Transitions can be hard to write. Maybe that’s why we keep turning back to these hackneyed transitions, listed in a Poynter Institute forum:

Let’s pause and ponder that for a minute too.

But then the dream became a nightmare.

But then something went horribly wrong.

But that was about to change.

When he first … he never dreamed …

But then something happened that would change her life forever.

Then she experienced every parent’s worst nightmare.

For now they can only watch and wait.

What a difference a (day, week, month, year) makes.

Now the victims are picking up the pieces of their shattered lives.

At the end of the day …

Fresh transitions drive readers further into the story. These clichés just cause readers to roll their eyes — and go back to sleep.

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Internal, or small, transitions move your copy from paragraph to paragraph, from sentence to sentence, from idea to idea.

These are the nows, the laters, the after thats; the howevers, yets and buts; and the thuses, the stills, the neverthelesses.

These copy connectors keep your story from feeling like a series of fits and starts, jumps and jerks or sudden shifts of scene.

To polish these internal transitions:

1. Make good connections.

Let’s pause and ponder that for a minute too.
To make sure your copy flows smoothly from one point to the next:

• Compare and contrast (“However … Yet … Still”)
• Move chronologically (“In 1985 … A few years later … In the future”)
• Travel geographically (“In the White House … Meanwhile, back at the ranch”)
• Progress sequentially (“First … Second … Third …”)

2. Pivot to a new topic.

Turn the story neatly from one idea into the next using a super-short paragraph.

Try it. It works.

3. Make them invisible.

Some folks use internal transitions to turn literary cartwheels. But the best internal transitions are invisible: Readers should hardly notice them. “Look at me!” transitions can distract readers from the substance of the story or its narrative line.

There’s a time for drama.

That doesn’t mean there’s never a time to write dramatic transitions. There is: when you’re moving from the end of a major section to the beginning of the next.

That natural stopping point demands more than a “but” or an “and.” It demands an external transition.

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