MechanicalIntermediate
Transitions
The seams between scenes, chapters, and time periods.
Principle
A transition is felt more than read.
Takeaways
- Hard cut: scene break with no ramp.
- Bridge: a sentence or paragraph carries the reader across.
- Echo: an image or phrase hands off across the seam.
Overview
Transitions are the joins between units of narrative — sentence to sentence, scene to scene, chapter to chapter, story-time to flashback. The strongest transitions do work invisibly; the weakest leave the reader unmoored or recap what the white space already said.
Examples
- A character closes a door at the end of a scene; the next scene opens with a knock.
- A line of dialogue interrupted, completed three pages later in a different room.
- A chapter ending on a colour that opens the next.