Sense of time

This is perhaps more of a personal problem than one that I see frequently in stories. Perhaps at times, but less frequently than some other topics that I have written about in the past. I find that my stories have a problem with the passage of time. It is difficult to accurately convey how much time has passed, or addressing the way that things develop. Making things happen in a reasonable amount of time. Two people don't fall in love over night. A person doesn't die over the course of a week after being stabbed in the heart.

There are exceptions to these statements, of course. Instances of incredible miracles, exceptional people doing exceptional things that no one can explain or ever dream of. People who fall in love in the blink of an eye. People who should have died twenty times over, but keep standing back up until the job is done and there is nothing left to kill them.

Every author wants their character to be exceptional. Monologues on the death bed, love in a period of hours or days, never losing a fight, so many things that no one could ever reasonably do. A lot of people consider this to be oversaturated. I don't necessarily agree, but I can see where they're coming from. What is exceptional about it if every protagonist is like that?

This is something that could easily be lessened by simply having a better sense of time. But while that in theory is simple, in practice it is not quite so easy. A book can only be so long, after all, and while the contents of it may take place over a specific amount of time, the length of time that one takes reading it affects their perception of that. Taking a break from a book and coming back to it several months later makes the story seem significantly longer than if you were just to read the whole thing straight.

There are some books that find ways to guide the flow of time as the story progresses. Two examples that I can think of are the Gone series by Michael Grant, and New Moon by Stephenie Meyer. In the former, rather than chapter titles, each chapter is headed by a timer. From the very first page, you know how much time is left until the ultimate scene of the book. You may not know what is going to happen at that time, but you know how far away it is from occurring, and as the chapters fly by, you are always expressly aware of how quickly or slowly time is passing. In the latter, there is a point in the book where a huge time skip is made. This is notified to the reader by a series of pages with nothing more than the name of the month that is passing without event.

Say what you will about either of these books, these are excellent ways of expressing the passage of time. They let the reader know exactly how quickly things are progressing, while still staying in tune with the way that the author wants the story to flow. Gone's method is brief and fleeting, keeping it just at the edge of your mind, and making you ever fearful of just how much time is left. New Moon's method is intentionally shocking and abrupt, following a traumatic experience with an emptiness that reflects how the character feels. And yes, I realize that expressing that shows too much about the things that I have read. We all make our mistakes.

I often feel like my characters are progressing either too slowly or too quickly. Its hard to judge while writing, however, because time seems to last so much longer while writing than it does while reading. Its just the perception of how long you stay in that world. I have had stories where development happens over the course of a week, but that week is so packed full of action and adventure that it feels like an eternity has passed. In contrast, I have had stories that span over the course of multiple years, but events are small and wide spread so they pass quickly.

I don't know how best to accommodate these things. Partially because it depends on the context of the story. In fact, perhaps the best, and possibly only, way is to simply have someone else read it and see what they think. Perhaps multiple people. Have different kinds of people read at different paces, and see what they think.

Of course, having to go through that kind of process would make finishing a story exponentially longer. But for the purpose of learning, perhaps it is a worthwhile investment.