: How to better imply time and place changes? For instance we are speaking of one time and then when we finish we speak of a moment that preceded, i.e.Ten hours before that. Or we are speaking

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One way to convey time is with signposts:

She buried her head in the pillow as she smacked the alarm clock for the third time.
He fumbled with his key in the lock, glowering at the burnt-out porch light. "Gotta remember to fix that before leaving for work tomorrow," he muttered.
Over dinner she shared the news of her promotion.
"Are you coming to bed?" "In a minute -- just want to catch the weather report," he said as he glanced at the TV.
The kids bounded from the school bus and ran for the playground. Homework could wait.

You don't know exactly when she gets up in the morning or school gets out or they have dinner, but you usually don't need an exact time. If you need to be more specific, you can work it in without resorting to outright narration:

The blare of the Rolling Stones jolted her out of her dream. 6:00 already? Not ready to face the day, she reached over and smacked the snooze alarm. Take that, Mick Jagger.
He quickly cleared the lunch dishes. He was cutting it close; the kickoff was at 1:30 and the guys would be here any minute.
The minute hand crawled ever so slowly toward the 12. Two more minutes... one more... at last! 3:00 brought the anticipated bell and the stampede from the classroom. "Don't forget to read chapter 3!" Mr. Davis sighed, knowing his reminder had fallen on deaf ears.

I've been talking about time, but you can handle changes of place in a similar way. You don't need to say "they're at a bar" if you can imply it -- the pitcher of beer, the conversation with the bartender, the noisy crowd watching the game on several TVs while munching pretzels... show, don't tell.

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There are countless ways to announce a flashback (ten hours before) and denote time passing (later that day), it all depends on the genre and your personal stylistic preferences and none of them are either correct or wrong.

Basically, what you are managing is a scene change, and the time can go in any direction, depending on how you are telling the story.

It is common in many action TV series to start an episode with an action scene, and then display a clear subtitle (ten hours before) and return to the events which led to what was shown first, and I have seen that technique applied to writing, where the scenes are time-stamped to enforce the sense of urgency and convey the importance of time, being an element of the plot.

If you are writing a more relaxed-paced piece, your character can just reflect on what s/he saw or was thinking some time ago, maybe even without an explicit scene break, just say something like "her thoughts returned to the events of this morning" and keep going.

The passing of time is even easier: every scene break implies a change of some sort, whether scenery, point of view, or time, so start a new scene and work in the time reference in a natural and unobtrusive way, say "I can't believe it's six already, I have to go..." etc.

It is all up to you. If you are looking for actual words to use in any particular case, this is not a right place to ask your question, you would be better off consulting with your writing group.

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This is probably more of a question about transitions than anything.
I often wondered about this myself (and I'm assuming you are talking about this in context of fiction writing to make it seem real).

Then I read the book, Make Your Words Work, by Gary Provost (amazon link) and it cleared it all up.

Basically, he explained it simply. Suppose you read a story and two characters are bidding each other goodbye. Then you come upon the following:

'*****

Later that day at the cafe, Barry heard a gunshot.

You see? It's really as simple as that.
Suppose you want it to be a specific time, that's ok. Readers are smart enough to follow it.

Some books do use the asterisk in between these transitions also to show the reader that it's two different scenes.

'***

At 10:05pm Barry startled from where he had fallen asleep on the
couch. The TV was blaring, but he had distinctly heard a gunshot
outside his door. Directly outside.

Your readers will understand it well enough. Readers are smart.

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