Thread: locations and time line

Hey Scarlett_156,

I read your response to Lady T's post about the lab results.

I also have a problem with time line and location. I halted work when I realized I could be writing myself into a corner. I have what I think is a good story but it's going to require a lot of historical research. Because it is a work of fiction, i was tempted to ignore possible mistakes in time line and location, in the name of fiction. That's what I don't know. I thought because it was fiction, that these things would be overlooked or accepted.

When I read your post, I wondered where you ran into the problem. Was it a publisher who told you the mistakes needed to be corrected?



stonefly

Actually, the first time, I had a dream about it. (I don't think the person in the dream was a publisher, but who knows? some are said to have special powers....)

I know that sounds kinda weak, but that's how it happened, lol. In the dream a character I was observing turned to me and started informing me in a bored-sounding voice that I had written a major conflict into not just a story, but a series of stories; then she (it was a little girl) pointed to some stuff on a map. I was like, "Whoa..."

Speaking purely on my own behalf, I would never submit a work to a publisher unless I knew it was as perfect as I could get it, which would obviously include working out or explaining all the contradictions and flaws, if any. If I don't catch the error myself, then at least one of the many people who read my MSs for me before I send it anywhere will.

It's one of the pitfalls of writing a decently complicated story, right? (Did you ever see that movie Rashomon...?)

If you can't write away the contradiction, you do have to explain it somehow, or you'll lose credibility with your reader. For example, if you are writing a romantic adventure tale without any sci-fi overtones, you won't be able to explain a character being simultaneously honeymooning at the Louvre in Paris and at a secret meeting in Los Angeles, California--you will have to re-write it, or your readers will crap all over you. And you know, now we have teh int3rntz, so they will not just crap on you in print, where you can conveniently ignore it. Just sayin.

But if it's a sci-fi story, you CAN--with some skill and luck--explain away this type of contradiction. (NOTE: In my opinion, explaining a time-line FU in your narrative is the less acceptable route; most of the time that seems hokey to the reader. It's best to try to re-write the part that's FUed, instead of just "patching it up". That's just my opinion. Do what thou wilt, though!)

"Fiction" doesn't mean that you can take license with the established physical laws of the universe you're working in, even if it's one that you totally made up; once whatever physical laws you have made up are in place, your characters are not going to be believable to your reader in breaking them.

Does that make sense?

Take for example the question you cited about lab tests (nothing personal, poster who talked about the lab tests; that was a great question!) If you unknowing wrote a glitch like that into your narrative, chances are pretty good that 80% of your readers would not notice the FU, because most of us don't get biopsied; it's not a typical, everyday experience like waiting for a traffic light, let's just say.

But some of the readers would notice it. (If you were lucky and your writing was good, and assuming anyone wanted to read your stuff, that is.) With any luck your work will be read by millions of people, so the 20% of readers who DID notice your FU would be in the... um... hundreds of thousands of people. That many people realizing that you, Famous Author Dude, had written such a glitch into your accomplishment would detract from your prestige in the writing community and the saleability of your work.

And if the publisher or agent you've submitted the work to realizes that a two-week wait for biopsy results is a stretch, IF THEY'RE NICE they will point that out to you and give you page numbers, and so on. (That's IF THEY ARE NICE.) I don't expect for publishers or agents to be nice, ever. (That way I'm pleasantly surprised every so often.)

I hope this helps explain at least my point of view on correcting plot/time line FUs.

Yeah, thanks. It confirms what I thought, that I have a great deal of reading to do.

I'm a dilettante student of WWII as it is, so the task won't be unpleasant.

It's a story that carries into Germany's campaigns in Poland and Russia.

I've placed people in certain cities at certain times. i need to make sure that Germany's campaigns had them in those places at those times.

You have cool dreams.

Why don't I dream like that?!

^^ Lol. You probably do, you just haven't developed a knack for remembering your dreams. Dreams often contain lots of helpful information if we know how to decode them properly. I'm kind of addicted to the network TV show "House" (about a misanthropic, Vicodin-popping doctor with a bad leg) and noticed in several episodes Dr. House has dreams in which he will get certain types of information.

House is a more or less devout atheist--though his occasional doubts are of course material for some episodes--and rampant materialist: "There's a logical explanation for everything," is one of his mottoes. So when he has a weird dream, instead of thinking that it's "a message from the other side", he tries to figure out what the dream is trying to tell him, by decoding the images. (The episode where he can't pee until he figures out the diagnostic puzzle, and then totally pees his bed once he has a dream explaining the conundrum to him, is SO RICH.)

So if you pay more attention to your dreams--and in any case, writing your dreams down will hone your descriptive skills, won't it?--it will help you with a lot of things, including your writing.