Mistakes in Submissions Continued -- Time Line

This week I'm going to continue discussing the most common mistakes I've seen in submissions.

Time Line

I’ve had to work with authors to fix time line issues numerous times.  If you describe a character doing something that takes place at midnight, and then you have them doing something that might take three hours at the most, you can’t have dawn breaking when they finish.  Especially if it’s in an unbroken scene where there’s no indication of a time lapse.  I once spent hours trying to untangle an author’s time line, because it started out with one, and then split into two sets of characters on different time lines.  At first you didn’t realize they were on different ones because when specific times were mentioned in one line, it wasn’t mentioned in the other one.  There were a few things that seemed a little off in each one, but they were easily corrected and weren’t that noticeable until you started breaking down the time line.  The problem really surfaced when two characters, one from each line, came together and were pretty much together for the rest of the book.  Even though it wasn’t the only big issue, one of the major problems was that dawn had broken for one character, but when she came together with the other character, they were running around in the dark and dawn broke a second time.  Either I had somehow missed an entire day during the reading, or the author didn’t keep track of their time line.  We discovered the issue was the latter.

I usually see this in books with more than one POV.  This is especially true if the author likes to mention specific times.  And yes, a book can follow this character or certain events on one line for a few chapters, and then the book starts following another character through the same time line or sequence of events.  That’s not a problem, and it’s done frequently.  The problem comes when you follow one character through a long stretch of time or sequence of events and then start following another character through that same stretch of time without indicating you’ve gone back to the beginning.  If you do go through a long period of time and then switch to another character, it’s helpful to indicate this at the beginning of the chapter.  Perhaps something like:

Monday

April 1^st

8:45 a.m.

There are other formats an author might choose, but the above is one of the most common examples.  And by “long stretch of time”, I mean if you start with your first character, pretty much begin with the start of their day, and then follow them until suppertime or even bedtime.  If you don’t use some kind of time indicator at the beginning of the chapter, and you just start with your second character having breakfast, people are going to assume it’s the next day.  So when you get to the part that evening where your two characters are on the phone discussing the events of the day, and your readers realize they’re talking about the same day, there’s bound to be a moment of confusion.

However, I’ve also seen this happen in the same time line, which appeared to be pretty linear.  I’ve seen characters arrive at work at 9:00 a.m., do some things that might only keep them occupied until around 1:00 p.m. or 2:00 p.m. at the latest, including accounting for travel and the time spent at each location, and suddenly it’s 7:00 p.m.  Normally, this isn’t a problem when there’s an indicator that there’s been a time lapse and the characters did some stuff “off-screen”.  But this was presented in a linear fashion where we were with the characters every step of the way.  Nope.  That doesn’t work.

Unraveling a convoluted time line takes a lot of time and work.  In some cases, the author can fix it easily with a scene break to indicate the time lapse, giving a chapter a time indicator, eliminating specific time references, etc.  Other times it can cause entire scenes to be rewritten, moved, or eliminated.  So for the sanity of your editor and yourself (Yes, fixing a time line can cause Fried Brain Syndrome.  Consider yourself warned.), please try to keep track of your time line.  You can use a style sheet or create a file to help keep you straight on which events occur when, and where each character is during those events, during specific times, or on specific days.  Just use a format that makes the most sense to you, whether it's a spreadsheet, writing it out on notebook paper, using note cards, using a calendar...the available options and formats are endless.  The only thing that matters is that it works for you.  In some stories, it’s pretty easy to keep track of.  In others…well, it’s easy to create a mess if you aren’t careful.

Surprising Solutions

A funny thing happened while I wrote the wizard’s story. I discovered that I wrote his lost love into my trilogy, but I didn’t know it.

She was a throwaway character at first—someone my protagonist meets at a ball. She was a minor thing. She barely even needed a name.

Her role built up slowly. My main character accidentally slighted a lady. I figured I might as well use her. The reverberations of this slight will hit my protagonist in book three. Now, this lady needed more of a backstory. I found I liked her.

