E62 – Editing Timelines

Show Notes

This episode, hosted by Lon Varnadore and VE Griffith, dedicates episode 62 to the topic of editing timelines in writing. They define timelines, emphasizing its importance, especially when managing multiple points of view. The hosts discuss their individual methods for tracking timelines, with one preferring to discover issues during revision and the other utilizing software like Aeon Timeline for better organization. They explore how complex timelines, such as those with unique calendar systems, can pose significant challenges for writers, ultimately recommending the use of tools to identify and rectify inconsistencies and ensure internal consistency within the story.

The Revision Wizards are at https://www.revisionwizards.com
V.E. Griffith’s website: https://www.vegriffith.com
Miss Catherine M.H.’s website: https://www.scribes-pen.com
Lon’s Twitter/X: @lonvarnadore1
Lon’s Instagram: @lon_scribbler

Transcript at: https://revisionwizards.com/?p=2648

Transcript

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

[Lon Varnadore]
Welcome to Revision Wizards Podcast. I’m your eldritch thing, Lon Varnadore, and I’m joined by my my my other eldritch other thing, co-host V.E. Griffith. This is episode 62.

[V.E. Griffith]
Today we’re continuing editing by parts with part four. We’ll be talking about editing timelines. So, um, what is a timeline?

[Lon Varnadore]
I mean, I barely know what that is. Uh, it’s basically keeping making sure that all of the stuff that you are working on has the something happens and something happens and something happens. And the timeline is sort of, you know, you’re you’re writing of this happens and when this happens, sometimes they need to have another chapter explaining what happened beforehand.

[V.E. Griffith]
Okay, I sort of think it is, yes, the order of events things happen in, but also making sure that it’s logical and that especially if I’m doing multiple points of view, that’s where the challenge comes for me is is multiple points of view, but we’ll get into that in a minute. Right. Do you keep track of yours?

Do you use a spreadsheet? Do you use software? What do you do?

Keep track of it?

[Lon Varnadore]
I usually, I usually have something written and I’ll kind of go forward and say, that that shouldn’t have happened. That that needs to happen before everything else. I need to move that.

So I find out as I’m going through and redo it for the second, third, fourth time, whichever, I just kind of let it happen.

[V.E. Griffith]
I sort of found myself letting it happen for my, for my first novel. My experience with that though, was that it wasn’t that difficult because I only had one point of view. So as long as things seem to happen logically from the only point of view we were in, then it didn’t make a whole lot of difference.

And I didn’t have a lot of stuff happening off camera that I needed to keep track of. So that made it pretty straightforward. With my second attempt, I’ve got two points of view and I’ve got places in the story where they separate from one another.

And so things really do have to be kept straight and kept in order. And that I’m finding is quite the challenge.

[Lon Varnadore]
Oh yeah. I can figure, I can assume that. Plus there’s also, when it comes to the timeline, also trying to figure out when do you want to mesh up?

Or like, you know, when do you bring in this other, this other point of view and other stuff’s going on with them. Group O is dealing with, we know with problem A and group B is dealing with problem B. But when it comes to actually putting it in order, you have to realize, okay, so this is their timeline.

This is their timeline. Where does it mesh up? Where do I sync up the chapters?

[V.E. Griffith]
Are we doing things like, is group A doing something at the same time as group B, or are they at different times? And if they’re at different times, then we have to make sure that when we put those groups back together later in the story, that we’ve accounted for all of that time. Even if we just do like a summary sentence three days later, you know, that’s fine.

But you need to make sure that each of those groups are on the same calendar, essentially. Essentially, yeah. And I think it is more difficult with multiple points of view or with multiple groups.

It is harder to do. And that’s where, for me, putting together some kind of tool to help me keep track of all of that nonsense is helpful. It’s not perfect when I start, but it makes it easier to catch errors before I spend a lot of time writing them into the story so that later I don’t have to spend time writing them out of the story.

[Lon Varnadore]
Right. You know.

[V.E. Griffith]
So do you have any tools that you use for multi-POV stuff or do you just wing it? There was something that I had for a minute. Was it called Aeon Timeline?

There we go. That’s it. That’s the one.

Yeah, that’s the one that I use. It’s a piece of software that is, it’s a one-time payment and they give you a year of updates. Once your year expires, you don’t get new updates, but you get to continue using the version that you have.

So if you’re happy with what you got, you don’t have to continue paying them. Makes sense. Yeah.

So I punched all of my second story into it. So I have a list of scenes that I use and it’s got, you know, a hundred scenes in there or something. And for me, a scene is not necessarily 2,500 words per scene.

It could be just 200 words to make sure that I hit all of the points that I need to hit. So that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve got a hundred thousand, you know, word project. It may still only write out to 50,000 words.

In any event, I don’t have them in any particular order. So what I did was I assigned each of them a unique number and punched them into Aion timeline and started to line them up. And the neat thing about timeline is that when you attach your scenes to one another, it will figure out when they happen.

So you tell it when your first start date is and you tell it how long each scene is, and it will figure out when does this need to happen. So it helps me keep track of when things need to happen. I have the ability to put characters in it, points of view, or sort it however I need so that I can visualize a split in my timeline using colors, for example, and make sure that when they come back together, they are actually at the same time as opposed to, well, three weeks has passed for one character and two weeks has passed for another.

Now what do I do with the extra week? So it helps me spot errors like that. It helps me correct errors like that.

