So, I just took a peek at my series timeline, which is now five pages long. On it, I have dates that go all the way back to 1986.
Yes. The dark ages.
For this particular story, I need to know when people were born, when they (may have) died, when they … traveled through dimensions.
Yes. Complicated.
But I always recommend using a calendar of some sort when writing a longer story. Even jotting down the passing days in a notebook can be helpful. That way, you don’t end up with children going to school ten days in a row or making January six weeks long.
Weeding these things out can be difficult. Darcy and I actually ended up with the extra-long January in The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading. We knew something was off; our editor knew something was off. No one could say what, not until Darcy did the painstaking work of mapping out the timeline. Then we had to pull all those story threads and weave them back together again, minus those two weeks.
Yes. Painful.
So, this is my recommendation for the week, probably because I’ve spent some extra time in my series timeline, testing things out, revisiting what came before. And then heading outside to put the garden* to bed and ponder some more.
*This is actually why I garden; it gives me time to think.
Writing Wrongs 