So my book starts in the middle of action, and ends on a cliff hanger. It then goes back a week in time, and builds the story from there.
Eg, in the start, the heroine is forced to free a demon, who walks to her, as if he is going to kill her. And then, the story moves back a week, and shows how she got kidnapped and forced to be on the run.
My problem is: When I come back to the scene where she frees the demon, I'm not sure how to make a smooth transition. At the moment, I just start a new scene that continues from the introduction.
The problem is, the jumps looks very sudden to me, & I'm worried the readers won't make the connection that this scene is actually after the very first scene. I'm thinking of a few ways to get around this:
- Repeat the very first scene - Unnecessary padding
- Give a quick summary of first scene - may look like an info dump
- Anything else?