Alright so Timing is everything right? In life especially, so why not in your writing? I mean if we live by a schedule than in some way your characters would to. Even though they are in a fictional world in some cases, they have some sort of routine to their day. Personally I have discovered the benefits of a Timeline.
***Just a short side note: I am working up the courage to start doing some YouTube videos in the not too distant future following the same kind of content as my blog. Well really, I’m just trying to find the time/ability to record a video without rambling on too much because I’m used to writing not talking to a camera lol. When I do, I plan to record a video about my timelines/tables etc, that I use to keep track of important information for my novels. It will be more of an extension of what I am talking about here and I will be able to show it to you for more of a visual. So if you find yourself interested in learning more, stay tuned because there will be more on this subject to come 😀***
When I wrote my first novel (more of a Fantasy genre) that is currently sitting only partially edited collecting dust on a shelf, with hopes for the future, I didn’t keep track of much. I did some note pages but my timing was off. The same went for my current Thriller novel I started noticing that my days were off at times. Causing seasons to be off in the story line. Overall causing the entire timeline to be thrown off.
So in light of that discovery, I went through and tried to just start writing down and fixing timeline errors. Then I decided that I needed a better visual perspective. It’s like a light bulb went on above my head. I am pretty efficient in Microsoft Excel (on account of some office related jobs), which made me realize that I could make it a lot easier on myself if I just made a timeline on Excel and filled in days as I went. Blame it on writer distractions or whatever you’d like but it worked.
I mean, when I’ve done research on how other Authors keep track of information, I’ve seen lots of outlines. However successful the writer may be, outlining your entire novel before you start may not work for everyone. Especially me, I write and let the story take me where it may. I let the words flow, if you will. Much like this blog, there are several times I sit down, unsure what to say then I type a sentence and then another and another, until I have a whole page. My stories have a mind of their own, so yeah figuring out the direction my story will go with a outline before I even start writing officially, is just not for me.
The timeline I came up with, has the day then below each day is a space for Morning, Afternoon, Evening, and in each area there is space for a description of the event. If I am ‘Fast Forwarding’ through a certain length of time I keep those areas blank and write FF or skip then how ever many days or weeks I plan to skip ahead and pick up on the day that I need. It could be printed out but I currently just enter it in on my laptop.
This took up a lot of time just trying to find every timeline mistake and enter the information in. That why when I start book two all the important events are tracked and I can keep the story flowing seamlessly. It will be an invaluable resource to make book two go a little faster in the writing/editing process. I function better with organization but at the same time I love to write the first draft without stopping to write down a note. My husband went through ‘the timeline drama of 2019’ lol, when I discovered that I needed to get it sorted out because it couldn’t go from being a Thursday and all of a sudden be Sunday the next day 🤣.
When you are writing, find what works for you, make it easier on yourself. That old saying ‘work smarter, not harder’ works with everything, including writing. You want to enjoy the writing part so make the editing and everything else easier. Don’t spend time chasing down information in your own novel. Track what you need to along the way, whether it is during your first draft or your first read through. Save yourself that time in the future. Take it from someone who has made that mistake and learned from it. We as authors love what we do so lets make the parts that seem more like work easier so we can get back to the writing part that we love.
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Tiffany’s Writing Journey 