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Tuesday 29 January 2013

Give them the time of day


As you're writing, you're probably more focused on the characters and the plot than the technical details. And that's how it should be. If you spent all your time in the little details in the first draft, you'd never finish it.
However, it does lead to an issue when you're revising, and you discover you've written one scene as taking place on Tuesday evening, and the one after the Monday before. Which would make sense if you were writing all your scenes backwards, but no so much if you aren't. Which is the more likely scenario.

This tends to creep in when you novel takes place over a long period of time, but even if it takes place within a week the timing can end up a little off.

For example:
Say your main character is the mother of an eight year old. Your main character drops her daughter off at school, then goes to pick up the dry cleaning. As she is leaving the dry cleaner's, she realises she's late to pick her daughter up from school and collects her.

See the issue here? Could she really have spent four to five hours at the dry cleaner's? Probably not (unless the dry cleaner is particularly chatty).

This example is a little exaggerated, but that sort of thing does happen. And it will mess with your reader's minds.
So, when you're revising, look out for when one of your characters has somehow spent the past seven hours in a cafe.

Oh, and remember your character needs to eat occasionally.

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