Recently, I gave fellow members of the London Writers Society an editing exercise that began as follows: It was December 15, 2005, and I was eight months pregnant with the twins. It was nine in the morning, and I was eagerly awaiting my first client of the day. Two pages later, the exercise concluded with this: In April 2006 I gave birth to the twins and was grateful that Mr. Fletcher had spared my life that December night. 

What happened between the beginning and the end of the story was that Maisie, the narrator, was threatened by her client, Fletcher, that December morning. Most of the writers easily picked up on Maisie’s laughably long gestation period–if she was eight months pregnant in December, she should have given birth in January, not April. Fewer writers noticed that it wasn’t nighttime when Maisie’s life was spared, but morning.

While it’s not difficult to pick out timeline errors in short pieces like the one I gave the writers’ group, the task becomes much more challenging where novels are concerned.  Imagine that it’s Chapter 1 when Maisie mentions being eight months pregnant in December. Then, 300 pages later, she tells us it’s now April and she’s just given birth. Alert readers will remember the earlier reference to December and notice that the math is off.  But what if Maisie is a bit more subtle and says she gave birth as the daffodils were blooming, and we know that she lives in Southern Ontario? The glitch is less obvious because actual dates aren’t mentioned, but it’s still something that alert readers will notice. It will confuse them, jolting them right out of the fictional world you’re trying to create.

These sorts of errors are common in the manuscripts I edit. It’s as though some writers aren’t fully conscious of the passage of time in their novels. Probably it’s because they’re too busy focusing on other aspects, such as plot or character development, which is understandable. But a writer can’t afford to let their timeline go awry. Your job is to write for the most alert reader–and that means keeping a strict eye on your timeline and ensuring that all of your time references make perfect sense.

How do you do this? Explicit labels can help. Some authors begin chapters or subsections with time references: Thursday, April 24th, for example. Some might add an exact time: 2:00 p.m. Being that specific is common in thrillers, where the characters might be racing against time. As an editor, I’m always pleased to see labelling of chapters or subsections with time data because it suggests that the writer has given serious thought to the time issues. But within those chapters and subsections, I still have to watch for problematic time references. Say it’s 2:00 p.m. when Fred is kidnapped and 6:00 p.m. when he’s found. But if the author says later that he was found five hours after being kidnapped, that’s a error, and it may cause a ripple effect of further errors if it’s overlooked. And if it takes Fred’s rescuers two hours to find him after they learn that without a doubt he’s being held in a tiny house only two blocks away, that’s a problem too–two hours is either inaccurate, or they’d better have a good excuse for being so slow to the rescue!

Making notes on your novel’s timeline is an excellent idea, and I would recommend doing this right from your first draft. I make such notes when I’m writing my own stories, and also on my authors’ timelines when I’m editing their work. Let’s say, for instance, that the action in a book I’m editing unfolds over several weeks. I jot down things like Chapter 1: Week One (first week of January), Monday morning, along with the main plot developments in Chapter 1, e.g., Laura bumps into old flame Ben (they broke up seven years ago), meets him that night for dinner. That way,  150 pages later, when it’s Week 8 and the events in Chapter 1 are referred to as occurring four months earlier, or in the summertime, I’ll know that this is wrong. You can easily write similar notes in a notebook, or type a few pages of notes. When you’re verifying timeline information as you self-edit, either of these is easier to flip through than a novel-length manuscript.  Or consider printing off blank calendar pages, which you can then fill in with dates, chapter numbers, and the main events of those chapters. This is also a handy reference that will keep you on track.

Be acutely conscious of the passage of time in your novel, and take the necessary measures to ensure accuracy every step of the way. That way, you won’t end up with silly gaffes like including a woman’s twelve-month pregnancy in your book!