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Using transitions well shows courtesy to your reader. People do boring things; they sleep, they eat, they use the bathroom, they visit their elderly mother who has nothing at all to do with the story, they work at mundane jobs. We don’t want to go into detail about that, do we? No. So, we use transitions.

Transitions…

Move readers through time: Eliminate those boring moments. Time must be accounted for in fiction, so use transitions to move ahead a day, a month, or a season. The first sentence describes a shift from summer to fall, leaves changing color and falling from the trees. Birds migrate. Your character goes to sleep at night, and wakes in the morning.

Bridge gaps: How much time has gone by? Whose viewpoint is this? Where is it happening? This is important if you skip ahead in time, or if you tell your story from differing POVs.

Give time for reflection: Scenes move your story forward. Sometimes people need time to decide how the action relates to them. Your characters can ponder, think, dwell and reflect. They make decisions based on what has happened in your story so far. Give them the time they need to do this.

Compress Time: Some things that happen in your story need highlighting. Others do not. Going to work for a week may not need to be explained in any detail. A battle scene may need pages dedicated to its telling. Summarize in a sentence. Tell how much time has passed, describe the events of life that happen but are not crucial to the storyline.

Changes in Setting: Lead your readers to new places. Use transitions to do so. Perhaps you need to switch from a restaurant to a hotel room. Describe it. “The hotel room was…” You have switched scene.

Mood or Emotional Shifts: Something scary is about to happen? Denote it with a transitional scene change. Movies use music. You use words. Create mood changes with word pictures.

Point of View Shift: This may be one of the most common reasons for needing to write a transitional scene. Some people change POV with each chapter, others portray events through the eyes of several characters in the same chapter. This requires a transitional scene. You have to let your reader know that they’re switching to another characters point of view.

Writing Tips: Scene Changes Part 1
Writing Tips: Scene Changes Part 3