Pale skies with an overlay of chalk here this morning that gave way to fine, spring day. Of course, rain is arriving later, but there’s time for work, a walk, and weeding.

I turned on my TV earlier as I exercised, and HBO was playing a Game of Thrones episode. It’s the epic fantasy based on the novels of George R.R. Martin. It’s season 7 of the 8-season series and the camera focused a closeup shot on Peter Dinklage who plays Tyrion Lannister, a crucial player in the sweeping drama.

Earlier in the series Tyrion had taken part in The Battle of Blackwater, a major battle to defend Westeros from invaders. He was injured by a sword slashing his face. In the novels, Tyrian, a dwarf, is ugly, misshapen and brutish while Dinklage is attractive. And in the novels, his face is seriously maimed in the battle including losing part of his nose.

The TV series downplays his injury likely since it would have required CGI, but his face is never the same after the battle.  And no doubt the showrunners knew a television audience would have no stomach from such gruesomeness–though the series offered up gruesomeness and senseless cruelty and diabolical cunning and rat tortures, and slavering dogs episode after episode. And that’s without dragonfire.

Because in Georgie R.R. Martin’s storytelling no one is safe. And because fictional people suffer. A lot. 

The closeup in season reveals how the wound has been healing—in other words, it’s showing the passage of time. I’ve advised how writers should take great care with wounding major characters and how the scenes that follow the injuries, surgeries, heart attacks should reveal healing or grievous damage.

How are you showing the passage of hours, days and seasons? Your characters growing or diminishing? Becoming hardened or hopeful? This can be especially tricky when your story covers years or generations as children become teenagers, then adults. When adults become elderly and governments fail, worlds crumble.

All fiction requires fallout and repercussions. Aging and declining. Birth and revival. Plan for downstream effects.

You can find more information on pacing and using time passing in my book Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing.

Keep writing. Keep dreaming. Have heart.

Resist.