I am a stickler for details. If there is an inconsistency in a novel, it throws me out of the story. So during the outlining process, before I draft, I shore up the timeline for my novel.
As I prepare this blog post, I’ve finalized outline revisions for Baggage and am prepping for the first draft, which means I need to fill in the gaps of my timeline. At the start of this process, I have general ideas. The beginning is clearer than the end. But since my novel includes outdoor and professional sports, I have to work around weather and schedules.
For example, in The Pit Stop, my story revolved around the IndyCar season, which runs spring to fall. Since the climax of the novel occurs during the last race of the season, my novel has to end in October. For this novel, I worked backwards with the timeline, which meant the beginning had to start in the summer. For Baggage, I had three different factors I had to work with: hiking season in Colorado, the weather elements I use in the novel, and the NHL season.
The conditions for every story differ, but the starting point for me is the same: nail down the important dates that have to stick and then fill in the gaps.
At the start of this blog post, this is what my timeline looks like in my outline for Baggage, raw and unfiltered straight from my final outline revision:
FBO Intro: Day 1
Roadside Assistance: Day 1
Birthday Drinks at the Bar: Day 1
Surprise Encounters of the Uncomfortable Kind – Day 1
Birthday Hangover – Day 2
Salt Lake Fail – Day 3
Debt Snowball Avalanche – Day 7 (^ go back and check timeline once revisions are done.)
Mother May I – Day 13
Purge and Discover – Day 13
Tia – Day 14
Flatirons Fail – Day 14
The Collect Call – Day 14
Eunice – Day 29 (they went on the longest road stint of the year)
Avs Hockey – Day 20
Bailando – Day 31
Cash’s Surprise – Day 43
Abandoned – Day 43
The Restaurant – Day 52
Mountain – Day 52 ^ (no longer syncs up, need to change)
Pucks and Poker – Day 56
Never Have I Ever – Day 56
The Morning After – Day 57 (^ it needs to still be April)
Show Off – Day 60 (^ must be same day of week as Birthday Drinks at the Bar)
All Is Lost – Day 50 (^ revisit)
Kiss with Death – ^ ??? Need 2022 playoff schedule release – or base off pre-COVID schedule
Dark Night of the Soul – Day ^ ???
A New Beginning – ^ ???
Walk It Off – ^ ???
Dear Father – Day 54 (^ update for scene movement in story)
Saying Goodbye – ^ ???
The Fourteener – Day 364
Sunrises and Summits – Day 365
One of the things I like to do for pacing in my novels is to have time speed up further into the novel. So you’ll notice the first scenes all occur on the same day, while later in the novel weeks pass between scenes.
You’ll also notice a bunch of ^ in there. Those are my editing notes. When I’m in the plotting zone, I don’t like getting bogged down in the weeds. I leave the ^ symbol in there that I can search for before drafting to build my final research list and details to confirm. For some scenes, like Debt Snowball Avalanche, you’ll see a note to self. That’s a reminder to skim through the outline notes for the surrounding scenes. I merged different scenes together from the previous outline and need to check for consistency since the timeline has changed from the original draft.
I leave ^ indicators in my outline as well to help with reminders for timeline. For example, in Flatirons Fail, the opening sentence of my outline is:
It’s a busy ^Saturday afternoon on the trail (Make sure to describe what the physical hike and trail are on the Flatirons, so I can make sure to contrast it for the Fourteeners at the end as they will be two very different landscapes/hikes).
The ^ serves two purposes. To remind me that specific days must either: (1) line up with the other day specific notes in the outline, or (2) change to fit other timeline elements. For example, if Ainsley has her monthly meet up with her friend on Saturday nights, and she goes on this hike on a Saturday, those days have to be something like Day 7 and Day 14. They can’t be Day 10 and Day 14, or it won’t add up.
You’ll also notice other issues like with Eunice. It occurs chronologically before Avs Hockey, but is nine days after in the timeline. So that needs to be corrected for sure!
Timekeeping is both daunting and tedious, but it’s important. Don’t overlook it. The more notes you can leave for yourself and the earlier you give attention to your timeline, the better.
Diving back into my timeline, I started with Kiss with Death. I wanted to do a potential crossover with The Pit Stop by having the Avs play the Blue Jackets, which means my scene has to occur in the second round of the playoffs due to division structures. I also focused on Show Off since it occurs in the short stint between the regular season and the playoffs. Then I looked at The Morning After, since it had a month requirement. I compared that to FBO Intro, since it includes a blizzard, which is also seasonal in Colorado.
