Jess, has been telling me that I need to make a timeline for my YA fantasy novel. I resisted for a while, because I wanted to dig in and finish my first round of edits.
But as I got further into my editing, I realized, maybe she was right. In order to keep everyone's back stories straight, I had to have one document which tracked each person's history. It's kind of a huge project because in this world I'm creating, there have been some major historical events that occur almost 300 years earlier which impact the main characters.
I mapped out on paper about 12 generations of 5 different families. Now I have to type them in to the spreadsheet organized by year and add little notes to flesh out each important date.
Even though I'm creating these historical figures' lives I don't feel like I'm actually writing...which is frustrating. But I've already had a couple instances where I've made big breakthroughs in understanding my characters' personalities by looking into their past. So for now I'm going to keep plodding through the genealogical charts of my MCs and hopefully it will make my story stronger.
Do you make any charts or plans to help you smooth out the rough edges in your first drafts or do you just go for it?
Have a great week!
And don't forget to head on over to Jess's blog, she has something special today.
Kathy :)
But as I got further into my editing, I realized, maybe she was right. In order to keep everyone's back stories straight, I had to have one document which tracked each person's history. It's kind of a huge project because in this world I'm creating, there have been some major historical events that occur almost 300 years earlier which impact the main characters.
I mapped out on paper about 12 generations of 5 different families. Now I have to type them in to the spreadsheet organized by year and add little notes to flesh out each important date.
Even though I'm creating these historical figures' lives I don't feel like I'm actually writing...which is frustrating. But I've already had a couple instances where I've made big breakthroughs in understanding my characters' personalities by looking into their past. So for now I'm going to keep plodding through the genealogical charts of my MCs and hopefully it will make my story stronger.
Do you make any charts or plans to help you smooth out the rough edges in your first drafts or do you just go for it?
Have a great week!
And don't forget to head on over to Jess's blog, she has something special today.
Kathy :)
It will add to the depth of your writing in the end though!
ReplyDeleteI usually just wing it but for the last one I actually created a story timeline in advance because it takes place over a year and I had to make sure everything happened when it was supposed to. I can't say whether or not it made the book any better, but it sure helped with chronology. You have to go with what works!
ReplyDeleteI had to go back and do this for my latest YA Science Fiction. It deals with altering realities and such so I was confusing myself :) haha
ReplyDeleteI understand your angst, but planning is especially important for historicals. Hang in there! :D
ReplyDelete