Time and Motion Studies


 A couple of nights ago, the amazing beauty of the lunar eclipse. And, co-incidentally, one of the fiddling little parts of writing a murder-mystery: time-lines. And the moon. Just finished the nit-picketty task of figuring out, How many days after the murder does the heroine realize she's been followed, and how much can she see once she leaves her car on the road and dashes off into the sagebrush of the Hollywood Hills? Where's the moon that night?  

I often find myself clocking back the timeline on a story by figuring out, at what point do my heroes need enough moonlight to see what's going on when they're outside at night? In movies, being outside at night is often VERY well-lit. IRL, not so much. (Even more so when you're trying to read someone's expression by the light of a single candle, or see what someone's doing on the other side of the room.) I pin THAT event, then count forwards and backwards from there. (We won't even get into details like what kind of cigarettes does everybody in the book smoke - what brands were available in 1924?)

It's one thing I admire about Lord of the Rings - Tolkien has an absolute grasp of time passing and how time is read, mostly by phases of the moon. You almost don't notice this, it's done so concisely, but he's keeping two sets of characters lined up with each other - exactly what's happening to who, at what point? (And he makes sure everybody has food and water for the journey, something that it's easy to forget). (We even know what herbiage Gandalf favors in his pipe).

Fortunately, the time-line in the current project, the Hollywood murder-mystery One Extra Corpse, is pretty straightforward, and takes place in the Real World in 1924. Working on Iron Princess - the fantasy that will be out towards the end of the year or early next year - I was counting time by, "...the monsters first appeared three days after the full moon..." Thank God for all those nice astronomy programs on the Internet. (Not to mention, how fast CAN you travel by canoe?). While writing the three Abigail Adams mysteries (under the name of Barbara Hamilton), I had to keep track of what day was Sunday, because both John and Abigail are good New England Puritans and the investigation has to come to a screeching halt for the Sabbath. At least in Hollywood nobody had the slightest idea about the Fourth Commandment and could care less, though I have to remark whether the screaming headlines are carried in dailies or the Sunday Times.

So, everybody out there who wants to write murder mysteries - remember to keep these details straight.

In other news: Open Road Media will be downpricing several of my digital books Friday, May 20. The Silicon Mage, Dog Wizard (two of my absolute favorites), the Rainbow Abyss (the FIRST book of the Sun-Cross du-ology, of which the second, Magicians of Night, was downpriced LAST week), and the third Sun Wolf novel, Dark Hand of Magic (what DOES happen when somebody puts a Murphy-hex on an entire army when it's beseiging a city?): $1.99 apiece, digital, through Open Road Media, US only. US and Canada, Traveling With the Dead (the second of the vampire books and one of my favorites), digital, $1.99, same day.


Comments

  1. allisonMay 20, 2022 at 2:30 PM

    Hello Barbara, I am one of your many fans of your Beauty and the Beast book of the pilot episode and one called Song of Orpheus. Would you consider emailing me at dugginsallison@yahoo.com. I have a question regarding these two books. Thank you for considering. allison duggins

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