How long do you think is an appropriate (or min) skip in time before you describe a character's change in appearance? A time skip of a few days? A week? A month? Do you vary the length of your description in their change by the amount of time that's passed or do you just use a paragraph and try to wrap it all up nice and neat regardless?
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Ageha1304
Ageha
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I think it really depends on the character and what they are doing. If character has been traveling for a while then he can go through some radical changes. And skips of time highly depend on your story. I think you skip time if the events happening between one event the next one are irrelevant or can be quickly explained by these appearance changes.
I think if you can justify your time skips and appearance changes anything can happen.
I think if you can justify your time skips and appearance changes anything can happen.
Vragon
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When it comes to changes it's important to make sure you make a cause clear and have it be reasonable (or at least the right cause for an effect).
To me, it's not so much as time since a persons life but many different things that occur in their day. Like the plot may focus on the afternoon part, but there are plenty of things that happen before. But if you want to skip stuff and yet keep the effect in you want to ensure it's explained well.
Take my earlier example of the story talking about something in the afternoon. Say the protagonist is angry at another character because he woke up pretty sour and didn't like the teasing the other character did this morning. You could include the morning, but if you don't wish to you can just give a slight bit of history about it. Though it helps if you write it in, like say instead of narrating it you have someone ask, "Why are you mad at _____?" and therefore the protagonist explains it.
Course, to me these things can apply to bigger changes and broader developments. A story can be good, but if it doesn't make sense how you came from point A to point B, then it would show either a jump without proper focus on "how" or "why" it happened or be seen as plot convenience or unexplained scenarios.
To me, it's not so much as time since a persons life but many different things that occur in their day. Like the plot may focus on the afternoon part, but there are plenty of things that happen before. But if you want to skip stuff and yet keep the effect in you want to ensure it's explained well.
Take my earlier example of the story talking about something in the afternoon. Say the protagonist is angry at another character because he woke up pretty sour and didn't like the teasing the other character did this morning. You could include the morning, but if you don't wish to you can just give a slight bit of history about it. Though it helps if you write it in, like say instead of narrating it you have someone ask, "Why are you mad at _____?" and therefore the protagonist explains it.
Course, to me these things can apply to bigger changes and broader developments. A story can be good, but if it doesn't make sense how you came from point A to point B, then it would show either a jump without proper focus on "how" or "why" it happened or be seen as plot convenience or unexplained scenarios.
For time skips, I try to only describe the changes to a character if they've undergone significant ones. Like, I try not to do any time skips unless something big happens in between, anyway. So usually when I pick back up at the tail end of the timeskip I'll let my readers know what happened --- physically and emotionally. Obviously, a character isn't only going to change physically. Well, maybe some might, if they're not affected by whatever happened in between the times at each end of the skip. But as far as my own stuff goes, anyway, I usually only use timeskips when I need to. I actually generally try to avoid writing any 'formally' recognized timeskips (as in, putting "ONE YEAR LATER" somewhere in the story) unless something really significant happened, because otherwise I feel like it will have less of an impact. But that's also just a personal preference.
So honestly for me timeskips can be anywhere from a week to a thousand-plus years. However long it takes for a significant change to occur. When it does, I tend to like describing it from the viewpoint of a character who wasn't tagging along with the protagonists (or whoever I'm focusing on) in the beginning. I feel like it has more impact if I have my protagonist --- let's say he's a goodie two-shoes private school kid --- be described by a third party we haven't met yet (or maybe have, in some cases) as rugged and war-torn, with an intense look of determination in his eyes, or something like that.
Like I said, though, just personal preference, and the way I write my best timeskips. As long as there's a significant change that took place, physically, emotionally, or both, I'd put some sort of timeskip in there and describe just what changed, at least to an outsider's perspective, unless you're sticking with something like a first-person or limited third-person perspective and therefore your own protagonist will be able to let us know exactly what's changed.
I also feel like massive descriptions of what changed aren't necessary. If your character had significant enough of a change, it will be shown through their words and actions after the timeskip. So I don't think one necessarily needs to detail it, but rather have the character show it through their lifestyle choices. If you've fleshed out a character well enough, your readers will be able to tell there's been quite a bit of change, even if you don't spend time detailing exactly what's been changed.
So honestly for me timeskips can be anywhere from a week to a thousand-plus years. However long it takes for a significant change to occur. When it does, I tend to like describing it from the viewpoint of a character who wasn't tagging along with the protagonists (or whoever I'm focusing on) in the beginning. I feel like it has more impact if I have my protagonist --- let's say he's a goodie two-shoes private school kid --- be described by a third party we haven't met yet (or maybe have, in some cases) as rugged and war-torn, with an intense look of determination in his eyes, or something like that.
Like I said, though, just personal preference, and the way I write my best timeskips. As long as there's a significant change that took place, physically, emotionally, or both, I'd put some sort of timeskip in there and describe just what changed, at least to an outsider's perspective, unless you're sticking with something like a first-person or limited third-person perspective and therefore your own protagonist will be able to let us know exactly what's changed.
I also feel like massive descriptions of what changed aren't necessary. If your character had significant enough of a change, it will be shown through their words and actions after the timeskip. So I don't think one necessarily needs to detail it, but rather have the character show it through their lifestyle choices. If you've fleshed out a character well enough, your readers will be able to tell there's been quite a bit of change, even if you don't spend time detailing exactly what's been changed.