Day 34 of 365 days of blogging. I saw a blog prompt that asked how the passage of time influences life events and I thought I’d share my struggles with writing elapsed time instead.
The first novel I decided to write back in November of 2022 was a framed story that connected memoir and fantasy to cover a period of approximately one week. By January, I was fully invested in the fantasy portion and separated it into its own story, and I expanded the time of the novel to approximately two years.
When my alpha reader finished the book, though, her first comment was, “how’d she go through two years of training, and there were no scenes of training.” The book felt like it passed in two weeks, maybe two months, rather than two years. I have had to add in montage scenes, and some wins and losses for the main character in her training. Still, one of my beta readers asked for more time to be shown because it still feels rushed.
I had similar issues with the first romance book. The goal was to have the relationship develop of a month and a half, but things were progressing so quickly, I thought it would all be over within the first week and a half. Of course, that’s likely due to me being a pantser and not knowing what’s going to happen until it does. It took two rounds of content edits to make sure the story lasted organically for the full time.
When the same thing began to happen in my most recently finished novel, I began to think about my process in terms of these stories. I jump into an important moment in the story, whether that is in the middle of some action or in the middle of the main character’s reflection on an event. Once I determine where the story starts, I want to progress day by day, week by week. That’s not feasible when you want to 1) keep the story interesting all the way through, and 2) keep the page count down to a manageable size for the genre.
I usually figure out the error of my ways after I’m halfway through the first draft, and then I have to go back and add more, or skip periods of time to all the time to pass. Eventually, I will get my pacing right from the beginning of the drafts, but for now, I recognize that this is one of my struggles and plan for it in editing.
I think that is one of the most important lessons I have learned in this past year or so writing stories–I have to develop a process that works for me. Part of that is learning where my struggles are and then the most effective ways to over come them. So if you take anything away from this blog post, it is to not focus on all the writing “advice” out there unless it is leading you to the most effective practice for you.
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