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Topic : How do I show that two days have passed in a short story? So two days before my character is thinking about something and she is in her room. How do I show that two days later her friend - selfpublishingguru.com

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So two days before my character is thinking about something and she is in her room. How do I show that two days later her friend is talking to her?

Here are my rough sentences:

She relaxed when she heard him walk away.
That was it, right?

And then two days or one day later I want to open with her friend talking to her:

“I heard it’s the best thing to do,” Julian said.

So do i say like "julian said two days later"? or "Julian said at lunch the next day"?

I don't know how to transition.


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If you start a new scene, the reader will know that something has changed. In a manuscript, you indicate a change of scene by putting a pound sign (#) or three asterisks (* * *) on a line by themselves (and optionally centered on the line). That's called a scene break.

Readers know that a new scene generally indicates a change of time, place, viewpoint, or some combination of those. So if the new scene has the same viewpoint character, the reader will know that some time has passed. They may not know, at first, how much time has passed. So you'll want to indicate that fairly soon in the new scene. You can do it with dialogue:

"I want to believe that, Julian," she said, "but it's only been two days. He could come skulking back tomorrow. Or next week. Or at the wedding. How will I ever know that he's really gone for good?"

or with the viewpoint character's thoughts:

Julian was right. Two days and not a word from Biff. Maybe this time he was really gone.


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