Suggestive Time Lapses

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磯七ラスミ
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Suggestive Time Lapses

#1 Post by 磯七ラスミ »

I'm looking for implicit time transition tricks for time-travel stories, mystery novels and dramatic slice-of-life.

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Mammon
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Re: Suggestive Time Lapses

#2 Post by Mammon »

The same character, recogniseable by name or some facet of theirs, with different ages. If a teenage character suddenly looks like they're 8 years old, it suggests you leaped back in time a few years. It requires more art, but that would be the most nuanced way to go about it in time leaps of a few years. With a time skip of more than a lifespan, add a different background with different fashion for the characters will hint that you're in an entirely different era.

For short time jumps, some event or news article will be able to deliver it pseudo-nuanced. Better than just directly giving the date anyway. Something like a news article in the first scene about people still being in mourning over something that happened during the big Event last week, and then a few scenes later after a time skip the news is talking about the high anticipation of the Event that's coming up tomorrow. It would suggest that you leaped back 8 days, assuming the audience still remembers it. So for short-burst time jumps some plot-relevant event might be useful as a measuring stick for the date.

There are of course a thousand and one other ways to go about it, but these are three ways to signify a time leap.
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Re: Suggestive Time Lapses

#3 Post by Katy133 »

Other methods include using a visual timeline, a calendar flipping forward/backward, or using captions ("Ten years later," etc).
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