from one scene to another.


Piercing light and violent shaking woke her from slumber.

 

[Wayne Mack]

does the moon cross the sky?

Here is what I found. The moon moves about one diameter width across the sky per hour. The Motion of the Moon (See third diagram). Yes, the moon moves, but it is not likely visible to someone watching it out a window.

 

[msstice]

Those sentences make me wonder - does the moon cross the sky?

It's like watching the minute hand of a clock. My intent here was not to indicate literal motion but to say that the person noted the moon had moved to realize the passage of time. They had been watching it since it was full in their window, and now it has moved to the edge of the window and would move on.

Obviously it did not work, at least for one reader.

 

[paranoid marvin]

It's like watching the minute hand of a clock. My intent here was not to indicate literal motion but to say that the person noted the moon had moved to realize the passage of time. They had been watching it since it was full in their window, and now it has moved to the edge of the window and would move on.

Obviously it did not work, at least for one reader.

Hi, yes, it seems that everyone else was fine with it being used as an indication of the passing of time, so apologies if I seem a little pedantic!

 

[msstice]

so apologies if I seem a little pedantic!

Your reaction is your reaction. Ideally we would write so we could have the same effect on everybody (which is also the effect we intend) but the richness of art is that everyone reacts differently. Our reading culture plays into this.

The image of the moon slipping away was somewhat common in the literature I was forced to read educated with, but this is poetry that is now several decades out of date and little known on the US side, I would think.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

My understanding is that marked scene breaks are considered not as smooth and many editors will tell you to avoid them.

I've never heard of this before, and certainly none of the editors I've ever worked with over the years have had a problem with scene breaks. So my own opinion is that I don't think this is something anyone really needs to worry about—although if someone, as a matter of personal style, doesn't like the look of them in their own writing, then the suggestions so far offered here sound perfectly good.

 

[ckatt]

@Teresa Edgerton
Glad to have another perspective on it. I'm not exactly sure where I picked up that idea. Probably reading too many blogs.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

@Teresa Edgerton
Glad to have another perspective on it. I'm not exactly sure where I picked up that idea. Probably reading too many blogs.

Yes, a tremendous amount of misinformation does get passed around on blogs. But also much good advice, which can make it hard to figure out who and what to believe.

 

[WSDuffy]

I would add to the chorus of people saying that scene breaks do not usually cause problems for me as a reader. In this case, I think it would be a real help, as the two scenes seem to be in the same plot/action space, indicating a need to keep in the same chapter, but I would need some signal to show that time has passed, and none of the alternatives are less distracting than the scene break.

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

I've read this kind of scene change done both with and without a visible break marker, and I don't think it makes much difference! The words do the job perfectly well- it's hard to mistake what has happened. If anything, "no marker" is slightly more effective in this particular case: it gives continuity with the POV character as she drifts off and then jolts awake, two events she perceives without a break between them.