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A time for change book5/20/2023 The key is to ensure each time shift occurs at the right moment in your fiction.Ī character’s past and future are always relevant to her present. It’s at these moments that we go back or forward in time, either via a flashback or a time shift. Sometimes, however, the best kairos occurs in a character’s-and the fiction’s-past or future. ![]() Remember that your main goal is to keep your fiction moving ever forward. It’s the largest kairos-moment in emotional time-in a fiction. Nothing is the same once the climax has occurred. Like a stone dropped into a pond, it ripples outward. The climactic moment of a fiction affects not only that moment but every moment that came before and all that will come after. She then moves back and forth in her story’s mind until she arrives at another particular moment, also often long before or after the story’s primary timeframe. Munro begins almost all of her stories in a particular moment that takes place long before or after its primary timeframe. In other words, the placement of each scene must be relevant to its emotional impact in the mind of your story.Ĭonsider any story by Alice Munro and you will see what I mean. Yes, scene A may have occurred in time before scene B, but your fiction may achieve far more emotional impact if scene A occurs after scene B. Instead, your story should move forward emotionally, building momentum toward its climax. This means that even if your fiction’s timeframe begins at point A and then moves forward till it ends at point B, the story doesn’t need to progress lineally. ![]() Note from Jane: This post is an excerpt from The Mind of Your Story by Lisa Lenard-Cook.Įverything that happens in your fiction should occur at the moment when it will evoke the greatest response from a reader.
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