Quick Tip for Timeline Continuity

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Keeping a timeline straight in a mystery can be a challenge. You have suspects giving alibis, victims being murdered, and other assorted chaos.

But timeline continuity is important for any writer. It's easy to start out a chapter saying it's Saturday and then twenty pages later, comment that the character, a banker, is at work the next day.

Careful reading during the editing process weeds this stuff out, but when you're also trying to look out for other errors, it can be tedious.

As far as tips go, this is a pretty simple one, but it's made a big difference for me. I go online and print out a blank calendar, like this one: https://www.wiki-calendar.com/blank-calendar.html . I like the ones that aren't specific to year. Then I just jot things down on it as I go: Jim died on Monday. His funeral is the following Monday (preventing Jim from being buried the next day despite being a murder victim, which I've written in a draft before).

The nice thing is that it helps eliminate continuity errors as you're working your way through the document.

If you're one of those writers who'd rather not stop and make notations as you write, this also helps keep your timeline straight after your first draft is finished. Just print it out and fill it in as you read through the document.

Do you have any tips you've come across to make your writing life easier?

A Simple Tool to Prevent Timeline Continuity Errors:
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