Writing: Time Jumps

I was reading Loser by Chuck Palahniuk, a short story in the book Stories: All New Tales
(Buy it here---->Stories: All New Tales Edited By Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrontonio  or pick it up at your local library.) 

In Loser, he tells a story of a Frat boy at The Price is Right (although he never says it) tripping on acid. It's very entertaining, as I enjoy Palahniuk's novels. Although, as I am also familiar with The Price is Right, he made a choice in his story to skip the part when you spin the wheel to win the chance to go to the showcase. He instead jumps straight into the showcase with a time job maneuver with the sentence:

"It's like forever later, but you win all the way to the Showcase Round." pg. 198

As a writer myself, I think about this choice and my own writing:

1. This is something I am afraid to do. 

2. This is something I don't know how to do. 

3. Is this something I want to do. 

In my novel, The Van Allen Horror (working title), I have them flying towards the moon and use the need for sleep, something very real, to pass the time as they fly without having to write a lot of extraneous dialogue and action. But, the wheel is something crucial to The Price is Right experience. Why wouldn't he take a paragraph to write about the experience of spinning the wheel, 

The curved object spun at a rate slower than I felt my muscles do. The sea of red shirted Zelta Delt brothers screamed for it to keep going, but not in those words, in the continuous chant they started forever ago. The smear of white with a splash of blue green beeped at a pace that made me feel I was having a heart attack. And with each slower beep, it calmed me down until it stopped, then time stopped and a ding that sent under a sign that when I kept looking up thought was an upside down 60. The United States Marine man made it up. It was his turn. He spun the wheel at a pace I was sure was going to send it off flying off the stage, hitting a perfect ten through the red sea of Zelta Delts. A collective 'Awww' before the marine shook hands with the grey haired man and mentioned returning after these messages. 

Something like that. Except in my own style. 

I like my stories to represent real time, yet every story, focusing on short stories, can't represent the whole day in the life of our characters. We have to break it up into the most important moments of the story, otherwise it will be boring for the reader, and the writer.

In a short story I am working on, Tub Licker, I am using time jumps with line spaces. After one scene ends, I skip two lines and start the new scene either an hour from the last line or a whole day, I've read other writers who use this method and find it to be a useful way to time jump through all those boring moments like: unpacking, cleaning, going to the bathroom, etc., that, in this story, don't have any plot or character development contained in them.

One writer, Edgar Cantero, in his great book Meddling Kids, calls the skipping of lines out in a brief moment of Meta writing. In the chapter, he finishes a paragraph, skips two lines then writes, "Two blank lines later," then continues the action without skipping any time at all. The key to this being that it fits the style of his writing throughout the whole book, and it doesn't break the reader's suspension of disbelief. It has a natural flow that fits into the story, and provides an instance of humor within the tense action that is happening to the characters. 

As a writing exercise, find a time jump moment in one of your favorite stories and write what you think would happen in that time. 

As a writer, think about how you use time and different techniques you use, or want to develop, in skipping over certain parts of your story.

Feel free to share your writing in the comments, or share any advice or other examples that you may have on the subject of time jumping in writing with me. I am always happy to learn and discuss writing techniques with other writers or avid readers. 

Test Taking Disappointment

   I took a test for my Wine Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Level 1 certification in wine. The first proctored test I have taken since I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) Level 4 back in 2010. The first test of knowledge I had taken since finishing graduate school in 2007. And the one thing you forget if you haven't taken a test in a while, it's not always about what you know, yet also about making good decisions on the questions that you don't know. And, on the few questions I struggled with, I don't feel like I made good decisions when answering them.

   I know I got the questions wrong. I reviewed the answers once I got home and know that I choice the wrong answers. I don't care about being wrong, or not knowing the answer, but what I do care about is making the best decision on what the answer is based on what I do know, and I didn't do that. I answered too quickly without thinking through the answers and instead went with a gut reaction.

   I have been sitting here all afternoon working on excuses on why I failed and didn't receive a 100%. The best I came up with is: Test Dyslexia. I have known a lot of people through my schooling years who had text anxiety, and never thought it was a real thing. The only test I ever took that made me sweat was the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), and I did very poorly, never studying or doing any SAT Prep didn't help either. But, I learned my lesson and with practice and studying did a lot better on the American College Testing (ACT).

   But those were the good old days when you took a test a week. You were doing something we call: Practicing. Taking all those tests every week prepared you to take, more tests. So now when you have to sit down to take a test, maybe there is a bit of anxiousness or nerves, and in some of the questions all the answers started to run together almost like I couldn't read, hence test dyslexia. But again, this is just an excuse I am making so that I feel better about getting those answers incorrect. I actually don't have test dyslexia or test anxiety, I didn't get them right, because I didn't know the answer.

   No matter how you feel about tests, when you are an adult and haven't taken one in a long while, you forget some of the simple rules of test taking like: when you don't know the answer, break it down into what you do know and find the answer that best supports that assumption. And this is the true reason why I am upset, because I made poor decision making when choosing an answer.

   I like to boast that I have confident skills in creativity, problem solving and decision making. But I didn't show those skills today. Even though I did pass, I failed at what really matters to me. So now I have to pick up the pieces, learn from mistakes and move on. I am still here, and have to continue to move forward and improving, and not let the mistakes of the past derail progress or hold me back from my final destination of a brighter and safe future.