Time’s Wicked Warped

by Julie, wringing summer to the last

There’s a meme going around that says, roughly:

1990 was 20 years ago 1995 was 20 years ago 2000 was 10 years ago 2010 was 10 years ago 2016 was a couple of years ago 2019 was last year 2020 was last year 2021 didn’t happen2024 it’s only January

Anyone else feel like this is true? It’s all blurring together. Sure, I’m getting older. And the nieces and nephews are mostly adults now. But it’s more than that. I feel as though time has warped. The pandemic is a black hole that sucked time, so there’s that. But I also blame reading.

There are some books, like the Amelia Peabody series, that are grounded in time. But many series compress book time over a long publication history. Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swenson series has been published over 23 years, but in book time it’s maybe five. The Vicky Bliss series was written over 35 years, but again in book time it’s five years. I love the Finlay Donovan series by Elle Cosimano. The publication dates have been over four years, but book time it’s been a few months.

I am all for suspension of disbelief and heightened reality. That’s why I love reading series. BUT I think it’s messing with my brain, and my sense of time. Characters like Mary Russell, Finlay Donovan, Amelia Peabody, Vicky Bliss–they feel real to me. I revisit them in binges. But I wonder why my life moves at a different pace, where time speeds up instead of slowing down. Where years are missed, and pockets of time feel like yesterday, but they are decades ago.

As writers, how we deal with time is a choice we make. Would that that were true in life.

Readers, is time wicked warped for you as well? How do your favorite series deal with time?