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{{trope}}
There are epics that span a lifetime as it follows the life between two characters, and their challenges to be together.
Then there's the story where everything happens in just a few hours: Introduction, conflict, character development, dramatic climax, denouement, done!.
'''Extremely Short Timespan''' is when a story, usually a movie, a novel, or a whole season, takes place in a short period of time, usually [[Rule of Three|three]] days or less. This is sometimes done in an action or a thriller movie to emphasize the fast pace the movie has.
A sub-trope of this is [[Real Time]], where everything happens within a minute-to-minute ratio between in-universe and real-life production.
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Not related to [[Webcomic Time]], when the real and in-universe time scales are out of sync due to the production time.
{{examples
▲== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Bleach]]'' is ''notorious'' for this:
** The Soul Society Arc revolves around an execution to take place at the end of a week. This took two years and 14 volumes.
** The Hueco Mundo Arc took eight volumes to cover a single day.
** The two arcs after top the above with a single day covered in 11 volumes.
* The Piccolo Daimaoh and Boo arcs in ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' take 3 days each, the same days at that: May
* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]''. While the series as a whole covers a few years, the last sixteen or so episodes (minus the epilogue) seem to span only a couple days.
* The Festival [[Arc]] in ''[[Negima]]'' was exactly 3 days June
** Taken [[Up to Eleven]] in manga chapter 310, which spans ''several seconds''.
* ''[[Karakuridouji Ultimo]]'' has been running for over a year now{{when}}. We've only gone through ''one day''. (Although the reset button was hit somewhere in the middle of it.)
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* So far{{when}}, both arcs of ''[[Zatanna]]'' took place in less than twenty-four hours, possibly twelve.
▲* So far, both arcs of ''[[Zatanna]]'' took place in less than twenty-four hours, possibly twelve.
* ''[[Sin City]]'' has ''Silent Night'' and ''Just Another Saturday Night'' which, as the titles imply, take place in a single night. The ''Big Fat Kill'' is a major storyline that only takes place over the course of a single night as well.
* Many comic book arcs
== [[Fan
* ''[[Piracy! The Genetic Pirate Opera]]'' took place during a very busy Friday night.
* If you bother to keep track, ''[[My Immortal]]'', despite being forty-four chapters long, takes place over the course of six very convoluted days:
** Day 1 covers chapter 1 (Ebony describes herself and meets Draco)
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** Day 5 covers chapters 22 - 33 ("Cornelia Fudged" and "Doris Rumbridge" yelling at Dumbledore through "Snap" and "Loopin" getting tortured)
** Day 6 covers chapters 34 - 44 (Ebony takes several trips back and forth in time for the remainder of the story)
* ''[[Tales of Ranma and Ranko]]'' by Jack and Jillian Staik: The first two parts of this series of ''[[Ranma ½]]'' fanfics, ''Ranma's Secret'' and ''Ranma's Fiancées'', seem to take place over the course of a week or less, with part of the first story and almost all of the second happening in the last 48 hours of that time. Nabiki even [[Lampshade Hanging|notes]] in ''Ranma's Fiancées'' that everything has happened very quickly, almost improbably so -- it's been less than three weeks since the failed wedding from the end of the manga.
== [[Film]] ==
* [[Disney]]'s ''[[Tangled]]'', except for the prologue backstory, takes place in less than three days.
* Similarly, Disney's ''[[Frozen (Disney film)|Frozen]]'', once we're out of the growing-up [[Montage]]/musical number, seems to take place in the space of about
* A majority of ''[[The Polar Express]]'' takes place five minutes till midnight. Justified that Christmas Eve is a [[A Wizard Did It|magical night after all]].
* ''[[The Great Mouse Detective]]'', especially if you consider that the movie's events take place at night, and not once is the sun ever shown.
* ''[[Monsters, Inc.]]'' takes place over three very hectic days.
* [[Disney]]'s ''[[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs]]'' takes two or three days to come to its resolution.
== Films -- Live-Action == ▼
* The screen adaption of ''[[The Crimson Rivers]]'' manages to pack ''a lot'' of plot into mere 24 hours. In fact, it is only confirmed by [[Word of God]] in a post-release commentary.
* The movie ''[[Clue (film)|Clue]]'' takes place in a single evening, with no flash-backs.
