Any incident that changes people is bound to be interesting unless you don't know how to write, and without anything of that sort happening people don't change. So write those incidents, and skip the boring parts.
Well then, I suppose I'll just skip past a lot of book learning and get to the point.
It might also be worth including incidents that reveal somewhat about the character, especially if the incidentes interesting in their own right.
My Games & WritingSkip through most events, show some key ones. If you need to, take a page from the big screen and montage it up.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.I had also had the idea to take some time in between skips to introduce some of the characters that will be important later.
If nothing happens, make something happen. Small challenges to overcome through learning. Maybe there's something that stumps them and they have to over come it. Maybe an accident happens half-way through which will set up a Chekov'sGun later on in the story.
Warning: This poster is known to the state of California to cause cancer. Cancer may not be available in your country.I'd have thought that would've went without saying.
I mean, you've already indicated that some of the things to happen to your character in that period will be important. In which case, show, don't tell. Meetings with other characters, lessons learned, all of that—it'd be stupid to skip over them if they're important to the story, unless you have plans to go back and revisit them later.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.Write a small snippet or two from the segments you're skipping. You don't have to go in depth and tell about the whole "learning" years, but don't underestimate the significance a short scene can have on atmosphere or character-development.
edited 18th Feb '15 10:01:21 PM by DoctorDiabolical
That's good advice.
And, yeah, the character's not just going to be studying, surely? She'll have friends who bring her snacks after she's pulled an all-nighter and crushes on other students and disagreements with her teachers and all that. Just because she 'should' have her nose in a book doesn't mean that she always will.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
I'm writing something now developing an alchemist character from young childhood, but this is making necessary long periods of barely anything but her studying.
How do you make this kind of thing interesting? I don't want to just jump forward a decade and have a character the reader knows nothing about, but there's only so much drama that can happen to a character who should have their nose in a book...