How to Make Your Stories Interesting from the Perspective of a Reader 101

Chapter 1 - Time Skipping

This is something I see a lot in fanfiction, time skipping. Of course, time skipping isn't all bad, there is certainly ways that you can pull it off, but I find that a lot of the time the way people do it is mostly off putting. For example, straight up putting "Time skip" to show that you are skipping time is a total off putter for me, especially if you put it in bold. Not to even mention the, "Time Skipping because I'm to lazy to write more xD". I will be honest, I have done that back in my day on a account that is now deleted, but really it's not quirky or funny. It mainly just shows that you aren't serious about what you're writing about and is a serious turn off. Not that you can be too serious about stupid fanfics, but still it makes me not believe that this is a real book and as such makes me want to read your book even less.

Now you may be wondering, Emily if I can't use those time skipping methods then how will I time skip in my own stories? Well really there's a lot of ways you can, but I have two in mind that I find pretty easy to use in your own writing and also don't make me want to puke every time I see them.

The first one is a classic. One I've seen in thousands of fanfics and one that is by far the easiest of all of them. This one is just plain using a hyphen. Though it isn't my favorite one to use, it is fairly easy and still looks nice and elegant when added to your writing. The only slightly bad side effect is that I don't believe you can ever use this one in writing outside of fanfics, so though it isn't a total turn off; I would still try your best to stray away from it.

Now this one is by far my favorite way to time skip. It's a way that people use in actual books and by far makes the reading experience way better. I'll call this one, "Actually Writing Things Out". In "Actually Writing Things Out™️", you actually write out the time skips. You may be saying, Emily how the hell am I supposed to do that? I understand it's hard for your little mind to grasp the concept so I will give a good example.

The day went by at lightning speed, and although he though he would never want it to end, he was absolutely dying to lie down on his bed.

As you can see, instead of making it known to the whole world that there's a time skip by adding "Time Skip", it slowly transitions into it leading to a nice reading experience.

Now now, don't go running off yet, we still have to talk about this way of time skipping. If done right it can be a wonderful way of showing the difference of time, but if it's done wrong it can just leave the reader completely confused. I for one have been through this many times. You need to clearly state the passage of time, showing the reader that the character/characters is done with the activity and is currently doing something else.

Now that I've explained this, I feel that you can go running off making your stupid SpongeBob x Patrick fanfics. If you have any constructive criticisms for me, go ahead. I mean it would be a little hypocritical if I didn't allow you guys to criticize my own work.

Have a wonderful day, and make sure to be responsible when writing.