Story Tracking With A Calendar

 

Hello everyone, Winnie Griggs here again. Today I'm in revising and polishing mode and was checking and updating the story calendar and thought that might be a good topic for my current post.

One of the first things I do when I start a new story is to set up a calendar to help me track story events. First, whether it's an historical or a contemporary, I pull up an actual calendar for the year in question. For purposes of this post, I'm going to use one of my older works, The Christmas Journey, which was set in 1892.

From  www.timeanddate.com
As you can see, this gives me a lot of very useful information. It tells me when holidays occurred, when there was a full moon or dark of the moon if that becomes important to my story.
Once I have this information I start populating my story calendar. I add in any fixed events that happen over the course of my story- things like holidays, town events (festivals, civic/club meetings, classes, etc.) A new wrinkle for my Amish stories is they have church service every other Sunday so I note which Sundays are church Sundays and which are "Between Sundays".
If I know the start and end dates for my story I'll mark them. For instance I knew I wanted this story to end on Christmas Day so I plugged that in. I didn't know an actual start date but I estimated based on how many weeks I expected the story to take place over. FYI, my notation legend - Events that are fixed I list in blue text, events I've estimated the date for or am placing on the calendar before I actually write the scene are noted in red text. 
So I started out with the calendar below:

As I write the story I begin filling in the story events. If I transition over any of the days, I shade the applicable cells in gray. But if something happened during the transition period that I refer back to, I also make note of it. That way I can see what happens on page and off.



Here is a look at my final calendar for The Christmas Journey with some of the notations deleted to remove most of the key spoilers :)


Using this method allows me to keep up with my story. It keeps me from having a week that lasts nine days or having two Tuesdays in a row or various other timeline issues that I've actually had in the past. I've also started turning it in with my manuscript and my editor has said it's a big help when she's looking at continuity issues during her editing process.
One other thing I've found that this helps - when I'm writing a series of books set in the same town/world, it helps me keep things straight from book to book.  The way this works is that any repetitive events I've noted on the calendar from Book 1 gets copied over to my calendar for Book 2. That insures I don't have timeline issues between the two.  For instance, if I set up a town council meeting that happens on the second Tuesday of the month in Book 1, I immediately copy that onto my calendar when I start Book 2 as a fixed event. Or if one of my key characters in Book 1 is pregnant when it closes, I track her pregnancy/delivery in the calendar for Book 2.
There you have it, my story tracking method. Let's discuss - does this speak to you? Or do you have a different method that you've developed that works for you?
And since I still have a number of copies of The Christmas Journey, leave a comment to be entered in a drawing for a copy.

Philadelphia lawyer Ryland Lassiter is everything Josephine Wylie wants - for a brother-in-law!  As the sole supporter of her family, Josie's plans for herself have always had to wait.  But Ryland will be ideal as the new head of the Wylie clan...once he finally realizes how perfect he is for her sister.

Ry knows its time to settle down.  The newly appointed guardian to a friend's daughter, he's ready for a home and family.  All he needs is a bride...and Josie's sister is not the Wylie who has caught his eye.  If only Josie would see the truth - that the only Christmas present he needs is her love.

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