** ''[[Murder By Death]]'' is similar, on many levels.
* The film ''[[Nine Queens]]'' is a caper thriller that takes place in a bit more than 24 hours, from the dawn of one day to mid-morning of the next one.
* ''[[12 Angry Men]]'' in one afternoon
** Also in [[Real Time]]
* ''[[Alien (franchise)|Alien]]''
* ''[[Die Hard]]''
* ''[[Reservoir Dogs]]''
* ''[[Bicycle Thieves]]''
* ''[[High Noon]]''
* ''[[Do the Right Thing]]''
** Also by [[Spike Lee]], ''The 25th Hour'', which takes place over... well take a guess.
* ''[[Hard Candy]]''
* ''[[Cellular]]''
* ''[[Ferris Bueller's
* ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]''
* ''[[The Terminator]]''
* ''[[88 Minutes]]'' (actually a liitle more than 88 minutes)
* ''[[
* A lot of movies are set over a single day (''[[Clerks]]'', ''[[The Breakfast Club]]'', ''[[Falling Down]]'') or a single night (''[[After Hours]]'', ''[[American Graffiti]]'') and a lot of others cover a roughly twenty four hour period (''[[Superbad]]'', ''[[I Love You, Beth Cooper]]'').
* From the perspective of its protagonist, ''[[Back to The Future
** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by Doc when they go back to 1955.
{{quote|'''Marty''':
'''Doc''': You ''
* ''[[Star Wars]] [[A New Hope|Episode IV]]'' appears to take place in one day. (There were apparently some scenes written that took place days or weeks earlier, and they were expanded for the later radio version, but they didn't appear in the movie.)
** More like overnight, and then the next day, but it most likely takes place under three days.
*** It's certainly no less than three days, as there are two distinct sunsets and subsequent dawns depicted on Tatooine, which has a 23-hour rotation.
* ''[[Training Day]]'', as the name suggests, takes place over the course of a day.
* ''[[The House of Yes]]'' mostly takes place over a single, Thanksgiving night.
* So far in the [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]] has three movies taking place at the same time. ''[[The Incredible Hulk (film)|The Incredible Hulk]]'', ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man 2]]'', and ''[[Thor (film)|Thor]]'' all take place roughly within the span of the same week.
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* Also, it's maybe more like 36 hours, since there's some footage of the next day, but ''Shampoo'' pretty much takes place over the course of one day.
* The majority of ''[[Primer]]'' takes place over about three days. [[Timey-Wimey Ball|Multiple times]]. [[Mind Screw|Probably.]]
* If you exclude the first few opening scenes and the epilogue, ''[[Harry Potter
* ''[[Buffalo '66]]'' takes place over 24 hours, flashbacks notwithstanding.
* ''[[Run Lola Run]]'' covers the "same" twenty minutes three times.
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* ''[[Margin Call]]'' takes place in a 24-hour period
* ''[[Eleven Minutes Ago]]'' takes place over the course of the wedding reception. The main character, on the other hand, is experiencing it in eleven minute chunks over the course of years. It's a little [[Timey-Wimey Ball|Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey]].
* ''[[Project X]]'' takes place over 24 hours or so.
* The Lihuauan film ''The Girl and the Echo'' takes place within one day. This is mirrored in its alternative title, ''"Paskutine Apostogu Diena"'' ("Last day of Holydays").
* ''[[Bad Day
* The events of ''[[Cornered!]]'' cover one night (plus a very short epilogue than cannot be more than a day or two later, judging from the cut on {{spoiler|Morty}}'s face).
* Barring flashbacks, ''[[Bullet Train (film)|Bullet Train]]'' takes place over the course of an overnight journey.
== [[Literature]] ==
* Each book in ''[[The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel]]'' series takes place with a timespan of two days. This is ''very'' ironic, since the plot involves supernatural Elders that had been waiting for thousands of years.
* Each of the ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'' books take place in three days, if not less. Although in the Lost Colony {{spoiler|three years pass for the rest of the world while the trip in Hybras only lasted minutes for Artemis. Also, time was flowing differently there so it passed differently for their minds and bodies. As Artemis figured out: An hour per second for a count of forty, followed by a deceleration to thirty minutes per second for a count of eighteen, then a slight jump backwards in time, one minute per second back for a count of two. Then it repeats.}}
* Similar to the above, the book series ''[[Dreamhouse Kings]]'' have each of its books taking place in a timespan of usually no more than three days. [[The Scrappy|Blame Xander and his constant reckness]].
