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WriteOn! Throughlines, or Now Where Did I Put That...? [1]

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Date: 2023-01-05

THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. -Christina Rossetti, poet (5 Dec 1830-1894)

It's DaKoWriMo time! Any kind of creative work on paper or computer, any goal you want to set yourself, let's while away the winter hours with making good stuff! Mention if you are participating in the comments.

DaKoWriMo Goals dconrad - "editing my mess-in-progress. What goes in which chapter." Mercy Ormont - "rewrite and try to finish my memoir, Thirty-Nine Years On The Street." mettle fatigue - "finish and post a story to OFPM."

One of the banes of filmmakers is continuity problems. Because shots are taken out of sequence, in all sorts of orders and maybe over days or weeks for a single sequence, differences can creep in.

The character's hair or wardrobe might change in some small way. Why is the earring gold from one angle and pearl from another? That 5 o'clock shadow appears and disappears at random. Which hand was that briefcase in? Much more egregious mistakes like walking out a swing door and emerging onto a street from a revolving one are possible. It was sunny a second ago, now the pavement is wet. And anachronisms abound. See a book titled "Roman Soldiers Don't Wear Watches" for a hilarious sampling. Good directors employ specialists to catch these things.

Our writing may also occur out of sequence, and even if it doesn't, things, people, and plans can slip out of sight. X was holding an object. Where is it when he then uses both hands for something? I lose more stuff that way... [I once walked into the group home carrying a stack of pizzas and had to dive in to prevent a client-to-client assault. It didn’t do the pizzas a whole lot of good.] There was a waitress or maid here a minute ago. Did she see or overhear something, and why isn't anyone worried about it? Are character descriptions consistent with their actions? ["I see" said the blind man to his deaf brother...] Characters were going to go do X and got sidetracked, what happened to the plan when they got back? [This practice idea began when quarkstomper posted one of his chapters in which everyone agreed that this magical object one guy was holding was highly significant...but where was it when he left the room? Major discussion in comments]

Maybe you WANT your characters to overlook something as a plot point, but you mustn't. If it was introduced, it should have had a purpose, and you have to track it until it fulfills that purpose. If someone scribbled something meaningful on a napkin, that napkin needs to go in somebody's pocket, or the waiter will throw it away. Or read it and screw up the plan.

If a minor character is needed later, how do they get from there/then to here/now, if it is not much the same place? What prompts them to turn up where you want them?

Did someone have a perfectly good cellphone and then act as if they didn't (without a sentence about loss of signal or dead battery)?

If someone's attitude or plan changes, there should be a reason and some transition written in, not an abrupt cut.

So this is one of the tasks of revision. Check the throughline of every character, major, minor, and peripheral. Make sure where they went. Check the objects you wrote in. Did they teleport from place to place, or vanish entirely? Did you say something about weather or time of day and then have something happen that contradicted it? Make maps, floorplans, sketches. There are strict limits to travel speeds on foot, horseback, train, car. Don't make your characters cover 100 miles in a day of walking. Try out actions for physical feasability, if necessary. It takes room to swing a sword or an axe, even a shovel handle may have trouble in very close quarters.

Don't start in a Victorian building and go on in a modern one. (Or possibly, discuss who did the upgrades to the wiring and plumbing, and why.) If a window is broken in one scene, make sure it stays broken or is shown to get fixed. And so on, and on, and on...

Writers have been known to put up wall charts with strings and pushpins to track it all. What method do you prefer?

Choose a peripheral character in your WIP. Note where, when, or if they will be needed again and what happens to them in the meantime. If no suitable character is available, try a necessary object.

Write On! will be a regular Thursday night diary (8 pm Eastern, 5 pm Pacific) until it isn’t. Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on Preditors and Editors, Absolute Write and/or Writer Beware.

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