How to execute a goddamn timeskip

[NotaNuffian]

Procastinations aside, how does one do a bleeding timeskip in one chapter of the story without it feeling like out of nowhere. In this instance, my MC is in Boxing day, alone in house no thanks to him getting rowdy, I was doing a simple line like

" he then went to make a PJ toast while musing himself, wishing that this horrible year would end already.

Fast forwarding to 5 minute before New Year..."

The whole fast forwarding feels forced, like I just raise a cardboard that said "5 days later..." to the readers, which felt horrible.

Any ways that I can smooth out or just plainly NOT put the notification that the time has been fast forwarded?

 

[Yiphen]

For me I just insert something like a horizontal line as a sort of "Break in the timeline" and make a brief mention of the amount of time that passed.
Example:

Why do I need to focus on this for three. entire. hours...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That was so tedious... Okay, lets never do that again.

 

[ThunderingSnow]

"As he spent his days idly, soon, the day before New Year's arrived and he began getting ready to count the five few minutes left by."

 

[BradCarsten]

You can use 3 stars to indicate a time / scene / character change (***)

you then just need to reorientate your readers quickly and you're good to go.

eg.

" he then went to make a PJ toast while musing himself, wishing that this horrible year would end already.

***​

Alex looked at his watch. 11:55. Only five minutes to midnight and this year would finally be over...

 

[Mejiro]

wrap up whatever current, active stuff is going on, then just do it. If the character is going off to do something ('I'm leaving on a journey, it will take a while!' have that commented on in the text, then just pick it up later on. It should likely be chapter-end sort of stuff, rather than partway through a chapter/section, but it's pretty much going to be <stuff> timeskip, ideally with some indication there's been one <more stuff>

 

[Polpota]

“Making that sandwich was the most eventful thing he’d done for days. Now here he was counting down the last few minutes until the new year. This year has been complete garbage, but now there was a new year heading his way with the chance of it being better.”

if there’s nothing important to discuss just move it along, doesn’t have to be a sudden break but a small paragraph can transition a short time skip easily enough.

 

[BenJepheneT]

adding a horizontal line does it if you want a time skip that doesn't break the flow of reading