Karen GoatKeeper's Blog - Posts Tagged "using-timelines-in-writing"
Creating Timelines
If you say the word timeline, a picture of a line of dates and events seems to appear. This is the common way to see timelines in newspaper and magazine articles. It isn’t the way writers use timelines, at least, not always.
When I wrote “Dora’s Story,” the story spanned a number of years with different people’s stories appearing and interweaving along the way. The time element was crucial. This was a standard timeline putting the years and people in order.
At the beginning I thought, naively, that I could keep track of the time as I wrote. The first two drafts were written with this belief. By the end of the second draft, I knew I hadn’t a prayer of writing this novel without a timeline.
It revealed a missing year, several missing events and some geography problems. Yes, geography problems. Dora, the goat holding the story together, moves several times. I had made a mess of where and how and when she moved. The timeline set me straight.
The Hazel Whitmore books use a calendar. Hazel is in school. School has a set schedule of attendance days, holidays and, in this part of the country, snow and high water days. The actions must fit into the school calendar.
Luckily I’ve kept a daily calendar for years. It’s a way of keeping track of the weather, goat happenings, the garden and other day to day activities. It makes notes of special occurrences such as the total solar eclipse a couple of years ago. I prefer the calendar to a diary.
My present project “The Carduan Chronicles” requires yet another kind of timeline. Originally there was only one space ship. No timeline was really needed, only a sense of the seasons as the story spanned winter into spring to early summer.
As I wrote the draft, I kept thinking about another ship, the one ahead of Ship Nineteen in the convoy. Ship Eighteen kept creeping into the plot. I gave up and wrote a draft for it.
The two ships are spanning the same fourteen weeks. The best way is to go back and forth between the two. Somehow this became a daily move. Ship Nineteen goes through a day. Ship Eighteen goes through the same day.
Perhaps it would make more sense to write about one and then the other. Except the two cross paths at several points. So I’m doing the rewrite going back and forth between the two.
Generally a timeline is set up before a story is written. Not for “The Carduan Chronicles.” I write a day for one ship, note the main events on the timeline. I write the day for the second ship and note the main events on the timeline. Day 1 for Ship Nineteen is across from Day 1 for Ship Eighteen.
The days are going by. I found I missed a day and had to go back and write it in. Then there are the changes in the story line due to having the space ship model so things that happened on a day in the draft are now moved to another day.
The other major change is for Ship Eighteen. Ship Nineteen is on the ground. The Carduans are out and about, exploring and finding trouble every day.
Ship Eighteen is in flight for fourteen weeks. The forty-two – not sixty as in the rough draft – passengers spend much of their time being bored. There are things going on, but they are at intervals. This is a challenge of trying to make boredom interesting.
Only the timeline will make sure the full time goes by. Only the timeline will put the action at the proper times.
Then I get to do another rewrite to make the voyages interesting.
When I wrote “Dora’s Story,” the story spanned a number of years with different people’s stories appearing and interweaving along the way. The time element was crucial. This was a standard timeline putting the years and people in order.
At the beginning I thought, naively, that I could keep track of the time as I wrote. The first two drafts were written with this belief. By the end of the second draft, I knew I hadn’t a prayer of writing this novel without a timeline.
It revealed a missing year, several missing events and some geography problems. Yes, geography problems. Dora, the goat holding the story together, moves several times. I had made a mess of where and how and when she moved. The timeline set me straight.
The Hazel Whitmore books use a calendar. Hazel is in school. School has a set schedule of attendance days, holidays and, in this part of the country, snow and high water days. The actions must fit into the school calendar.
Luckily I’ve kept a daily calendar for years. It’s a way of keeping track of the weather, goat happenings, the garden and other day to day activities. It makes notes of special occurrences such as the total solar eclipse a couple of years ago. I prefer the calendar to a diary.
My present project “The Carduan Chronicles” requires yet another kind of timeline. Originally there was only one space ship. No timeline was really needed, only a sense of the seasons as the story spanned winter into spring to early summer.
As I wrote the draft, I kept thinking about another ship, the one ahead of Ship Nineteen in the convoy. Ship Eighteen kept creeping into the plot. I gave up and wrote a draft for it.
The two ships are spanning the same fourteen weeks. The best way is to go back and forth between the two. Somehow this became a daily move. Ship Nineteen goes through a day. Ship Eighteen goes through the same day.
Perhaps it would make more sense to write about one and then the other. Except the two cross paths at several points. So I’m doing the rewrite going back and forth between the two.
Generally a timeline is set up before a story is written. Not for “The Carduan Chronicles.” I write a day for one ship, note the main events on the timeline. I write the day for the second ship and note the main events on the timeline. Day 1 for Ship Nineteen is across from Day 1 for Ship Eighteen.
The days are going by. I found I missed a day and had to go back and write it in. Then there are the changes in the story line due to having the space ship model so things that happened on a day in the draft are now moved to another day.
The other major change is for Ship Eighteen. Ship Nineteen is on the ground. The Carduans are out and about, exploring and finding trouble every day.
Ship Eighteen is in flight for fourteen weeks. The forty-two – not sixty as in the rough draft – passengers spend much of their time being bored. There are things going on, but they are at intervals. This is a challenge of trying to make boredom interesting.
Only the timeline will make sure the full time goes by. Only the timeline will put the action at the proper times.
Then I get to do another rewrite to make the voyages interesting.
