January 16, 2009

I have a confession to make. My Christmas tree is still up, until tomorrow, at least. The Christmas season is so rushed sometimes that I don’t feel I have enough time to enjoy it before Christmas. Since I moved south a few years ago and bought my first artificial tree, I’ve been taking the tree down when I felt like Christmas was over. (I enjoyed it so much the first time that I didn’t take it down until Valentine’s Day!) I loved the looks on people’s faces when they walked into my living room. They obviously thought I was confused about what time it was.

Keeping Their Time Straight

My characters often have the same problem. They forget what day or week or month it is. (Er, I forget what time it is in their lives.) Events get out of order, as my critique group will point out. It’s an easy thing to do, especially after big revisions where you’ve moved events around. Still, you need to keep track of the events in your characters’ lives, or you’re in trouble.

On a new site called Novel Matters, they’ve noted two cool FREE web tools to help you with this problem. One is called OurTimeLines, where you can fill in your character’s birth date, and then find out what was going on in the world at that time, when he went to school, what disasters happened in the world during his lifetime, personal events, historical events, etc. For fun, put in your own birth dates and see what you find. I saw that Velcro was invented when I was four years old and pantyhose when I was nine. Who knew? (You get major historical facts too–not just fun stuff.)

Visual Time Line

Another site mentioned was Dipity where you can generate a visual time line for yourself or any character. You can put down the major events in your character’s life, complete with notes, photos, videos, etc. A fun way to organize your research. (I’d want to print out a hard copy myself as well.)

There are many ways to keep track of the times in our characters’ lives, and these tools certainly make it fun. Maybe I should generate a holiday timeline for myself. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll watch “White Christmas” just one more time before I take down the tree.

4 Comments »

1. 

   I finally took down my tree yesterday. My husband and I went away for Christmas so it was nice to be able to enjoy the tree for a little while. Thanks for the websites. I am going to check those out!

   Comment by Stina Rose — January 16, 2009 @ 2:39 pm

2. 

   Glad I’m in good company! Just saw your blog–brought back a lot of memories of those frozen winters. Stay warm!

   Comment by Kristi Holl — January 16, 2009 @ 3:00 pm

3. 

   Don’t feel bad, I have yet to take down my Christmas tree. My goal is to take it down today…hopefully. I found your site through the Scribbler’s Asylum blog. Thank you for sharing the two free web tools, this is very useful.

   Comment by Ana — January 17, 2009 @ 1:50 pm

4. 

   You’re welcome, Ana. I know the house will look nice and spiffy once it’s all put away today, but still, I hate to do it. My tree is so full of my grown kids’ childhood momentos that I love just having it up to look at. My angel at the top was made by my daughter when she was in first grade out of a clothes pin and pipe cleaner and a bit of lace. Now she has a first grader of her own. Ah well…next year!

   Comment by Kristi Holl — January 17, 2009 @ 6:02 pm

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