On Timelines

Are you writing a story in which time is important? Are you writing a story in which you don't think time is really important but takes place over the course of more than a month? Have you written a timeline yet? Do it now.

I thought I could get away with just keeping track of seasons in this long Merlin fic, but I can't. So 121k words in, I have made a timeline. And oh my gosh it's a mess. I had to totally re-evaluate when evens happened or, more often, how much time passed between chapters. I had tried to avoid putting specific dates in, but every once in a while I found a date, or a day of the week and had to adjust. I should've done this ages ago. I thought I had learned this lesson after NaNoWriMo 2014, but apparently not.

Now I still have to figure out more precise dates on events that happened before the story, but I have an anchor point so this really helps. I expect next week will be a lot of fixing numbers mentioned in the story.

Favourite writing from this week:

Merlin and Aldrich appeared with their horses in a clearing two hours ride from Ealdor. It felt a bit weird, bringing someone else with to visit his mother. Arthur and Gwen had visited once. But that was Arthur’s idea. It was really more of a patrol that happened to take a slight detour. Otherwise, he travelled alone.

“I didn’t know you grew up so far from the city,” Aldrich said.

“It’s not even within Camelot.” Merlin laughed. “Technically Arthur’s not my king.”

“Residency within Camelot for ten years doesn’t change that?”

“Huh. It might.” Merlin thought for a few minutes, mentally running his fingers along the books in the library and flipping through pages. “Yeah, residency in Camelot for seven years makes be a subject of Camelot. Darn. I can’t tease Arthur about that any more.”

After two hours of talking and laughing and riding, they reached the edges of Ealdor. The crops were short as they rode through, but the sprouts looked strong. Merlin let his magic wash over the land and provide a little extra encouragement.

Attuned to the feel of his magic better than anyone else, Hunith immediately came out of her house and ran toward Merlin. He smiled and leapt off his horse to run to meet her.

“Merlin! It’s been so long.” She grabbed him in a tight embrace and ran her hand through his hair.

“Mother. I’ve missed you so much.” He, in turn, rested his cheek on the top of her head.
Then she pushed him away and raised a finger at him. “You have been slacking in your letter writing,’ she scolded. “Gilli has written me more than you have.”

“What?”

“And I had to hear from Gwaine about Arthur’s wedding. Yes, Gwaine wrote me a letter.” Hunith lowered her finger and placed both hands on her hips. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Ah yes, the question for which there was no right answer. He could claim he was busy, she would ask if that meant too busy for his mother. He could say it got lost in transit, she would say he should’ve found another way to send it. He could say any number of things and she would have an instant rebuttal. Better to switch topics altogether. “I brought someone new this time,’ he said, beckoning Aldrich over.

He approached warily, knowing very well the look of the scolding mother.

“This is Aldrich,” Merlin introduced. “He is from Iseildur’s camp. Aldrich, this is my mother.”

“A pleasure to meet you, my lady.” He took the back of her hand and kissed it.

She blushed. “That’s really not, I’m no lady. Look around you.”

Merlin smiled. “Took me three years to stop him from regularly calling me ‘my lord’. I suggest you get used to it.”

Speaking, not telling.

It's been kinda a slow couple weeks of writing. The last week of January, I did WIP week and wrote another two chapters on an old story. It's still not done, but the final battle is planned out which is way better than it was two years ago. I've done some more editing on my other story and wrote a little bit more. I really am not liking this chapter and it's not doing what I want, but I think I just have to struggle through to the end of it and then let it sit before I look at it again.

The writing this week is from an early chapter in Twin Tales. I added more because I need to work on adding dialogue rather than telling the reader that the conversation happened.

Favourite writing from this week:

“Knowledge is never a waste. But you probably didn’t think of it because all the books on antidotes are hidden behind the mirror.”

Naturally. Anything that was an antidote to poisons would be considered too close to magic and thus would’ve been destined for the flames of the purge. Once again Merlin sent up a silent prayer of thanks for his father’s foresight to create this secret room.

Hidden behind a mirror than only Merlin could pass through were seven large bookshelves full of books on magic that William and his father had hid when the Purge began. There had been a logical system of organization on the shelves at one point, but Merlin was awful about putting books back in the right place so piles had built up on the ground.

Gently nudging the self-cleaning sword out of his way, he set down the books he had been looking through and started pulling books off the shelf that might relate to antidotes. When he had filled his arms, he returned to the desk in the main library, and William grabbed one off the stack to help him look. They still had until tomorrow but Merlin would also need to catch up on the other chores he’d missed when out on the ride. Not everything could be done with magic.

“Merlin, look at this one.” William pushed the book he was reading to the centre of the table. “It won’t work for everything, but it’s an enchantment to nullify the effects of the most common food poisons.”

“That’d be great.” He scanned the page. “This looks like it’ll detect most of the poisons I check Arthur’s food for anyway and a couple I don’t.”

“And the book suggests casting it on the plate itself. A simple rune will light up to indicate which poison was detected as well.”

“I can hide that with a concealment charm. It’s not a difficult spell. I’ll need to renew it every couple of months to make sure it’s optimal. But this is definitely what I’m looking for.”

“Better test it out in here before you run on down to the kitchens then and place a faulty enchantment on every plate,” William said, standing up from the table. He took out one of their plates and handed it to Merlin. “Go practice on this one. I’ll ask the physician for one of these poisons.”

“I still can’t believe he trusts you sometimes.” Merlin laughed. “It’s a good thing he believes in testing science.”

William smiled in return, a matching mischievous glint in his eyes. “A good thing indeed.”