Being a Better Writer: Fantastical Calendars · 6:56pm April 22nd
Welcome back, writers! Monday is upon us once more, and you know what that means! Being a Better Writer is here!
Well, Monday for you. For me, it’s Friday, and also a once-a-year sort of day for me, if you catch my drift. So I will be hopefully keeping this a slightly shorter BaBW installment, so that I can try and have a bit of a break day. Which, with everything that’s been going on, I need.
However, before I dive into today’s post, I do want to drop a little news. The Beta Read for Axtara – Magic and Mischief has been going really well. Really low error count, so I guess these extra months did account for something, with really positive reactions to the book.
That’s the good news. The slightly less good news is that I might be waiting on a cover for a few weeks, which would push the release into May.
I know. I know this sucks. Sands, I was speaking with a family member the other day and they made it very clear that the situation just sucked through no fault of my own. Axtara was originally aiming for a Christmas 2023 release, and that was a complete wash. Though it wasn’t exactly my fault (and if you’ve been skipping new and wonder why, just hit that search bar on the side and type “landslide” but be warned it’s not a happy story), it does suck that Axtara is now this long overdue.
At least it’ll be well-polished by the time it arrives. And based on the Reader reactions across the Alpha and the Beta, I think you’re all going to enjoy it immensely.
Now, if you’re itching for more of Axtara to tide you over in the meantime (and have been living under a rock), I’ve got good news for you: You can now read all but the final part of A Trial For a Dragon, a side-story starring Axtara’s older brother Ryax, right here on the site! Part 4 drops this Friday too, so you won’t have to wait long to sink your teeth into the finale. You can read that here.
But if you’re itching for even more content, previews of the first few chapters of Axtara – Magic and Mischief will be dropping in the coming weeks! Whet your appetite for the book! Oh, and if you’re still hungry after that—or before—there is, of course, a whole ‘nother library of books, but also there’s a new short on Patreon for Supporters. While waiting for the Beta Readers to make their passes, I’ve done some prep work for other books, but also sat down and spent a few days pumping out a little Sci-Fi action-adventure short. So if you’re a Supporter, hit this link and go check out Artifacts.
Okay, that’s the news. Over and done, so let’s dive into Being a Better Writer. Let’s talk about fantastical calendars. Hit the jump!
I’ve tried my hand at calendars on a few occasions. My No Heroes series has its own custom calendar, but only for the sake of differentiating between major epochs of time, otherwise it’s just the regular Gregorian calendar.
My first real attempt at a customized calendar was with Bulletproof Heart. I kept the same number of days as the Gregorian calendar but did away with the twelve months in favor of four “seasons” of varying lengths, amongst other things. One of the trickiest things about maintaining the lore of BPH is remembering the calendar system when bringing up the passage of time, partially because of the terminology changes. I tried to keep careful track of when things occurred for the first book, but afterwards I realized I could choose to not be so specific about it in continuing stories so as to maintain the common deceit that all this travel and action and growth is happening without the characters aging too noticeably.
There is one nice benefit to maintaining a calendar with a proper timeline though, and that’s character ages. Being able to track that can be a huge help when trying to make long-range decisions and impactful events. Just for example, in BPH there was this significant pre-story event that changed the political landscape. Knowing the age and locations of the individual characters when that happened helped to shape their views in regards to it.
Honestly? I feel like my handling of BPH’s calendar was a bit amateur. But hey, that’s why we try new things: to find the pitfalls and refine our methods. If I were to do it all from scratch knowing what I know today, I think I still would have made the calendar anyway but wouldn’t have maintained such a close eye on the actual passage of time in-story.
Honestly? I feel like my handling of BPH's calendar was a bit amateur. But hey, that's why we try new things: to find the pitfalls and refine our methods. If I were to do it all from scratch knowing what I know today, I think I still would have made the calendar anyway but wouldn't have maintained such a close eye on the actual passage of time in-story.