PSA: That character timeline in my fantasy novel got me in real trouble

I was at a writers group meetup last Tuesday when someone pointed out my main character aged 3 years over a 2 week period in the story. I thought I had everything tracked on a spreadsheet, but I missed a whole chapter where I jumped ahead. The group spent 20 minutes digging through my outline and found 4 other timeline errors I didn't catch. I had to go back and rework 15 pages to fix it all. Has anyone else had a timeline collapse on them like this during a critique session?

2 comments

2 Comments

cameron7632d ago

Dude, I once showed a short story to my friend and she pointed out my character had blue eyes on page 4 and brown eyes on page 10. I spent a whole weekend just fixing eye colors across the whole thing.

taylor.mary2d ago

Isn't it funny how we obsess over tiny details in our own stuff but then totally miss the big picture in real life? I've noticed that with friends who can tell you exactly what brand of jeans someone was wearing in a story but can't remember if their own car needs an oil change. Or people who will spend hours making sure a character's timeline is consistent but then show up late to dinner because they got lost in their own head. It's like we have special focus for the made up world but not for the one we're actually living in.