As I wrote the wizard’s story, I was surprised to discover that this lady was the exact age of the wizard’s lost love. She was perfectly placed. There was no reason why she couldn’t be the character I needed.

Bonus: she already had a name, so I didn’t have to figure out one for her.

I learned some other things as well. For example, the main character does meet the wizard, although she doesn’t know it. I also learned that the wizard could not have planned things as I had written. I set up the story all wrong.

Great! That means that I have to rewrite my first three chapters. Again.

Ah well. The story makes a whole lot more sense now, or at least it will once I get around to making the right edits (read: rewrite the whole thing).

Have you ever been surprised to find what you were looking for already in your story? Or am I just crazy?

Finding Out Why

I don’t outline. That is, I can’t sit down and bullet point all the aspects of my story. Instead, what I do I call a short draft.

A short draft is kind of like a summary I write before I write the story. It hits all the main plot points and it’s all tell/no show. It’s a way to organize my story in my head. Things may not go the way I plan, but it still helps to have some sort of map.

I wrote a short draft for the story in the point of view of my main character. Now it’s time to do the same for this evil wizard.

I have a what. I need a why. Why would this wizard go to all this trouble to work such a spell? It has to be for love.

Then all the pieces fell into place. Take a lost love. Combine it with the characters and situations I already had. Mix until it makes sense. Let the ingredients bake together. And a climax that makes sense emerges.

Whew! For a while there, I thought I was going to have to give up.

How do you “map out” your story (if you’re a plotter)? Do you outline? Or do you do something similar to what I do?

Writing the Bad Guy's Story

I’m having issues with the story I’m writing. I don’t know my bad guy. I don’t have a climax for the story. Yeah, this is working.

But there are certain things I do know. In the climax, the protagonist prevents the antagonist from achieving his goal. Specifically, this wizard wants to kill a certain character (to use his blood in a spell).

You’d think that would be enough information, but I’m having issues putting all the needed characters in the same room. What was this spell? How would it work? How would the threatened character get lured into all of this?

You’d think a plotter would have already figured all of this out. To a certain extent, I had. But I focused more on the overall picture, and small details, like why this wizard was doing this spell, were overlooked. Oops.

It’s time to figure out exactly what the antagonist is up to and why. It is time to sit down and write the antagonist’s story.

Last week, I sat down and did just that.

Have you ever taken time to write from the antagonist’s point of view? Did it help?

The Mysterious Bad Guy

I’m not one to give up on a story. Sure, I have a bunch of unfinished stories that call to me from time to time, but I’ll get back to them. I swear. Eventually. But I don’t think my current work in progress (book one of a planned trilogy) needs to be abandoned just yet. I may be able to save it.

I understand my point of view character. The main characters are all well known to me. I even have a handle on the big bad guy (he’s evil in an if-you-cross-me-I’ll-have-you-killed sort of way).

However, the big bad guy doesn’t have a huge role in book one. He’s there, but he’s influencing things from afar. The main antagonist for book one is a wizard, and he’s a mystery to me.

I think my main problem is that this wizard doesn’t have a lot of scenes “on screen”. But his machinations in the background set the whole plot in motion. I have to know who he is and what he’s about.

You’d think I would have already figured this out. Sigh.

Are your bad guys “on screen” a lot? Or do they influence things from the background?

Story Problems

I’m having problems with the ending of my current story. And it’s making me a little crazy.

I got stuck on my last novel, too. It got to the point where I had to set the thing aside and let it rest for a while. Luckily, it’s my new normal to have several stories going at once, so I had something to jump to.

However, this time what I jumped to wasn’t as fully thought out as my stories usually are. I know that this will be a trilogy. I know where each part begins and ends. But now that I’m actually writing the first one, I find that there are certain weaknesses.

The ending.

I know where the end needs to go. I know what my characters need to be at that point. I know where the next story begins. The one thing I’m missing is a climax.

Back to the drawing board.

Have you ever abandoned a project because it wasn’t coming together? Should I just trash this and move on?

