There are moments in a dance that instantly distinguishes a great dancer from a mediocre one. It’s the same type of moment that differentiates a choppy film from one that sweeps you away.
I’m talking about transitions. Those tiny moments between movements and scenes. The seconds hidden in the in-between spaces. A great dancer will use those transitions to make the dance flow seamlessly. A filmmaker uses transitions to hide cuts and let the story feel whole.
Transitions appear in writing too. They are the connective tissue that holds scenes, thoughts, paragraphs together. They are the tiny sentences or phrases that grab the reader’s hand and says, “come this way. The story hasn’t ended yet. Look over here.”
Transitions are a bit of illusion that creative fields use to distract from a change in the work—a change in position (dance), change of scene or camera angle (film), or a change in thought (writing). Transitions allow a filmmaker to hide her edits. They allow the dancer to move through the positions and steps without a break. They let the writer tell a story without losing the reader.
Transitions allow you to change the point of view, perspective, and move your characters through the story without writing scene A, scene B, scene C and slapping them beside each other without anything holding them together.
It’s easier to talk about with film. If you’ve ever watched a movie made-for-TV that you were able to watch without the commercial breaks, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s way too easy to identify where the commercials were planned. Why? Because they are hard breaks in the editing without any attempt to transition between scenes. You intuitively recognize the break in story without the advertisement. This is the harshest example of missing transitions. But they happen in theatrical releases too when the cuts between shots or scenes are obvious. While you may not be able to explain why it’s happening, the film will feel choppy, rough. And the reason is either a lack of transitions or poor execution of the transitions and cuts.
Directors and editors choose specific shots to use from the many available for the feeling that particular shot evokes. A close up adds urgency and intensity. A long shot anchors the viewer in time and place. There are so many types of shots an editor can select that changes the mood she’s trying to create. Each shot affects the way the audience feels and reacts.
In screenplays, writers don’t specify which cuts to use. They don’t add camera shots or suggest lenses (except in some shooting scripts). That job is left to the Director of Photography (or DP) and the Director. But a screenwriter will offer a sense of what was in her head when she wrote the scene by adding scene description:
INT. NIGHT—LOG CABIN LIVING ROOM
I’m not going to get too deep into this because it will take us down a rabbit hole of filmmaking that, while fascinating, is not the point. The reason I talked about film was for the contrast.
It’s obvious when transitions in films and television shows are bad.
When they’re good, no one notices. They’re too busy watching the show, being pulled into the story, which is the point.
Transitions let the viewer fall into the story instead of the mechanics. It works the same in writing. Not focusing on transitions in your writing will leave your reader feeling restless. The good news is that transitions are tiny things—a phrase or sentence, maybe a paragraph or two. They are easy edits. Look at the places where you move from one idea to another, one place to another, one character to another. Identify the moments when your perspective changes or the story takes a turn. Then make sure you include a transition to lead your reader to the next bit without leaving them behind.
You don’t want your character to exit the fun house and leave the reader stuck in the maze. It’s your job to make sure they follow along where you are leading without strain. It’s also making sure you character doesn’t magically appear somewhere else with no explanation for the change. This is a missing transition.
If you want to see a masterful example of transitions in storytelling, there is no better show to watch than Sherlock from BBC starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. It has some of the best editing I’ve ever seen, though few talk about that aspect of the show. They’re too busy talking about how good the characters and stories were. The reason they focus on that is partly because of the masterful transitions that allow the viewer to lose themselves in the story. It doesn’t hurt that the writing was also masterful.
Mastery of these tiny moments is important. When I worked at Disney, one of the biggest rules (one that resulted in immediate firing if you broke it) was “Never Break Magic.” That could mean any number of things—don’t ruin it for a kid by revealing it’s a person in the costume and not the princess or Mickey; don’t curse; talk politics on Main Street; be rude; do anything that would allow the real world to intrude on the Disney experience. Don’t break the Magic Disney creates in any way.
A lack of transitions is breaking the magic. It pulls the reader out of the story so they notice the writing instead, which is never okay. A writer’s job is to tell a story, not draw attention to how great they are at writing. The reader will recognize great writing without any help from us. Focus on your transitions and they might think that of you.