Timeline Issues

[DesinKalaScribe]

I'm starting to outline my next book and am running into something that may or may not be an issue and would love some thoughts on how to address it.

Ensuring I had a clear, realistic-enough timeline of events in my first book was super helpful when I was organizing how to present the material. (This is a multi-POV story happening in different places.) Now though, timeline seems like my enemy.

In Book 1, a lot of what was happening with my POVs and in the background revolved around a big event that was happening at a specific time and place (a world-wide summit kind of like the UN general assembly.) The book ends with a number of the main characters arriving in time for the summit. So, Book 2, of course, will kick off with this summit.

But as I'm plotting this out, it feels like a bottleneck. Focus is isolated on the handful of POV characters who are at the summit, while the others are either in transit or not really doing anything interesting quite yet.

Would it be problematic to do some timeline manipulation and bring other characters in sooner? Or, is it better to hold time constant so the story is linear across the board?

Readers don't really have too much information regarding dates. Characters have thrown out dates here and there, and letters and correspondence are dated too. But otherwise, time is mostly conveyed by characters referencing how long its been since a notable event. I'm tracking specific dates for each plot point in the story in my outline, but that's been mostly for my edifice as I write and organize.

 

[pmmg]

My book has a small amount of impossible travel times in it. I am hoping no one notices.

The way I handle this is just give fuzzy and not exact times in the story. I might say, it took most of a week to go from A to B, but never specify if that was 5 or 6 days. That way the reader cannot effectively do the math.

If I had to defend this, I would say, well, there really is no knowing the exact time. Some people cover the same ground faster than others, and many factors can delay or accelerate travel. Such as storms, horses going lame, muddy cart trails and broken wheels, bad winds, having a competent guide...etc, etc... so travel is all approximate anyway.

Creative license is a thing for a reason. You cant go too far away from it, but being specific is not your friend.

 

[DesinKalaScribe]

My book has a small amount of impossible travel times in it. I am hoping no one notices.

The way I handle this is just give fuzzy and not exact times in the story. I might say, it took most of a week to go from A to B, but never specify if that was 5 or 6 days. That way the reader cannot effectively do the math.

Creative license is a thing for a reason. You cant go too far away from it, but being specific is not your friend.

Thanks. Travel times aren't my big concern on this. My biggest issue is that there is a good amount of political theater happening in the lead up to the a lot of the action leading up to the summit is focused on just a couple POV characters and a whole mess of important side characters who we won't ever get a POV for. At the same time the other POVs stories don't really kick off until after the summit begins. So we'd be looking at 8 or 9 chapters focusing narrowly on the summit, while the rest of the world's plot lines play catch up.

Would it really matter if I up-jumped some establishing exposition for the other POVs, even if it throws timeline off quite a bit (in-universe temporally)?

 

[pmmg]

If it is similar to spending nine chapters on the Jedi Council before bringing Obi-Wan and Anakin back into the story, I think I would show scenes of what Obi and Ani were doing (hopefully having some relevant adventure) throughout, and bring them all together where the story lines blend into each other and are not separate.

Such as them discovering that its all a trick, and Palpatine is really a dark lord, only to rush back and find out they are too late, but fortunately Yoda survived...