"T" is for Time

Any story has some involvement with timeframes. Most of them, outside of the epics, are quite small. I have a few of those. Dark One’s Mistress takes just over a fortnight, whereas the whole storylines of Golden Dawn and Dark One’s Brideconclude in a week.

Then there’s the middle ground, which I find is the popular timeframe across the genres. I certainly have more here: Crimson Night, Anubis’ Handmaiden, Witch of Morthin, Dragon … they all take about a year, give or take a few months. Aelfah goes for a little longer. This is, strangely enough, also the area where I struggle. I’m not sure why. Small gaps and big gaps work, but the medium ones … they take some fiddling to right. I wonder why.

And, of course, I have the other end of the spectrum. Starting with The Rogue King Saga and taking in the timeline of the Godless Series, it’s a whopping 54 years. That’s not factoring in the backstory, worldbuilding or even novellas. If I did, that’d make the whole thing several thousand years long.

In the past, I kept the timelines straight in my head or laid out in a simple format using Excel. But as I get more stories, I find myself relying more and more on those external sources to keep them straight, especially my epic. And Excel grew too messy when going backwards or weaving other storylines into, so I’ve moved on to a program dedicated to timeframes.