All In A Day's Work: Fictional Timelines

All In A Day's Work: Fictional Timelines

As I was creating a timeline to help me figure out the effects that some plot changes were going to have on the rest of Murder in Heliopolis, I found myself asking a question that I couldn't find a straightforward answer to online. The question is really simple, and ideally, easy to answer, but the more I considered it, the more cautious I was about how to tackle the issue. 

Here's the question in question:

How do I know if my character is doing too much in one day?

The way that I originally set up Murder in Heliopolis was that the story was going to take place over a time span of about one week. And, if you go to the original manuscript on Royal Road, you will find that everything takes place in about 7 days total - from Laith getting assigned to the case to his horrible "accident". 

But as I revise and edit my manuscript, and as I put together a list of plot points that take place each day of the investigation, I'm starting to wonder if maybe I've put too much - an unrealistic amount - onto Laith's plate every day. 

Here's an example:

On Day 1, Laith gets assigned to the case of Cassia Grove in the afternoon. He goes to the crime scene in The Hills to investigate it, then goes to Greenland Farm in The Farms to find his prime suspect, and then goes to Nymphaeales in The Floats to try and learn more about Cassia Grove from her colleagues. Later on, he wraps up and goes home to a cozy dinner with his wife, Warda.

That's 3 different locations in 3 different neighbourhoods in Heliopolis that he bounces to throughout the afternoon/evening - which is only a handful of hours (about 4-5 hours in my mind). Is it realistic? Have I given him too much in one day?

This question would come to mind every single time I opened the list of plot points. In fact, to make things clearer, I separated chunks of the list by which day they occurred on. And again, I wasn't sure if it made sense, if Laith could realistically do all of that in just one day. 

Or how about another charged day that I have planned out for him?

On Day 2, Laith has a quick meeting with Captain Fox at her office, interviews Cassia's mother Patina Grove, interviews Cassia's business partner Afan Keliat at Nymphaeales, searches Cassia's office at Nymphaeales, and takes out a R-Investigator to retrieve Aster Lockwood's Slate from the Ruins. He rushes home at the end of the day when he gets a concerning call from Warda.

So, once again, I'm considering: Is this too much for Laith to do in one day? 

Is it too much for any character to do in one day?

 

How to Assess a Character's Action Timeline

After some careful consideration, I've come to the conclusion that whether or not such a schedule is acceptable is based on a handful of factors:

1. Your character's state of health.
2. Transportation means.
3. How pressing an issue is.
4. Geographic area.
5. Procedural delay.
   

 Let's start with the first factor and work our way down.

1. Your character's state of health.

Consider a character who is anxious and depressed. One side affect of these two mental health issues is that your character might feel low on energy and always tired. Maybe, as a result, they move a bit slowly through their day, and they don't have enough spoons to do much more than a couple of things.

On a physical scale, what if your character has to do all of the legwork, but they're disabled in some way which affects their ability to do it? Or they're healing from a bad injury, and need lots of rest, no matter how eager they are to go visit places and talk to people and uncover clues?

Your character's mental, physical, and emotional status all play a role in how "quickly" they get things done. We're no strangers to that concept, are we? I say I'm writing a book, and I'm going to be writing every day - and then I'll invariably end up not writing for a few days because my mood had dipped again and Ye Olde Writer's Braine isn't working the way it should be. It's the same for your characters - different factors will play a decisive role in how much they're able to get done within a specific time frame.

2. Transportation means.

This is pretty straightforward. Does your character have a car? Do they have to take a bike - and take breaks when their legs get tired over long distances, or if the weather takes a turn for the worse? Do they have to take public transportation, and end up spending a chunk of their time waiting at bus stops or train stations and sitting in transit? 

If you've writing a fantasy or scifi, does your character have a portal, or the ability to transport themselves immediately to anywhere they want to go? 

All of this, too, plays a big role in how much your character gets done in a day or a week or a month.

3. How pressing an issue is.

If your character isn't in a rush to investigate something - or doesn't know that they should even be investigating a certain matter, then they're in no hurry. They have no motivating factor that's making them want to get as much as they can possibly get done in a day. 

This can be a good way to insert tension, by the way: your character realizes that time is of the essence in this mystery they've been leisurely unraveling and suddenly they're in a race against time to find the culprit! 

4. Geographic area.

Where does your character's investigation take them? For example, in Murder in Heliopolis, Detective Laith Alazraq has to travel to different neighbourhoods in Heliopolis, and even has to go outside of Heliopolis, to the Ruins. It's a huge city, so that's a lot of ground to cover. 

This affects how long it takes a character to get from one place to the next, which of course slows them down. If they have to deal with particularly bad terrain with no way to get around it but through it, then that's going to slow them down, too. 

So you need to consider the distances that your character needs to travel, and also how the geography might hinder/restrict them.

5. Procedural delay.

In most detective novels, you need to understand that there's a process that takes place. For example, search warrants can be provided in anywhere between 2 hours and several weeks, depending on how much evidence police have collected. Some cases are solved almost immediately, or within days, while others take weeks, months, or even years to solve because the necessary evidence takes a long time to find. Moreover, the crime itself can be particularly complicated, with lots of red herrings or tips that go nowhere.

So, the degree of procedural delay depends on the nature of the crime or mystery that your character is investigating and how/when evidence crops up. In my case, Laith has assistance in the PATET system, which provides him with a range of information and evidence almost immediately, and supports his investigation. 

Additionally, detectives have to follow a range of leads, which also takes time. In essence, in following all of their plausible leads, they're undertaking a series of investigations under the umbrella of the main investigation. That also takes time.

Putting together a realistic timeline

I think my current timeline is on the border of what could be realistic in the world of Murder in Heliopolis. Given the immediate support and help Laith gets from PATET, the quick transportation through the A-Lanes, and the pressure to capture Cassia Grove's killer ASAP - especially after the media catches wind of this peculiar murderer which PATET cannot identify - I think there's a strong set of factors that work in favour of Laith getting a lot of work done in a relatively short amount of time.

Besides, unlike a normal job where you can clock out at 4 PM, there's a certain guilt attached to clocking out when you're in the middle of investigating a murder and you know there's a killer on the loose. While it may not be healthy, this pushes Laith to work even more than he usually would.

However, that being said, I do have to wonder if it's a sustainable pace. Taking into consideration mental health and emotional state, I do think that especially towards the latter part of the first half of the book, prior to his car accident, it's fair to assume that Laith's "productivity" would decrease slightly, as his confusion and disillusionment with PATET and the justice system in Heliopolis increase. 

I'm still working on my timeline, and still tweaking here and there. I hope to get to a point where I'm happy enough with what I've put together that I don't feel quite so stuck anymore, since this pacing issue is one of the main reasons that I've been running into a bit of writer's block in the editing process lately. 

If you've been having trouble with your fiction novel's timeline, how are you tackling it? Do you have any other factors to add to the list above?

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