Week 23 - Talking Clocks

“Time is a jet plane,” Bob Dylan sang, “it moves too fast.”

Too right, Bob. We all know that as the years pass, they begin to pass quicker and quicker. But what about interior time? The time in your book. Surely this is controlled by the author?

Do I preside over my novel like some keyboard-attached Time Lord, speaking with all the authority of a town crier with a new Timex?

Of course not.

The truth is that as I near the end of my first draft, it is beginning to dawn on me that the time frame of my book is about as accurate as the Departures board at my local station.

Somewhere - at some time - time has got away from me.

Now, I know this is not fatal - that’s what second drafts are for - but it brings home how important it is to have an eye on the clock; especially when you’re writing a crime novel.

This morning, while merrily typing away in my penultimate chapter, my detective - according to my plot outline - needed to walk out of a building and head home to bed. Fine. Except that it was about ten in the morning. He'd had a busy morning, but that would have been taking it too far.

I was stumped. Had I lost twelve hours, or gained a dozen?

What had happened was that I was so carried away with the progress of actually writing scene after scene and seeing them turn into chapter after chapter, that I had managed to take my characters out of a linear time and place them in some alternative temporal dimension. All well and good if you’re Ray Bradbury; but not so great if you’re not.

Better planning seems to be the answer - but as ever, it’s better to get your times right at the beginning. If not, your carefully planned novel might suddenly derail and all you’ll be left with is a train wreck of a synopsis.

Blood on the Tracks, indeed.