Time for a timeline
After dumping my initial ideas onto a couple of whiteboards, it's now time to map out the story, I guess. I've always struggled with plot-twist and making my characters keep secrets and lie. I think that's because when you write an unplanned draft and you're the omniscient narrator, you are sort of discovering the events as you go. But that also means that any surprise is also a surprise to you.
I'm not sure this makes sense but bear with me. You've picked a situation to start writing from, you're writing the story when suddenly you think: “Oh! What if [character name] has secretly been a spy for the other side all along? That will be cool.” Sure, it would be cool. But now there's probably a number of things that character has done or said that doesn't make sense and you have to retroactively fix all these little details – and sometimes it's more than just details.
Maybe that's the purpose of a first draft, but this time I want to lay out all the events first, then pick a starting point for my narration, which will allow me to decide what's backstory and what's not.
So my third board on Miro is, as you probably guessed, a timeline.
As I started doing it, however, I realised it would be much better to name my character, even if just with temporary names, so I can refer to them more easily. Some of these may stay, some may change, nothing is set in stone.
The timeline is quickly turning out to be a big task. After all, once it's done, it will encompass the entire story. So I'm cutting myself some slack and I'm doing it bit by bit. Here's the first stab just so you can see how it looks like.
