It's About Time
by Russ Heitz

If you’re writing a novel that covers a time span of several generations, several years, or even several weeks, you may not have to keep one eye on the clock as you write it. But for those of us whose novels chronicle fast-moving events that happen within a few days, time is very important. That’s why my outlines always include an hour-by-hour breakdown of the events that happen for each day that passes in the story.

Why is this important? Because too many events packed into one day can shatter the illusion of reality. The reader will throw up his hands and say, “That’s ridiculous! Superman himself couldn’t do all those things between eight a.m. and noon!”

But suppose you don’t tell the reader it’s eight a.m. when the sequence starts. Nor do you tell him that noon has arrived when the sequence ends. Won’t the reader forget all about the passage of time?

Maybe. For a couple of scenes. But sooner or later he’s going to say to himself, “Wait a minute. Something is wrong here. I’m not sure exactly what’s wrong, but this story is not making sense. It isn’t logical.”

And the reader would be right.

No one can wake up at eight, take a shower, eat breakfast, get dressed, drive twenty miles through car-jammed roads, walk two blocks from the company’s parking garage to the Tower of Power, take the elevator to the ninth floor, dictate fourteen letters, interview three vendors, put out five brushfires in the accounting department, and still prepare a PowerPoint presentation in time for his ten a.m. staff meeting.

Your hero may be able to do all of those things in eight hours. But he cannot do them in two.

To keep your reader believing that this is a real story about real people in the real world, you have to be aware of how much time it takes to do real tasks. And you have to provide enough time in your story to allow your main character to complete the tasks that lie before him.

Does that mean you have to have numerous subheadings within each chapter, subheadings that designate a specific time on the clock?

Not at all. My outline specifies how much clock time my hero needs as he moves from point A to point B in the story; my actual draft does not.  That means I need to know how much clock time my hero will use as he moves from A to B.  And as a result of my awareness, my reader will sense that that particular sequence takes place in a believable amount of time.

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All of this is predicated, of course, on a restricted point of view, primarily a First Person point of view. In other words, when the whole story is seen through one person’s eyes and brain, that narrator’s credibility relies on two things. Completing his tasks in a believable fashion. And moving through his events in a realistic amount of time.

When you’re using multiple points of view to illustrate events that occur in a relatively short span of time, the sequence of those events—and the time it takes to complete them—are much less restrictive.

We’ve all read catastrophe novels that show how an earthquake, tidal wave, wildfire, or other such event can affect the lives of many different characters.  We’ve all seen how the author of such novels often jumps around in time, going backward for some characters, leaping ahead for others, or plodding steadily in the present for still others.

If the author is skillful, the reader accepts this unnatural, unrealistic leaping about in time. It seems perfectly believable. And the story keeps moving forward, even though certain sequences or scenes are depicted in the form of flashbacks or flashforwards.

But regardless of your point of view, regardless of how you structure your sequences, you as the author must make sure your story adheres to a plausible, logical passage of time. If it doesn’t, a reader might quickly conclude that reading your story is a total waste of time.

Thanks Russ for the article... John Wolf

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