Feedback Wanted
A character’s time sense can tell you more than the clock ever will. Some people live by appointments, some by daylight, some by medication, train times, the school run, the pub opening, or the moment everything went wrong.
Precision is useful when it matters. Slipperiness is useful when memory, fear or routine is doing the work. I’m never quite convinced by the blanket rule that “real people aren’t that exact” either. Some are. Some are unnervingly exact.
How do you decide which version a character gets?
Precision is useful when it matters. Slipperiness is useful when memory, fear or routine is doing the work. I’m never quite convinced by the blanket rule that “real people aren’t that exact” either. Some are. Some are unnervingly exact.
How do you decide which version a character gets?
A character’s sense of time usually tells me more when it’s slightly inconvenient. Not the neat, literary version, but the one that gets in the way: someone who checks the station clock twice, or always arrives early because they cannot bear the waiting. In a book, punctuality can be a habit, fear, or a form of control. The trick is not making it symbolic on purpose.