Timeline nudges: what happens when?
Before stepping out the door, she slipped her feet into her boots.
After hanging up the phone, she threw it into her bag.
While she stumbled down the sidewalk, she wiped the tears from her eyes.
He finished his sandwich before wiping his hands, then he let out a satisfied burp.
When the dog barked, he flinched.
Each of these sentences contains what we call a timeline nudge. Timeline nudges indicate the order of actions: before, after, while, then, when. It’s important that readers understand when things are happening, so they’ll appreciate if we make that clear, right? Well, sort of. In each of the above examples, the timeline nudges are completely unnecessary. Let’s see what happens if we remove them:
She slipped her feet into her boots and stepped out the door.
She hung up the phone and threw it into her bag.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, she stumbled down the sidewalk.
He finished his sandwich, wiped his hands, and let out a satisfied burp.
The dog ran toward him and he flinched.
Do you notice how much more immediate the action feels in the second version? And even without all the timeline nudges, could you tell what happened when? The simple order of actions in a sentence tells a reader the order in which they occurred. In “she slipped her feet into her boots and stepped out the door,” we know the boots came before the step out the door. In “she hung up the phone and threw it into her bag,” we know she hung up the phone first and threw it into her bag second. No further clarification is needed. In most cases, timeline nudges only serve to distract the reader, clutter the writing, and slow the action.
That said, there are situations where timeline nudges are appropriate. They can be powerful when used intentionally—when the order of events is unexpected or deserves special attention.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
The fact his death happened more quickly than his fall to the ground is what’s significant here, not simply the actions of his dying and hitting the ground.
She glanced nervously at her father before answering the officer.
This sentence emphasizes the glance and creates a pause before she answers the officer, suggesting to readers that she may be hiding something or worried about how her father will react to what she’s about to tell the officer.
She liked to talk while brushing her teeth.
Simply saying she liked to talk and brush her teeth wouldn’t get the point across here—she liked to do both together, which is unusual and tells us something about this character.
Timeline nudges can also be used to intentionally slow the pacing.
He sighed and tapped his foot as she peeled off one sock, then the other.
After a painful silence, she opened her mouth to speak.
The key, as with most writing “rules,” is intention. Do you want the reader to focus on the passage of time and the order of events? Then timeline nudges may be appropriate. But if you want the reader to be lost in the action itself, you can allow the structure of your sentences to show rather than tell the reader what’s happening when.
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