* The book ''[[After Dark]]'' by [[Haruki Murakami]] takes place over the course of one night.
* [[Dan Brown]]'s books, being [[
* ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]''. The protagonists go from total strangers to couple to married to worm food in just a couple days.
*
* Each book of the ''[[Dresden Files]]'' covers maybe three days, which is an incredibly short time given all the abuse the [[Made of Iron|main character]] takes.
* ''[[Ulysses]]'' takes place in one day. ''[[Finnegans Wake]]'' happens during one night...[[True Art Is Incomprehensible|probably.]]
* Virginia Woolf's ''Mrs. Dalloway'' takes place over a single day.
* Nicholson Baker's novel ''The Mezzanine'' takes place in the span of a single escalator ride.
* The build-up to the climax of [[The Culture]] novel ''Consider Phlebas'', by [[Iain M Banks]], features several different series of events taking place all at once until they converge in a massive train-crash and laser battle. It all takes about 30 minutes or so in story, but spans dozens and dozens of pages as the narrative jumps back and forth as each piece moves incrementally into place. The train crash itself lasts 5 seconds of intense action with about 30 seconds of aftermath and then some additional violence among the survivors, described over several pages in slow detail because there is
* While each ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' book takes place over roughly one year, the second half of ''Deathly Hallows'' minus the epilogue takes place over the course of a single day.
* ''[[The House of Night]]'' is a pretty big offender. While there are pretty big jumps in time between the books, the novels themselves pretty much take place over four or five days each, roughly.
* The ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen|Malazan]]'' sidetrack novel ''Night of Knives'' takes place within 24 hours, which is unusual for a series known for taking huge and epic [[Up to Eleven]].
* [[Stephen King]]'s book ''[[The Regulators]]'' takes place over the course of a single day, while ''[[The Running Man (novel)|The Running Man]]'' (written under his Bachmann pen name) happens within three days or so.
* Georges Perec's ''Life: A User's Manual'' technically takes place over the course of a few seconds on the evening of June
* While the trope's averted in the second book, [[Stuck]] uses this twice:
** Stuck at the Galleria, aside from the very beginning, takes place over the course of one very busy night.
** Likewise, Stuck at the Wheel takes place over a week and a day, including the epilogue.
* ''[[A Certain Magical Index]]'' is a major offender. To give one example, World War III - an epic global conflict that spans three books - lasts ''11 days''.
* ''[[24]]'' is most likely the most well-known example of this trope, as each season takes place, wait for it, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|in twenty-four hours]].
▲* ''[[24]]'' is most likely the most well-known example of this trope, as each season takes place, wait for it, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|in twenty-four hours]].
* In ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the first half of series 1, 3, 4 and 5 (from the companions introduction to the episode where they reunite them with their parents or fiancé) take place pretty much over three, maybe four days from the Doctor and companion's viewpoint with little or no off-screen adventuring.
** Prior to the [[Time Skip]], the Harold Saxon arc encompassing series 3 occurs over a couple of days (from Saxon and his cronies' viewpoint).
*** From the Doctor's perspective, everything from stepping out of the TARDIS on the Oodsphere in ''The End of Time'', to leaving the War Rooms with Amy in "Victory of the Daleks" probably takes less than a week, as ''The End of Time'', "The Eleventh Hour", "The Beast Below" and "Victory of the Daleks" all lead straight into each other.
** The events of [[Doctor Who/Recap/TVM the TV Movie
* Spoofed in the ''[[Golden Girls]]'', where Dorothy mentions not having read [[Apartment 3 G]] in over twenty years and Blanche, who reads it every day offers to fill her in on what's happened since. Although her exposition is interrupted it starts with "Well, it's later that day..."
* ''[[True Blood]]'' takes up so far about 45 days with a 1 year time skip between seasons 3 and 4. Episodes tend to be about 1 day long, but several are real time except for perhaps a final scene.
