How can you use montage to show the passage of time in your writing?

An effective montage can help the reader get to the heart of a character by better understanding their movements and even their thoughts. I fear that too many writers use AI to help craft character or environment montages. When reading the definition as presented here it looks like there are direct quotes from an AI program. Of course I could be wrong. The more life you live yourself, and if you pay attention to the montages and interactions, you have with virtually everything, you see here and touch it be most helpful in understanding how to craft a montage that is receptive, and understandable and relatable to the reader.

In writing, montage is a technique used to depict the passage of time effectively. It involves presenting a series of interwoven scenes in a condensed, fast-paced format that allows readers to grasp the progression of time without the need for dates, time or a detailed, linear narrative. To effectively make use of montage, it’s important to highlight significant moments that are representative of the time passing and provide valuable details, peppering in phrases like ‘in the following years’ or ‘weeks passed’ to indicate time shifts as the scenes vary to capture change, growth, and challenges. Above all, montages shouldn’t just be used as a gimmick but as a way to advance the plot with purpose and an integral part of the narrative.

Short sentences. Tight rhythm. and then spontaneously breaking said rhythm to go into a long descriptive sentence. Then reverting back to shorter sentences once more. Varying the flow from time to time. But always reverting back to short crisp sentences.

Montage is a technique used to show the passage of time. Instead of describing every single moment, you can summarize important events into short, powerful scenes. For example, if you’re writing about a character’s journey, you can quickly show key milestones or the changing of seasons. This technique makes your story more dynamic and helps time flow in an engaging way for your readers.

Use it sparingly (based on my personal experience and background as a professional produced screenwriter I would say no more than twice in a screenplay) to emphasize a profound moment in the story's/character's arc - typically reflective memories or a "scrapbook snapshot" of the protagonist's movement to improvement and realization, creating an emotional sense of understanding of the protagonist and the story as it nears its impactful coda (conclusion). *USE SPARINGLY Overusing dilutes the device's impact.

If you have lived in the past you are referring to it is not hard to add montage in your story because you experienced it, but if it is fiction you need to research that time period. You can watch movies from that time period, read about that time in history and attach the words to your characters and the scenes they are in. Music is a great usage of montage. People also use different slang. For example, "going steady" was a popular slang when I was younger. It was proclaimed by someone who was dating one person. I can ask my children who are married now, did they ever go steady with anyone, and they would answer, "What's that?"

Think of how you jot down your grocery list i.e. you just write enough words on there for you to remember what you have to get. You won't write "Lay's Bar-B-Q chips' big bag". You'll write "Chips". Keep key takeaways very basic. On your second read, see what more details are critical to forming a picture and then add those.

The key to a good montage in writing is to make a lot of abrupt scene changes, as quickly as possible. Keep them to a paragraph or even a sentence, if possible. Though you'll usually need a bit more runway than that. The idea is to be frenetic in the pacing. The reader should get what the scene is about in general, but not have a clue about the specifics. You're leaving out the "why" in these scenes, and resorting to sharing some really quick "whats" and "hows."

The most reader-friendly way is to use descriptions. In non-fiction, that means much more research and interviews. For example, in my latest book, I spent a lot of time looking up weather conditions since it is historic. Plus I had to be aware of general climactic conditions, terrain and urbanisation of the time. I had to verify and cross-check those with those I interviewed. When montage creation gets heavy (because it's a lot of information), I will take a break or use rectangular place cards. (There are writing apps like Scapple) That helps to plan a montage better. I crunch down a lot of facts. The sentences are simple but they are loaded with fact. I always get it read by a person or two to see if they are able to get it easily.

One thing I keep in mind when writing a montage is to write it using images and sounds that evoke emotions. I want the reader to be pulled in and through the montage, along with the character experiencing it in the story.

If timing is necessary, we look for descriptions that help to show how much time passed. A man's mustache was growing long, the sun went down, a tree's leaves fell, a child learned to sit/stand/run, wrinkles appeared, calluses rubbed off, and so on. These descriptions help us make montages and create an emotional connection with our protagonists and changes in their lives. When writing feature stories, it is common to skip specifying the exact timing of events if it is not important. Our protagonist moves from one location or event to another within the same day - this is also a montage.

