Stuff happens
-blackout-
More stuff happens
This is both how the character is supposed to experience time, and how it's written so far. But it has a number of problems. The biggest ones are:
- It looks bad, I just know my readers will get annoyed with it
- It makes it extremely obvious that the time was lost. The character isn't supposed to remember that she forgot.
The idea of the story is psychological horror played for laughs. A powerful and irresponsible wizard places a spell on a girl that temporarily causes her to periodically forget periods of time. Combined with not remembering that she forgot, this results in lost time, and eventually changes/ruins her life.
But if you write things like
Annie called the next customer forward, it was going to be a long day
Annie put her keys down as she entered her apartment
Then it just doesn't feel right. And not in a disturbing, mysterious way, but in a boring "this writer is incompetent" way.
By the end of the first act, the main character will realize that she's losing time and start to try and figure out what's going on. But in the first act, she doesn't realize anything is wrong at all. She just goes about her daily life. This of course only makes the problem worse, and by the time she catches on, it's already been 2 weeks.
I think I have a really strong premise and good structure, but I'm struggling with how to get an idea like this down on paper.
Are there any authors that would be good to read? How do I even begin to approach this problem?