For a more extensive list of transitions showing temporal relationships, see Chapter 13.
Whereas writers tend to use calendar and clock time sparingly, they regularly use temporal transitions such as when, at that moment, before, and while to establish a clear sequence of actions in narrating onetime or recurring events.
Onetime Events To see how temporal transitions work, let us look at the concluding paragraphs of a remembered-event essay in which Russell Baker recounts what happened after his final flight test, his last chance to become a pilot. The “he” Baker refers to is the flight check pilot, T. L. (nicknamed “Total Loss”) Smith:
Baker uses temporal transitions to show what he and Smith were doing after the flight test.
Back at the flight line, when I’d cut the ignition, he climbed out and tramped back toward the ready room while I waited to sign the plane in. When I got there he was standing at a distance talking to my regular instructor. His talk was being illustrated with hand movements, as pilots’ conversations always were, hands executing little loops and rolls in the air. After he did the falling-leaf motion with his hands, he pointed a finger at my instructor’s chest, said something I couldn’t hear, and trudged off. My instructor, who had flown only with the pre-hangover Baker, was slack-jawed when he approached me.
“Smith just said you gave him the best check flight he’s ever had in his life,” he said. “What the hell did you do to him up there?”
“I guess I just suddenly learned to fly,” I said.
—RUSSELL BAKER, “Smooth and Easy”
Look closely at the two transitions in the first sentence. The word when presents actions in chronological order (first Baker stopped the plane, and then Smith got out). While performs a different function, showing that the next two actions occurred at the same time (Baker waited to sign in as the check pilot returned to the ready room). There is nothing complicated or unusual about this set of actions, but it would be hard to represent them in writing without temporal transitions.
Recurring Events Temporal transitions also enable writers to narrate recurring events. In the following narrative by Monica Sone about her daily life in an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II, we can see how transitions (highlighted) help the writer represent actions she routinely performed:
First I typed on pink, green, blue and white work sheets the hours put in by the 10,000 evacuees, then sorted and alphabetized these sheets, and stacked them away in shoe boxes. My job was excruciatingly dull, but under no circumstances did I want to leave it. The Administration Building was the only place which had modern plumbing and running hot and cold water; in the first few months and every morning, after I had typed for a decent hour, I slipped into the rest room and took a complete sponge bath with scalding hot water. During the remainder of the day, I slipped back into the rest room at inconspicuous intervals, took off my head scarf and wrestled with my scorched hair. I stood upside down over the basin of hot water, soaking my hair, combing, stretching and pulling at it.
––MONICA SONE, “Camp Harmony”
With the time marker first, Sone starts describing her typical work routine. In the third sentence, she tells of her surreptitious actions in the first few months and every morning.
Turn to Anastasia Toufexis’s, “Love: The Right Chemistry” in Chapter 4, pp. 129–31. Read paragraph 3, underlining the temporal transitions Toufexis uses to present the sequence of evolutionary changes that may have contributed to the development of romantic love. How important are these transitions in helping you follow her narrative?