So I'm writing a book, and originally I wanted it to start in mid August and end in May of the following year. This would obviously require some large time skips if I want to keep this book at a reasonable length, but I'm not sure how I would manage to do that. I don't know how to smoothly incorporate time skips in my story, and so much happens over that time period that I'm not sure what exactly would be appropriate to take out.
Anybody got some advice or suggestions?
I've been in the same situation. One of my books was supposed to occur over the series of a full year because of reasons that are too complicated to explain, but I ran into similar problems. What I found was best for time skips was to put them in between chapters. This way, you start off with a bit of dialogue or something that lets the audience know that time has passed. Then you give a small 'recap' of things that have happened during the time you skipped over. This gives the audience a feel of "We experienced this time passing with the main character" without you as the author having to write out all the nitty-gritty details. However, I would only use this for time skips that happen more than a week. Anything less than that, and it's much easier to incorporate it into the story. Something like "A week passed and the main character was still frustrate" or something similar. But yeah. That's my two cents at least.
Ah, alright thank you
Time skips are certainly a pain when you aren't writing in the journal-entry format. You could always initiate time skips between chapters, but I think it is more personal to actually include them within the chapters themselves. I'm assuming that this isn't written in journal entries, where time skips essentially happen every entry, so it may actually have more effect if you take the long, boring parts you don't want to spend too much time writing about and kind of describe how long they are in about a paragraph or two. Here, a quick example…
"We will do this." He had said. "We will do this," and he watched over the course of the next several weeks as his men were picked away. The 18th of April, the 19th of April, and May already making its way from the horizon. And it was no longer small. It was so suddenly an enormous feat, and he was on the edge of something vast and terrifying and on the brink of falling in. And "We will do this" became an echo. And the casualties became a cave. And before he even knew it, it was May.
You'll find out very quickly what to include and what not to. Do not feel like you have to cut out parts of your story to fit the whole thing into your book. In fact, write as much as you can. If a part is weak, it probably shouldn't be included anyway. Remember, you know what's best for your own story. I'd love to see some writing from you, and good luck with your book!
There was stuff like that done quite well in HP.
Thank you very much
I think it's also wise to draw from your own life. We all have weeks or even months where not much really happens, and isn't worth mentioning. But as the others have mentioned, be careful with how you use those time skips.