The good news is, your novel’s ticking clock will lead you directly to the answer. It’s simply a matter of zeroing in on that seminal tick. And just like in real life, it’s never the first tick. You rarely even notice the first tick as anything out of the ordinary. It’s not until the fourth or fifth tick that the sound breaks into your consciousness and it dawns on you that something just might be wrong—and by then, the problem has usually grown considerably.
