First question!

[magycmyste]

 Ok, this isn't so much a brainstorming question as advice.

If you have a short story that takes place over 3 days, and you have something important happening on the first day, and on the third day, what do you do with the second?

Would you try to find something interesting to go in the second day? Or would you gloss over or skip it entirely?

EDIT: Thanks, guys, for all the ideas! I didn't think about how vague I was being, but it was really me being curious in general as to how you'd handle a situation like that. For extra context, if you'd like, it's a short story that's sort of a prequel to a novel I'm planning, and involves how two of the characters meet for the first time. On the first day, they meet. On the second day, they do stuff together, and on the third day, something happens. Since I'm writing this partially for my own benefit, and to get a sense of the characters, I think I'll write out what I can of the second day, and then cut it out if need be. I've already got the first day done, which already has a bit of glossing over it, so just need to finish the other two.

By the way, is everyone all right with my editing the original entry to show that it's resolved, or would you need me to respond to your comments individually? (Obviously, discussion about specific comments should go with those, but I thought this might be better for overall.) Let me know what you think.

Comments

[ex_autopoiesi457]

Well, the story's about the interesting bits, right? So: "She was still thinking about it two days later, when..."

[sweet_sparrow]

Trust you to start with a toughie question. Personally I'd never try to make that second day interesting if it didn't want to comply of its own. I have to ask, though, how important is the fact that nothing important happens on the second day? Because that'll have a bearing on whether you could skip it or not.

If all else fails, you could, of course, always write about the second day and see whether it needs to stay or go in subsequent drafts. ^-~ (Yes, I'm hedging the answer completely with this.) I think I'd be most inclined to gloss or opt for the "Two days later..." approach if I could work it in. (I know it doesn't take a whole lot of effort to start a scene with 'two days later', but that won't always suit your goal.)

[reya_starck]

Without knowing the important things that happen on days one and three this is tricky, but I might suggest that day two turns into a breather from Important Day One Thing. A kind of respite for the MC, so that s/he is completely thrown for a loop by Important Day Three Thing. This approach does assume said things are the kind that throw for loops, of course.

[ms_danson]

If it advanced the story or helped the pacing I'd write about day two, otherwise I'd gloss over it. Every time I've tried to "get from here to there" simply because I had to fill the space it has ended up crunchy and distracting from the overall story. Not every minute has to be accounted for.

[tyger]

I think it depends. Does day one have an aftermath? If it does, writing about said aftermath on day two would be interesting - though maybe not in great detail; perhaps gloss is the word, but I tend to associate that with handwave, which isn't quite what I mean. More like a short transitionary vignette - and then getting smacked between the eyes with day three would be more effective. But it really depends on what the events are, more than anything.

So, uh. In short: definitive answer needs more context!

[ex_adorkable997]

I gloss over it. I'm more apt to do this if I am writing about the course of a day and something important happens at the end of the day-- for example after a long weekend visiting, one of my characters has to take her long distance boyfriend to the airport. She's dreading it and she wants more time, so I probably wrote like 2 paragraphs of them 'spending time together' throughout the day, to get to the late afternoon when they're in the car, on the way to the airport.

Either that or I just skip it altogether and if someone says it seems weird, I try to add to it.

[lark]

It depends of course on the specifics, of course. If we're talking about a story that exists entirely over those three days with nothing before/after, I might be inclined to use day 2 as a sort of day of reactions to whatever had happened on day 1, and setting up (literally or symbolically) what's going to happen on day 3. But it depends on how long the work is especially.

[mortalcity]

I had this problem in a novel I'm writing. It absolutely has to take place over a period of seven days, and Tuesday is... the character's day off. Given that the entire story centres on her place of work, there wasn't much for her to do, so I glossed over that particular day and... it felt awkward. Really, really awkward.

I replotted it recently, just shuffling bits of the plot around, and realised that I could use that empty day to introduce a few important plot points, and that some of the events could be shuffled around on the timeline so that there weren't any awkward gaps like there were before.

I wouldn't say you should find something interesting to shove in there just so it's not empty, but if that gap is bothering you... can a bit of the build up to the event on the third day be shifted into the second, or the aftermath of the first day? Is there something later on in the story that needs explaining that you could work into the second day?

[akihikio]

I think in this instance, I would have something happen on the second day. I couldn't just gloss it over. Even if it's a couple lounging on the couch making love, eating popcorn and watching movies, it's still something.