Make descriptions vivid and specific e.g. instead of writing "a multicolored wall" write "a wall with splashes of blue, red, and white. And to keep describing sentences from getting too wordy, break them down. Short sentences are the holy grail. Also, depending on how much freedom you have in describing the physical setting of a scene, try and make that reflect the emotional state in the room. E.g. if two people are having a conversation about freedom, you can place it in a farmhouse field in the springtime where houses are galloping around freely. Sets a tone and vibe in the reader's mind.

You need at least five scenes to really do justice to a montage. Five quick events that show pure action. There's no conversation, per se. There's no inner monologue. What we see are drones doing the bidding of the queen bee—they're autonomous, but they don't think. They're pulling triggers. Sudden. Rapid fire.

For me writing our emotions conerning greif, shame or guilt is a montage of words that discribe how we change from moment to moment not necessarily a time period, but a time changing of our emotions and what they look like from moment to moment. Here is an example from my book "A Spiritual Battle Between Two Bloodlines, and the True Victor" when I thought my oldest son was dead from drowning. "Everything was moving in slow motion around me, but I was standing still and could not move at all. I saw people crying with their hands over their mouths and faces, but I could not hear any obvious sound. Their voices were muffled like I was under water. The scene had shrunk into tunnel vision, and I could not see anything else."

The most easily identifiable montages are, of course, in film and television. The most recent example that aligns with what I've described is a scene from "Fall of the House of Usher." Prospero's rave is taking place in an abandoned Fortunato building, and he's about to tell his people to turn on the sprinklers. The antagonist (I call her "Consequences") starts whispering to the wait staff that they should leave, and we see each of them exit. We also see cuts of dance scenes, the flip of the switch for the sprinklers, the "water" pouring down, the DJ doing his thing. All of these quick cuts are making us anxious. We know something bad is coming, but we don't know what it is. You can do this in your writing as well.

One classic example of a literary montage can be found in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." In Chapter 5, there is a scene where Gatsby and Daisy are reunited, and their emotions and conversations are presented in a series of brief, fragmented moments. Fitzgerald uses this montage to convey the intensity and significance of their reunion without providing a detailed account of every exchange.

It may be helpful to leave the montage till you have written at least two drafts of your entire writing because you have to commit to a narrative and choice of information. That impacts the information used in the montage. So, I may make notes of what I will use in the montage and come back there later. That's the easy way. But, sometimes, once there has been a structural edit to writing, I still may have to edit the montage as well. I prefer to look at my initial notes and usually rewrite the entire montage. Finally, I look at the montage for character-action-emotion. Does it portray and capture the emotion I intended? No? Back to the drawing board. Can't get this wrong.

Make a one-time checklist of things you need to ensure during editing and check them off. E.g. your list can have: -Grammar -Minimizing sentence length -Transition words -Active voice -Engages readers' emotions -Engages readers' visual brain -Has points the target audience can relate to -Establishes the characters -Each character has a standout point/trait -The background scenes aren't contradictory e.g. it's 1992 in one scene and a scene that is supposed to take place ten years after that is written to be 1995. -3 rounds of grammatical edits -Peer review Also, take breaks (preferably long breaks) during edits. A fresh eye is worth a million bucks when editing.

Rather than revise after the fact, I'd say your best bet would be to write the thing after you've already written the consequence scene(s). Write the bits that show what happens AFTER, then write the montage that leads up to all of it. You'll have better insight and tighter control that way.

En el ejemplo tomado de "El guardián entre el centeno" están confundiendo el montaje con la elipsis. El montaje es un recurso cinematográfico, no narrativo; en consecuencia, se le puede utilizar en un guión, pero no en una novela. Es importante no confundir los términos.

A montage can only do so much. It can't tell the story for you, but it can--quickly--either show where the characters need to go from (physically, emotionally, spiritually) or show the path they plan to take to get to where they need to go. But the actual meat of the story still needs to happen outside a montage.

In the realm of fiction writing, instead of giving a thorough account of every single day, I opt for a montage technique to highlight important and memorable moments, comparable to snapshots in the photo album. In the realm of non-fiction writing, I utilize a montage to present important moments and thought-provoking experiences, it's constructing a visual story that embodies the progression throughout a period. In the realm of screenwriting, I utilize montage as a film technique that condenses time periods. In essence of my opinion, montage is a method of storytelling that can be utilized in various forms of writing to compresses time and eliminates unnecessary details to provide a clear sense of progress.