And if you’re careful with it, it will sync directly into Scrivener, which is crazy. So I don’t use the sync feature, but also just for full disclosure, we are not sponsored by Aion timeline either. It’s just the software that I paid for and that I use.

I paid for it, I think.

[Lon Varnadore]
It’s been a while since I’ve used it properly though. So yeah, I was using it for a bit and then stuff happened and I was kind of got bored with it. You ever spreadsheet it?

Well, I’m not that, I can’t do that. I just, you know, the most I’ll ever do is like, I’ll write out a timeline. I’ll do, this happens, you know, this is when this happens, this is when this happens.

But trying to keep track of different things, but I’ve never, I’ve never read a spreadsheet.

[V.E. Griffith]
Okay. Well, timeline actually has a spreadsheet function in it that you can use to punch your stuff in. So it’s, it’s, it’s pretty neat.

And if you’re taking it, yeah, if you’re taking an existing story, this is a method that I used. If you’re taking an existing story, all you have to do is create a couple of scenes in Aion timeline, then you can export them into an Excel spreadsheet, punch everything into the Excel spreadsheet, and then re-import it back. And it automatically recreates all your things.

So you don’t have to sit there and mouse it around. Yeah. If you’re a faster typist than you are a mouser, like I am, then you can use typing to get things in.

And yeah. And that, and that made a lot of sense to me. That really worked.

Interesting. Yep. What do you do when you identify that there’s a problem?

[Lon Varnadore]
Um, well, I mean, the, you gotta ask the question of what’s the easiest way to fix it? Does, you know, and, and the big first one is always, does the scene need to even be there? And if like, if, if it’s like, well, does it really matter that we know that they stopped at, you know, the cantina and got a tequila or, you know, does it really matter?

And if not, pitch it and toss it. But if it is important that, you know, we know that Jack got the tequila, then I have to, you know, again, sort of like work with what I have and write out a timeline or, or go back and find the Aeon timeline thing and look for where I can kind of plug that in.

[V.E. Griffith]
That makes sense to me. I have also used systems like note cards. I’ve attempted note cards.

I’ve attempted free writing by hand on my iPad to help, you know, sort of a, a flow chart kind of thing to try and keep track of what I’m doing in terms of timeline. I’ve just found the software works best because that’s how my brain works. But when I identify a problem, yes, the first question is, do I really need the scene that created the problem?

If I don’t, then that’s a great time to cut it, you know, rather than having to sit and write the scene and, and, you know, go through all of the hassle that first drafting is for me, you know, because as everybody knows, I absolutely hate first drafting. So I’m an editor and not a writer.

[Lon Varnadore]
Right.

[V.E. Griffith]
So looking at whether or not something is actually necessary and then figuring out, well, how does this interact with everything else that I need to, that I need to worry about? If it is necessary that the scene be in there, when does it need to happen? That’s a big question that I have to ask.

When does it need to happen relative to all the other things? Because a plot is not just a series of events. It’s a logical series of events that have come to pass.

And they cause an effect to them. So you want to make sure at least in an internal, yeah. At least in a way that’s internally consistent with your world.

So it’s a little bit more complicated than just saying, oh, well, first this happened, then this happened, then this happened. When I identify a problem, the next thing that I tend to do is look at, not necessarily, is there an easy way to fix? Because usually the easy fix is for me going to be the wrong fix.

It’s going to be the half-assed fix. And I want to make sure when I write that my stuff is done right rather than done easy. And sometimes that can mean adding more scenes than I might want to add.

Sometimes it can be deleting scenes. Sometimes it can be moving scenes around, which means, again, rewriting them so that their timeline doesn’t get screwed up. If I crack the egg and then I cook it, that’s fine.

But if I’m doing a magic trick where I cook the egg in the shell, then I have to rewrite the scene. Right. Exactly.

So, of course, then it’s just a hard-boiled egg. So those are the big things that I run into.

[Lon Varnadore]
You just sort of reminded me of, there’s a story idea that I have, and it says one thing that sort of blocks me is the idea of needing a timeline because of how I built the world. Because the world is essentially a moon around a brown dwarf, and the timeline is a hundred-hour day, a hundred-hour cycle of day and night, and having to keep the different segments that I’ve set up for how the people actually follow logically how they deal with time is unfortunately a big problem that I have.

[V.E. Griffith]
That’s why you need a timeline, because you can then put a custom apparel under.

[Lon Varnadore]
Exactly.

[V.E. Griffith]
Yeah. Yeah. I can see how those kinds of worlds are attractive, but also they present their own logistical challenges in terms of just having to keep track of everything.

Because as people, we’re used to 24-hour days and 365 days a year, and any other system is going to be a lot of mental arithmetic, and it’s something that I at least cannot keep in my head. So we wind up falling back on those tools like note cards, like calculations, like all of those things to see what we need to see. But I’d encourage you to give it a shot, because what’s worst that’s going to happen?

It’s not going to work, but you will have enjoyed trying it.

[Lon Varnadore]
That is something that I do want to try. I might try that. Just try to keep an eye on, try to keep things a little bit more in line, and maybe actually have a plot outline.

[V.E. Griffith]
Oh my god, a plot outline. Oh no. Heaven forfend.

[Lon Varnadore]
Yeah.

[V.E. Griffith]
So you discovery writers, I just, I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. Well, I think that about covers it for today.

Yeah, I think so. Okay. Okay.

Then we will see everybody next time. Bye.