* Though the main plot of ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' has taken place over several
== [[Theatre]] ==
* Aristotle wrote in his ''[[Poetics]]'' that tragedy tends to take place over a short period of time (no more than a day), as contrasted with epic poetry which generally takes place over a much longer period. In the Renaissance, this was taken by many dramatists to be a hard-and-fast rule (the
▲* Aristotle wrote in his ''[[Poetics]]'' that tragedy tends to take place over a short period of time (no more than a day), as contrasted with epic poetry which generally takes place over a much longer period. In the Renaissance, this was taken by many dramatists to be a hard-and-fast rule (the "[[wikipedia:Classical unities|classical unity of time]]") though Aristotle seems not to have intended it as such. As a result, virtually all Renaissance drama from continental Europe is an example of this trope; English drama developed independently, and as a result is less likely to follow the unities especially in its earlier forms.
* [[Lampshaded]] and parodied in [[Niccolo Machiavelli]]'s satire ''Mandragola''. It takes place over the course of ''two'' days, so it apparently violates the classical Unity of Time rule; however, Machiavelli inserts a monologue in which he explains that none of the characters are actually going to sleep that night, so it doesn't ''really'' violate it.
* ''[[Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?]]?'' sets over a single night.
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* Euripides' ''[[Medea]]'' takes place over the course of one day
* Jez Butterworth's new play ''[[Jerusalem (theatre)|Jerusalem]]'' takes place over the course of a single day. It's still three hours long, mind you.
* Shakespeare's ''[[The Tempest]]'' is said to take place over the course of approximately
==
* ''[[Luigi's Mansion|Luigis Mansion]]'', which apparently took place over the course of just a single night according to the ending. The mansion itself vanishes as well.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' takes place over one helluva night.
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* Aside from {{spoiler|the flashback case 4}}, the entirety of ''[[Ace Attorney]] Investigations'' takes place in less than 72 hours.
** Combining this game with it's sequel, both ''[[Ace Attorney Investigations]]'' games span less than a month (not counting flashback cases), in contrast to earlier games, where there will usually be weeks if not months between cases.
* ''[[Parappa the Rapper|Um Jammer Lammy]]'' takes place over the course of five minutes, plus the finale song.
* Most [[Kirby]] games take place in a day at best. ''Revenge of Meta-Knight'' from ''[[Kirby Super Star]]'' covers a handful of hours.
* ''[[Ghost Trick]]'' takes place over the few hours you have between sundown and sunrise in one night, since you are told you'll disappear when the sun rises. An incredibly complex amount of stuff happens during that time, though.
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* ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'' takes place over one night. You can see Batman gain stubble as the night wears on.
** Its [[Batman: Arkham City|sequel]] takes place over the course of about 12 hours, as announced over intercom by [[Big Bad]] Hugo Strange. If one plays through just the missions that drive the plot forward, this doesn't strain plausibility too much. If one [[Wide Open Sandbox|doesn't]], however...
* ''[[Prince of Persia
* Everything in ''[[King's Quest IV]]'' takes place in
* ''[[Psychonauts]]'' has the first cutscene at night, and the game starts the morning after. By the final cutscene, it's the ''next'' morning.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask]]'' takes place over the course of
* Both the ''[[When They Cry
* The first ''[[Max Payne (series)|Max Payne]]'' game took place over the course of three nights (although it includes a flashback to three years prior to that). The sequel lasts about the same amount of time.
== Web Original ==
* Volume 3 of ''[[RWBY]]'' appears to take place over the course of a week or less, unlike Volumes 1, 2 and 4, each of which spanned months.
** Volume 5 is an odd case. It has [[Two Lines, No Waiting|two narrative threads]] running out of synch with each other. The Menagerie thread takes place over the course of at least a month and possibly more -- but the Haven thread appears to take place in less than two weeks, possibly even in one week. (If these estimates are correct, virtually all of the Menagerie thread takes place before the Haven thread actually starts!)
** Similarly, Volume 6 seems to take place in the space of a week or at most two, aside from flashbacks.
** According to Kerry Shawcross in [https://www.cbr.com/interview-rwby-vol-8-kerry-shawcross-lindsday-jones/ a November 2020 interview with CBR.com], Volume 8 all takes place within the space of a day or two.
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[[Category:Drama Tropes]]
[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
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[[Category:Time Tropes]]
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