Friday, September 21, 2012

On Outlines and Timelines

I am surprised to say that I got most of the family trees done for my characters.  I thought it would take longer.  My characters have names and 4/5 of them have birth and death dates that put them where I need them to be historically. 

To figure out where the characters fell in history (and so I could adjust their dates of birth if necessary), I created a timeline using Publisher and drew vertical lines for every five years with the year labeled in a horizontal band at the bottom of the page.  I had to send my husband out for legal sized paper so I could fit all the years I needed across one page.

I added a textbox for every character and added their birth and death date and anything noteworthy about the character without writing a full synopsis in a tiny textbox.  The cool thing about doing this is I had to think about when and how each person would die and how old they were when they had children (lots of children).  I had to give all of the characters a story. 

Now I have five pages of timeline mostly completed - only one page lacks birth and death dates - the characters are listed randomly on the page. 

Now it's time to do a little more historical research and a little bit of adjustment to my outlines.  With some luck, I should be able to write the first chapter on October 1, which would be awesome - it was my grandma's birthday.  One of the stories is for her. 

(For my nerd-friends out there, isn't it funny how the spell check function doesn't recognize the word textbox even though its executed inside a textbox?  What's with that?)

21 comments:

  1. Glad you're almost done with the timeline! Your story will benefit so much from your research.

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    1. The complexity of it has kind of paralyzed me so far. I think this will help.

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  2. That sounds like a lot of work. I'm glad I don't write family sagas.

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    1. LOL. At least I have a good excuse if I never ever finish. ;)

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  3. You will become an expert soon on timelines, Tonja. I expect a future post on 'how to do it'.

    Hugs and chocolate,
    Shelly

    http://secondhandshoesnovel.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-be-otching-blurb.html

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  4. Excellent progress. And smart of you to get this all firmly established before you start writing. I'm the sort who jumps in and starts writing and then tries to untangle the mess later. :P

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    1. I don't like the idea of detangling the mess. It makes me want to scream and cry and throw things. This is definitely better for me.

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  5. I wonder if you could add this to the book like some people do maps...

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  6. I hand-drew a family tree for a WIP I started about a year ago. I wanted to find a good program to draw it in. I didn't think to try Publisher. Oh well, that WIP went down the drain last winter, and I don't think it's coming back any time soon.

    Good luck on your project! As a writer of historical fiction, I am anxious to see how you make out!

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    1. I was thinking about using Excel or maybe buying Family Tree Maker. I think Publisher was a better choice - more flexible I think.

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  7. Wow, good for you on doing all of that work! It'll be a great help when you get to the writing, for sure!
    Some Dark Romantic

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    1. I hope so. :) Wouldn't that suck if I did all this work for nothing?

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  8. Glad it went smoothly. Spell check is so often behind on 'tech' speak.

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    1. Thanks. 'Internet' also comes up as not recognized. So odd. Do you suppose they dumped a dictionary from 1960 into it?

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  9. Collecting information for the family tree must be a real herculean task.

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    1. The family tree for my real family wasn't too bad. I used Ancestry.com - it didn't take that long and was really interesting. You could look at the original census records, which was really interesting - you could see if they had any education, if they could read, what their job was and more.

      For my characters, it was easier because...well...it's just pretend. :)

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  10. I put together our family tree for a high school project, and I'm still disappointed that I never got a copy of it. Now that you're a pro at this, I'm sure that your kids will be happy to have a personal family tree as well. I'm impressed that you're so organized, and can't wait to read more when it all comes together! Julie

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    1. I haven't seen any real interest from my kids in my actual family tree or the fictional ones for my characters. I showed one of them one of my timelines and the eyes glassed over. I know they think it's cool I write. They are probably wondering why I'm not just writing it already.

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  11. I'm so impressed by how much research you've put into this. Wow!

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