Albert Einstein amazed the world in 1905 when he published his paper on special relativity, which predicted —among other things— that time was, indeed, relative.
The writers, however, were left unimpressed, because they have been familiar with a similar principle for ages untold: for you see, it is a trivial matter to derive from the Theory of Narrative Causality that — just as things happen because the plot damn well needs them to — they also happen when it is convenient for the story.
This phenomenon is known as Plot Time, and it crops up in a lot of Tropes.
Not to be confused with Time Travel Tropes, though the two do frequently cooperate. Compare 24-Hour Trope Clock, for how times are used in plots.
Tropes:
- Bait-and-Switch Time Skip: It seems like a long time has passed, but it's only been a little while.
- Comic-Book Time: A long-running series fudges the passage of time so that the main characters barely age (if at all) while time appears to pass as normal for the rest of the world.
- Conversation Cut: A conversation continues across a scene change without interruption.
- Correlation/Causation Gag: A gag where a small action is mistaken for the cause of a large action because they correlate.
- Dramatically Delayed Drug: A drug doesn't work until it's most dramatic — or inconvenient.
- Frozen in Time: A fictional universe is limited to a specific time period, no matter how much time passes in real life.
- Just in Time: A rescue arrives just in the nick of time.
- Magic Countdown: Time flows differently on time counters that are currently not onscreen or discussed.
- Plot Detour: The plot is put on hold for a trivial reason.
- Real Time: Media shown in real time, with nothing sped up, slowed down, or cut.
- Refugee from Time: A character's backstory never changes with the time period.
- Ridiculously Fast Construction: Buildings and units are produced at improbably high speed.
- Scotty Time: Someone has much less time than they need to get the job done, yet they get it done.
- Sneeze Cut: You sneeze when people elsewhere are talking about you.
- Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: A character inexplicably becomes older between appearances.
- Talking Is a Free Action: When a character is in danger, they somehow have enough time to talk about something right before getting out of harm's way or falling victim to the disaster.
- Time Skip: A work skips to a specific amount of time later.
- Transformation at the Speed of Plot: The Virus progresses as quickly or slowly as required for dramatic effect.
- Transformation Is a Free Action: When a character goes through a transformation sequence, no one does anything until after the transformation is complete.
- Traveling at the Speed of Plot: Characters or vehicles travel as quickly or slowly as the plot demands.
- Video Game Time: A video game trope where actions that should require vastly different timescales occur at the same rate.
- Webcomic Time: Real time progresses much faster than in-universe time due to the rate at which a serialized story is produced.