As I filled in the pieces, I built a table for each month of the year. If you’re doing a historical novel and the year is important, make sure you look up what day of the week May 24th was that year. For Baggage and The Pit Stop, the year is arbitrary, so I used the current year to keep is as simple as possible (though my timekeeping method is far from simple compared to others.)
It was on hour three of timeline tweaking that I realized the error in my planning. The Avs wouldn’t play the Blue Jackets until the Stanley Cup finals. With the ticking clock I introduce in Abandoned, and the timing around hockey I need for Pucks and Poker and Show Off, I couldn’t push my story that far into playoffs territory. So as sad as it made me, I had to cut my The Pit Stop crossover. So the Avs now play the Preds in round one in the story (which is what happened this year) instead of the Blue Jackets in the second round (which is impossible unless the NHL restructures conferences down the road.)
So what did my timeline look like at the end?
Friday and Saturday is usually Ainsley’s weekend
FBO Intro: Day 1 – February 28th
Roadside Assistance: Day 1 February 28th
Birthday Drinks at the Bar: Day 1 MONDAY February 28th
Surprise Encounters of the Uncomfortable Kind – Day 1 February 28th
Birthday Hangover – Day 2 Tuesday March 1st
Salt Lake Fail – Day 3 Wednesday March 2nd
Debt Snowball Avalanche – Day 7 (flexible, just has to be a few days later) Sunday March 6th
Mother May I – Day 12 Friday March 11th
Purge and Discover – Day 12 Friday March 11th
Tia – Day 13 Saturday March 12th
Flatirons Fail – Day 13 ^SATURDAY March 12th
The Collect Call – Day 13 March 12th
Eunice – Day 27 (flexible, but need at least two weeks for her ankle to heal and her to start yoga) Saturday – Ainsley picked up shift (they went on the longest road stint of the year) March 26th
Avs Hockey – Day 32 Thursday March 31st (Sharks; Bish shutout)
Bailando – Day 35 Sunday April 3rd
(Does she go to meet up with friends April 5th? Maybe she has to work through it/picks up the 2pm-10pm shift that day and works back to back)
Cash’s Surprise – Day 41 Saturday (day off) – April 9th
Abandoned – Day 41 Saturday / Day 42 Sunday – TIME CLOCK TICKS FASTER – CHECK TIMING THROUGH REST OF MANUSCRIPT April 9th – 10th
The Restaurant -Day 43/44/45 Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, April 11th – 13th (Aunt needs to be at the cemetery at some point Tuesday)
Mountain – Day 49 Sunday, April 17th
Pucks and Poker – Day 56 Sunday, April 24th
Never Have I Ever – Day 56 Sunday, April 24th
The Morning After – Day 57 Monday, April 25th (morning practice skate at 11am) (^ it needs to still be April)
(Game she takes her aunt to) Thursday April 28th versus Preds (final home game)
Show Off – Day 60 Monday, May 2 (^ must be same day of week as Birthday Drinks at the Bar) – MEET UPS ARE FIRST MONDAY NIGHT OF THE MONTH
All Is Lost – Day 63 Thursday, May 5th
Kiss with Death – Monday, May 9th, 2022
Dark Night of the Soul – Friday, May 13th, 2022 / Saturday, May 14th, 2022 (should have been her weekend. She’s working seven days a week right now in her final push before Fiona leaves)
A New Beginning – Sunday, May 15th, 2022 (what would have been game seven)
Walk It Off – Sunday, May 15th, 2022
Dear Father – Day 54 May 17th Tuesday
Saying Goodbye – Saturday May 21st
The Fourteener – Day 364 February 27th Monday
Sunrises and Summits – Day 365 February 28th Tuesday
Once I finalized the timeline, I put each scene on a monthly calendar. I also included important events that occur off page, like the hockey game Ainsley takes her aunt to, as well as notes on the Avs’ hockey schedule. An example of one of said calendars:
And that’s it! With a solid outline done, I have a tight timeline to keep from making minor errors that cause huge believability issues. I know now the two week ticking clock I planned to set in Abandoned is too short to allow the scenes that follow. I needed a month instead. It’s a good thing I caught it while outlining, as readers would certainly catch it if I missed it.
How about you? How do you keep track of time in your stories? Do you use monthly calendar templates? A running list of days with beats attached? Both? Something else entirely?