The devil is in the details as they say. And one detail that keeps tripping me up is timeline issues. Now, I know you’d think this would be an easy detail to keep straight. Au contraire.
I recently read a twology (I didn’t know they made such things, but leave to sci fi to come up with the idea) and nearly laughed out loud when I realized yes indeed they had messed up their timeline. Course when you’re dealing with elves, dwarves, warriors, men and fairies, you don’t really have to be that right because who can say you’re wrong?!
It seems easy enough to keep straight morning, noon, night, midnight, but seasons can be a headache. Like an ice skating party, but then you need it to be early fall because suddenly someone has to travel and how can they be traveling in the 1800s in the bitter winter? Yes, I realize some of our gallant pioneers did just that, but it was after all under necessity. Are your particular characters in that desperate a strait. Or . . . hmmm . . .that’s an idea!
A very successful writer once told me: write down your characters, your locales, your timeline, and your plot, THEN write your story. Doing it any other way means endless editing on details that cause you to miss bigger issues. Ones you can bet no publishing company editor will miss. I thought it would interfere with my creative spirit. I also thought it would be reducing it to some scientific experiment.
No, it’s the difference between a good story . . . and a great story.