It is probably not going to be possible to keep your readers aware of the time and date all the time, at least not in an organical manner.

However, with regards to telling the timeline, it doesn't matter until your plots converge. And then we know "what day it is" because your characters are in the same scene, or one character's actions cause effects for another character.

I heard of an author who accidentally created an eight-day week in her very contemporary novel. She tried to edit it but finally gave up, just to realize very few of her readers noticed.

So, the reader will likely not care about what day it is.

You could always pick up "Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy. I noticed, for all his date and time references, the story was too complex to be read as anything but a chronological account of WW III.

When plots converge, your characters will either be in the same scene, and we'll know the plots are converging.

Or, since there has to be a logic between scenes. Call it cause and effect. Spreading these scenes on several POVs will automatically dictate the time-relation between the POVs.

For instance; in a story with a king in one POV and a rebel leader in another. The king contracts some assassins to kill the rebel leader and the rebel leader defeats the assassins when they make their attempt on his life. We know what came first and what came after.

We can even mix up the timeline and have the assassins attack before the king gives them the contract, and if done right, the reader still understands what came first and what came after.

You can also use different clues to signal that the plots are "touching". For instance, in Ivanhoe, there's a church bell that can be heard in several POVs signaling that things are happening at the same time.

Other things you could do to signal the "time" across plots and POVs is to have one POV hear rumors of the events in another POV or have common events such as wars, coronations, plagues, news reports, etc.

But that's just something you need when you want to add extra spice to the story. Otherwise, you have one character's actions in one POV effect another character in another POV or you put the characters in the same scene and we know it's the day they meet, be that a Wednesday, Mittwoch or the Day of Odin...

Robert Jordan, in "The Dragon Reborn" have his POVs converge at the climax of the story. They are all, for different good reasons, on their way to the same place, so we're expecting it to happen, but before it does, we have very few clues as to exactly when things happen... more than that they happen before the climax.

Using dates and times, Stardates and "Years of the Unholy Dragon" is more there to give the story a specific feel, or following a specific genre (for instance, "Red Storm Rising" did gain atmosphere, if nothing else, with the dates and times).

I don't think you should count on the reader to keep track of dates and times, at least not to the level that it is required to understand the story. It could be an extra spice for your really observant readers, but it should not be required.

You should also be aware that the taste of different readers with regards to dates could differ (see discussion below) or that different stories have different requirements. I suggest checking what other authors in your genre has done with regards to dates or no dates and how, and/or use beta readers to see if your specific story gets a "the dates made me confused" or "I'd love to have dates to keep track of the events".

Keeping a strict record of the date is obviously also going to require more work from you and might make you less willing to reorganize the story in ways it might need to be reorganized because suddenly you have to rewrite that timeline and change the dates in two dozen chapters because of it...

Also, as per the below discussion, you should definitely keep track of when things happen, if you need it, but you could lessen your workload if you don't use it in your chapter headings if that information isn't needed there.

---

(0)

Login to post a comment!