Play with Timing

We’ve discussed what should happen in your plot and why. This chapter talks about when events should happen. As a writer, you have the unique ability to move your plot around in time.

You can do this in two ways:

• Change the actual events. (For example, you know your hero has to fight a dragon. But do they do it now? Or do they wait a bit, until support arrives? Or maybe you’ve established that dragons come out of hiding when summer begins, should the hero wait until then?)
• Or change when you tell about the event. (An easy example is a story that is told backward. Later chapters actually tell about events that happened earlier.)

I suggest you use this power as well as you can. A rather simple story can be become an engaging mystery if you tell the parts out of order. A Plot Point can be boring or exciting, based on when you decide to execute it.

There are no strict rules on this. It comes with experience, and it depends on the details of your story. Once you know what should happen, simply ask yourself

• What is the best moment to let this happen in the timeline? (Is there a way to combine this event with another? Is there a timing that is even worse for the hero and challenges them even more?)
• What is the best moment to tell the reader that this happened? (A regular chronological story is often still the answer to this question. Even so, asking it is useful.)

An example: scene timing

I once wrote a pirate novel (in Dutch). At a certain moment, I had two separated storylines. One ship was sent on mission A, and another was sent on mission B (at some remote location).

I got stuck on how to continue mission A. I knew the general steps I needed to take, but they felt repetitive. I’d done similar things earlier in the story. After being on the same ship for 100 pages, on the same empty ocean, you really want a change of location.

So I delayed this next step. I switched to mission B and made them come back faster, to meet up with the others. Their reunion already made the next step more interesting, as there were now more characters with some more conflict.

Additionally, because all the pirates were back together, they could now visit a harbor and continue the mission on land (inside an important city). The scenes after that are my favorite from the book, because they’re just so interesting and so much happens.

They only happened because I delayed Progress in one storyline, and accelerated Progress in another. I messed with timing to get a plot that was more efficient and interesting.

As a writer, you can do that! Pick the timing of your plot to make events fall at the most interesting times. Pick the timing to combine events where possible and make your storytelling more efficient.

I’ll give one more example. In that pirate novel, there are three parties in conflict: the pirates, the sea god, and the king hunting the pirates. I promised this at the start. I knew the plot had to end with a battle containing all three of them. That was certain.

But when I wrote that scene, it felt messy (and a bit too random) that all three of them happened to meet at the same time on the same stretch of ocean. It felt silly, as if I was writing a comedy, these forces meeting and chilling like they’re having a high tea.

What to do? Change the timing. I had the parties arrive one after another, across multiple chapters.

• I picked the worst possible timing for the king’s soldiers to arrive (when the pirates were at their weakest).
• Then I picked the worst possible timing for the angry sea god to arrive (when a neutral messenger was crossing the ocean between the ships in a ramshackle boat)

The plot events are (almost) identical. Only the timing changed to improve the scenes.

An example: Nolan films

I think the best real-life examples come from looking at the movies of Christopher Nolan. He is obsessed with playing with time and telling stories with odd timing.

For example, Dunkirk tells three different storylines that happen at different times. Nolan could have easily told this story chronologically: first the past, then the present, then the future. One after the other. That, however, would present a rather simplistic and predictable story.

Instead, he tells them at the same time, cutting between them. This allows the tension to keep rising throughout the whole film, as all storylines slowly reach their climax. It allows connections between them. (For example, there’s a fight scene with a plane in one timeline, and as the plane flies overhead we switch to another plane in another timeline.)

Or take one of his oldest films, Memento. It’s structured as a “hair pin”. You have two storylines:

• One starts at the end and goes backward.
• Another starts at the beginning and goes forward.

The film cuts between them, until, at the end, they meet in the middle and reveal the secret that has been teased the whole film.

Now, imagine telling this story chronologically, without this time trickery. It would be a pretty boring story of somebody going about their daily life, suffering memory loss, until some crazy event happens, and then we see almost no consequences (because of the memory loss), until we end at a pretty normal scene.

Playing with time allows the story to become mysterious. It allows giving hints and clues, while delaying the most exciting scene of your timeline until the end of the story (as it’s being told).

Now write!

Write a story that has a unique timeline structure. Maybe you tell it backwards. Maybe you use flashbacks. Maybe there are two storylines, from different time periods, that constantly cut away to the other one. Maybe you tell the a full story, then halfway you tell the same story again (you go back in time to the same inciting incident) but from a different perspective.

Pick whatever interests you (or fits an idea you have).

As you try this, try to pick the best timing for your scenes. Time them to coincide with other events. Time them so they give clues (or answers to mysteries) at a steady rate. Time them to connect separate pieces: for example, a flashback introduces a character’s backstory, and the scene after it this backstory suddenly becomes very relevant.

You’ll notice you have lots of freedom here. With minor changes, many events can be moved around in time, and the plot will work. You simply have to practice and learn what’s the best timing for each scene.