Spatial order and chronological order are both important for narrative writing. Below are notes for each.
Spatial Order Transitions (Space / Location / Place)
Spatial organization is when information in a passage is organized in order of space or location. If you were to describe the room in which you were sitting right now, you would be using spatial organization. Spatial organization may also be called descriptive writing and it is most frequently used when the narrator describes how something looks. Spatial organization is generally pretty easy to identify, but be aware that spatial organization is used in both fiction and nonfiction texts. Most fictional passages are organized chronologically, but in paragraphs where the narrator is describing a setting or the appearance of a character, the information may be organized spatially.
Nonfiction, Informational Example:
Volcanoes are a feared and destructive force for good reason. A volcano is like a pressure valve for the inner earth, but they can also be very beautiful. One part of the volcano that people rarely see is the magma chamber. The magma chamber is way beneath the Earth’s bed rock. It is tremendously hot. Running from the magma chamber to the crater of the volcano is the conduit. The conduit connects the magma chamber to the outer world. At the top of the volcano is the crater. This is where the magma exits. Volcanoes are a beautiful yet dangerous natural phenomenon.
Fiction, Description/Narration Examples:
Example 1:
John locked the door and stood for a minute or two on a sidewalk taking the scene in. The morning walk was calm and quiet. Across the street from him was a block-patterned wall of another building, stretching end to end. The white wall had yellowed through the years, but looked quite strong. The sun had cast shadows on it. A gray stone sidewalk that run along the wall seemed hushed. On the sidewalk, on the left, was an old black streetlamp. This old rusty lamp, like the wall, had withstood many seasons. Today, the lamp wasn't alone on the street. On the right, John could see a policeman standing, reading a newspaper. He didn't even look up to see him on the other side of the street. He was standing near a newsstand, whose owner was nowhere in sight. The colorful magazines, newspapers, a stand, and a chair looked orphaned without their owner. John decided to cross the road and ask the inspector about the newsstand owner.
► In the above section, the wall has been described first. It is the farthest from the reader. Then, the sidewalk has been described. Then the elements have been described from left to right; the order in which they are physically located. The use of spatial order helps the reader visualize the scene just through words (even without looking at the image).
Example 2:
Far to his left, in the northeast, beyond the valley and the terraced foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the two volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl, rose clear and magnificent into the sunset. Nearer, perhaps ten miles distant, and on a lower level than the main valley, he made out the village of Tomalín, nestling behind the jungle, from which rose a thin blue scarf of illegal smoke, someone burning wood for carbon. Before him, on the other side of the American highway, spread fields and groves, through which meandered a river, and the Alcapancingo road.
► In this paragraph, the narrator describes a particular scene as seen by the protagonist of the novel. The description starts with two volcanoes which are at a distance. The narrator uses the transitional word "nearer" to give the location of the village. He uses other transitions "on the other side" and "through" to describe a space on the other side of the highway. Lowry has used spatial order as a tool to organize the details of the scene.
Example 3:
I lived when I was young at the end of a long road, or a road that seemed long to me. Behind me, as I walked home from primary school, and then from high school, was the real town with its activity and its sidewalks and its streetlights for after dark. Marking the end of town were two bridges over the Maitland River: one narrow iron bridge, where cars sometimes got into trouble over which one should pull off and wait for the other, and a wooden walkway, which occasionally had a plank missing, so that you could look right down into the bright, hurrying water. I liked that, but somebody always came and replaced the plank eventually.
Then there was a slight hollow, a couple of rickety houses that got flooded every spring, but that people—different people—always came and lived in anyway. And then another bridge, over the mill race, which was narrow but deep enough to drown you. After that, the road divided, one part of it going south up a hill and over the river again to become a genuine highway, and the other jogging around the old fairgrounds to turn west.
That westward road was mine.
Example 4:
From Willa Cather’s My Antonia
In the middle of the orchard we came upon a grape arbour, with seats built along the sides and a warped plank table. The three children were waiting for us there. They looked up at me bashfully and made some request of their mother.
'They want me to tell you how the teacher has the school picnic here every year. These don't go to school yet, so they think it's all like the picnic.'
After I had admired the arbour sufficiently, the youngsters ran away to an open place where there was a rough jungle of French pinks, and squatted down among them, crawling about and measuring with a string.
'Jan wants to bury his dog there,' Antonia explained. 'I had to tell him he could. He's kind of like Nina Harling; you remember how hard she used to take little things? He has funny notions, like her.'
We sat down and watched them. Antonia leaned her elbows on the table. There was the deepest peace in that orchard. It was surrounded by a triple enclosure; the wire fence, then the hedge of thorny locusts, then the mulberry hedge which kept out the hot winds of summer and held fast to the protecting snows of winter. The hedges were so tall that we could see nothing but the blue sky above them, neither the barn roof nor the windmill. The afternoon sun poured down on us through the drying grape leaves. The orchard seemed full of sun, like a cup, and we could smell the ripe apples on the trees. The crabs hung on the branches as thick as beads on a string, purple-red, with a thin silvery glaze over them. Some hens and ducks had crept through the hedge and were pecking at the fallen apples. The drakes were handsome fellows, with pinkish grey bodies, their heads and necks covered with iridescent green feathers which grew close and full, changing to blue like a peacock's neck. Antonia said they always reminded her of soldiers—some uniform she had seen in the old country, when she was a child.
'Are there any quail left now?' I asked. I reminded her how she used to go hunting with me the last summer before we moved to town. 'You weren't a bad shot, Tony. Do you remember how you used to want to run away and go for ducks with Charley Harling and me?'
Spatial Order Transition Words
These transition words are often used as part of adverbial expressions and have the function to restrict, limit or qualify space. Quite a few of these are also found in the Time category and can be used to describe spatial order or spatial reference.
in the middle
to the left/right
in front of
on this side
in the distance
here and there
in the foreground
in the background
in the center of
above
below
down
up
under
further
beyond
nearby
across
adjacent to
opposite to
here
there
next
where
from
over
near
wherever
around
between
before
alongside
amid
among
beneath
beside
behind
Try combining your spatial organization words with a simile!
The road wound around the mountain like a snake.
The hills rose in the distance like ominous smoke.
The rope swing twisted around the tree like a like the Monday morning braids my mom pulled into my hair.
Get creative with spacial order words!
looped
twisted
spiraled
close
close by
far
extreme
outer
https://www.smart-words.org/linking-words/transition-words.html
By adding transition words or phrases between paragraphs and sentences, you can make your ideas easier to follow and understand. Notice how choppy a paragraph sounds without transitions and how much smoother it sounds when transitions are added.
Sample Paragraph without Transitions
We had to build a frame for the floor of the house. We used a rope to raise all the wood up into the tree. We carefully nailed the board to the frame. We had a floor.
Sample Paragraph with Transitions
The first thing we had to do was build a frame for the floor of the house. Then we used a rope to raise all the wood up into the tree. Afterward, we carefully nailed the board to the frame, and soon we had a floor.
Time-order transitions signal changes in time. You can include these words in your narrative or explanatory writing to show the order in which things happen. Anytime you are asked to describe an event or process in chronological (time) order, these words can help you.
about
after
all the while
as soon as
at
at the same time
before
during
finally
first
just then
later
meanwhile
next
second
slowly
soon
suddenly
then
third
today
tomorrow
until
when
yesterday