So you've just finished writing an action sequence for your main character, and now you must move him/her to the next action spot in your story. Basically, you've got two choices. You can fade to black at point A and then bring up the lights at point B and continue with the action. There's nothing wrong with doing that, except you will have missed an opportunity to further develop your character and to make his/her surroundings a bigger part of the story.
Why not take the second choice, and follow your character as he/she moves through the town? That's exactly what some of the best mystery writers have elected to do. Take one of the best at making a city an actual character, Michael Connelly. During a recent interview, Connelly related how enchanted he was with a description by Raymond Chandler in his novel, The Little Sister. In that novel, Chapter 13 begins with the following statement, "I drove east on Sunset, but I didn't go home..." Following that opening, Chandler spends the next few paragraphs painting a scene of 1949 Los Angeles that includes "the half-lit world where always the wrong thing happens and never the right." According to Connelly, the description that follows is timeless, so timeless it could easily describe the LA of today. Connelly was so enamored with that description that he says he often refers back to it for inspiration.
Following your character through a city, small town, forest, desert, or any other local allows you to build up the character of that area itself. Your environment can become an actual character in the story, which, in turn, allows the opportunity for your character to react to it exactly as they react to the other characters in your story. After all, the whole reason for any of your characters to exist is for them to change as their story arc moves on. Don't pass up an opportunity to allow them to react to their surroundings as they move from point A to point B, and to all the other points in your novel.
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