The Right Place to Start and End

If you've spent any amount of time on writing blogs, you've heard how important it is to START in the right place in your story. Volumes of books and blogs have been written on the subject. Finding that place can drive you bonkers. I know I rewrote the beginning of Sendek: The Magic Wakes at least 100 times.

In the process I moved around scenes, cut entire scenes, wrote new scenes--all in the hopes of finally crafting a first chapter that would make the reader fall in love with my MC and her plight.

Now that I have an editor helping me polish this book, I've come to realize another important point. Where you end, or how quickly you end after the big climax is also important. I did rework the ending a couple of times. Maybe three? Yeah, not nearly as many times as the beginning.

I knew the ending was taking too long, but I had these loose ends to tie up. And I needed to plant the seeds for the next book in the series. Before signing with WiDo, I cut almost 4000 words from the end. If you're not cringing you should be (that's about 14 pages). I finally decided to cut the last chapter in its entirety and it is now one of the first two chapters of Orek: The Search for Knowledge.

Even with that much streamlining I have too many pages after my conflict is resolved. In the words of my wonderful editor, "After ___(spoilers)___, I'm no longer invested."

Ouch.

But completely true.

Here's my questions for you:

1. What makes an ending satisfying for you?
2. Do you have a different criteria for the ending of a first book in a series? (what and why?)

Over the next few days I want to take a look at endings that WORKED. Feel free to send me your favorites at unicornbellsubmissions@gmail.com.

The Story-Worthy Problem

For those of you who follow my personal blog--sorry that I'm double posting the same thing today. Please forgive me, but my brain is slow on ideas this week, and this was a good one. ;)

I've been reading this book...

Find on Goodreads

I highly recommend it. One of the things that really hit me this first read through is the story worthy problem. In the past I thought about conflict, tension, the problems that come up, etc, but I never thought about the one deep seeded problem that drives the whole story. It's there in Sendek, but I never named it. And never naming it explains why I still feel like something is missing or not quite working. Let's take a closer look. Story-worthy problem vs surface problems.

A story-worthy problem always relates more to the inner psychology of the protagonist and has to be big enough, dramatic enough, to change the protagonist's world and force him on a journey of change. Surface problems, on the other hand, are more like bad situations that reflect the actual story-worthy problem, but that aren't sufficient on their own to sustain and entire story. ~Les Edgerton, Chapter 3.

In another spot in the book it mentions how the protagonists thinks they know what the main problem is, but they are almost always wrong--just missing the real thing. Their journey leads them and the reader to the story-worthy problem. Using those two things, let me give you an example from Sendek. Talia thinks her problem is that she's going to die a horrible death at the hands of the Draguman if she can't convince someone they exist, are coming, and the people of Sendek need to prepare to fight. That is a great bit of conflict. It builds tension throughout the story, but in the end it isn't the story-worthy problem. The deeper psychological issue is that when Talia's family died, she stopped living. Her real problem is learning to live again by letting others into her life. Being willing to hurt again in order to feel love.

But she doesn't recognize that until the very end. In the meantime there are lots of surface problems that move her closer to realizing that story-worthy problem. Her reaction to each surface problem has an effect on whether she is a success or a failure at the story-worthy problem.

Every problem--story-worthy and surface--has its own corresponding resolution or goal, so the resolution of a surface problem shouldn't also be the resolution to the story-worthy problem. Instead, the resolution of the surface problem should contribute to the resolution of the story-worthy problem. ~Les Edgerton, Chapter 3.

Maybe this is all old news to you guys, but this is going to make my current and future WIPs 100 times better. In knowing the difference between the problems I can plan/plot/outline better and keep the end goal straight in my head. Each surface problem can be crafted to better define and guide my character to reaching the ultimate goal. Finally, Edgerton talks about digging deep to find this story-worthy goal. Deep into our own selves. Let loose your own personal demons and you will find the stuff of greatness. If you are emotional about the problem, it will come through your writing.

That means you have to let yourself out of the box.