Can the passage of time between scenes in a novel be made explicit to the reader?

As the others have already noted, only if the passage of time is necessary to understanding the next scene. Thus there’s no need to say, “five-and-three-quarter minutes later, their order arrived.” So between individual scenes, there’s really no reason to.

Scenes, like chapters, are ‘episodic’, so when a particular episode ends, be it brief meeting, a short angry exchange, a quick gunfight, an unpleasant dinner with an ex, or several semesters of college, the scene or chapter officially ends. Then, rather than SAYING “Twenty-seven days later, in Fort Lauderdale in a Chi-Chi’s restaurant …” you just start writing the next scene.

And as part of the scene, you paint a brief visual picture, rather than announcing the passage of time. Thus if the previous scene occurred in a mountain resort while skilling, in the next you may recount how they’re on a tennis court, the sun bright and they’re both perspiring heavily. Readers don’t need the exact date or time, unless it’s vital (ex: It’s the day an Atomic Bomb fell on the city, or a place crashed into the World Trade Center in NYC, and they’re physically IN the building at the time.

Otherwise, you focus on the scene. “The view from the World Trade Centers’ observation deck was as spectacular as everyone claimed, as you could see everything in virtually every direction, the cars appearing as fast moving ants stopping at each red light, the pedestrians mere fleas, indistinguishable. The flags blowing in the breeze indicating the wind from mild from the south-southwest, with the birds sitting outside the occasional open windows, hoping someone would feed them.”

And when the date is necessary, you don’t announce in all capital bold letters, instead they glance at the post office’s display and spot a newspaper, noticing things as they pass. In this case, the readers can make the associations themselves, and if they don’t, what happens will just be a bigger surprise. Yet they were officially warned, they were just skimming over the details, hoping to get to the action sooner. It’s a pain being so impatient, ain’t it?

And when you want them to remember it, then you simply refer to it a few times, not in a heavy handed way, just reinforcing that, for whatever reason, the date and time are going to be important, sooner than later. Thus they may see the time on a digital billboard, and another listing the showtimes at a theater, with the characters discussing whether it’s worthwhile trying to catch the show on those nights or not. Then maybe they catch a radio report of the current team’s successes at the ball park.

These area all subtle reminders, yet the story isn’t about the specific date, it’s what the protagonists and the other characters they interact each doing in this specific scene. But, just like in the movies, which often uses a little mood music to set the scene, you can add something about how everyone seemed particularly stressed today, edgier than normal, and though odd, there was no real reason to call attention to it, as it’s just another day in the big city after all.

In this case, the nervous actions of the various pedestrians and drivers are the mood music, slowing building the necessary tension for the upcoming dramatic scene. The weather, treated as an independent character, is also good for this. As clear sunny days indicate things going well, incoming clouds and a colder spell foreshadowing something, yet who pays any attention to the weather as they run from the cab to their destination. Yet the raindrops pattering heavily against the rain-streaked windows can forshadow events much better than an announcer could. Member, it’s nearly background music, setting the necessary mood in the readers themselves.

In literary terms, announcing the date and time are examples of Telling, whereas simply describing how everyone responds to events in an example of Showing what’s happening by focusing the characters’ reactions and responses. Often, subtly is the key to okay writing and phenomenal writing, as you softly painting the scene in gentle strokes, not whitewashing it with an electric paint sprayer.