Keeping Track of your Buildings - or - How Not to Get Lost in your Own Stories

[CarmineBlancheJr]

In "Pranked", the main character struggles to stay awake for 48 hours.

It was only during the last edit before publishing it that I realized: I had it daylight that entire time (or at least, didn't mention it being night).

-Annie

I would have been fine with that; I just set it up in my hometown. Homer, Ak. In mid-June, we would have days where there would be sunlight for 24 hours, with the darkest being a bright dusk.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I would have been fine with that; I just set it up in my hometown. Homer, Ak. In mid-June, we would have days where there would be sunlight for 24 hours, with the darkest being a bright dusk.

 

[CarmineBlancheJr]

I think that was supposed to be in Barrow. Never saw it and I have never been to Barrow. That's one of those places you go if you work there, or if you want to tell people you have been there as a flex, or if you are Inupiaq.

I was invited to go fishing up there with some friends once, but just could not bring myself to do it.

 

[RetroFan]

The titular 'Fawlty Towers' hotel from the classic British sitcom of the 1970s famously had an impossible floor plan. The building when viewed from the outside is a converted manor house two stories high and an attic. A cellar is referenced, and on the ground floor we see at various times the lobby, reception area, the hotel office, the kitchen, the dining room and the bar, while the lounge and drawing room are referenced but I don't recall ever seeing scenes in these rooms. Upstairs (and up a very narrow confined staircase) we see where the bedrooms are, but the dimensions and the references to the number of rooms at various times by Basil, Sybil, Polly and the hotel inspector just don't tally when compared to downstairs.

Then there's the room allocation. Basil and Sybil live at the hotel and share a room (but not the same bed), Manuel definitely lives on-site (with a pet Siberian Hamster) and Polly does too although one episode seems to contradict this. Then there's a room for the Major, and another for other permanent residents Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby. It's never mentioned whether Terry (the hotel chef) lives on site but we'll presume he doesn't. That's five bedrooms gone, six if the two old ladies have separate rooms, so where do all these other guests stay especially given many of the rooms have ensuite bathrooms? The one where the married doctors stayed didn't, which is a bad thing as it allowed the husband - a psychiatrist - to see more of Basil's insanity.

So was the attic floor also converted into bedrooms (if so, we never see the staircase leading up there), was there a wing on the ground floor where some guests stayed that was never seen on camera, or were Mr and Mrs Fawlty having guests stay in the cellar? Basil would probably like this idea, especially for those guests he believes inferior.

It's funny this thread should come up, because for Halloween I'm writing a story about a poltergeist haunting in a large guest house set on South Australia's Fleurieu Peninsula, about an hour or so out of Adelaide and have drawn rough floor-plans of the building and the property so I keep track of things properly. But given the story is in IT given my past experiences I don't think the readers will be overly concerned about the floor plan of the building, the nice South Australian scenery or even poltergeists, but rather the characters with XY chromosomes getting into the panties of related characters with XX chromosomes.

 

[Northstar4695]

I’ve only ever drawn out a diagram once. In one story I described a ship sinking in a storm. I needed to draw a diagram of the relative position of the ship and the prevailing waves in order to keep it straight as it maneuvered. In most of my other stories, the setting was not so complicated as to need a diagram. I also made a chart for a sex card game in order to keep track of what was played. It was actually difficult to plan the right sequence of events to build the tension.

 

[MrPixel]

The titular 'Fawlty Towers' hotel from the classic British sitcom of the 1970s famously had an impossible floor plan. ...

No problem. It was slightly modified TARDIS.

 

[EdgySubMic]

I used to just write, see what happens, and make a few changes along the way if I discover an issue. But then again, most of my writings are in the below 5K words range. I don't like sequels that seem to last forever. Esp. if content repetition sets in after a while, because it's just about finding another way for the main character(s) to have sex. Again.

But then I started on a 40K words story based on true events from my own life, augmented with fantasies that are key to my being. For a section of about 6K words early on, I quickly realized that I needed to accurately know (and sometimes mention) the dimensions of the dungeon in which the main characters were being held, as it was crucial to know what everyone could and could not see. So, I drew maps to scale of what I had in mind, even including the heights of things. This became a bit of a habit for later sections, even if in those cases a rough sketch was good enough. Nowadays, I actually enjoy preparing such drawings up front, even for shorter stories, as it helps me visualizing the setting.

The eventual story timeline of that 40K story stretches out over about 7 years. About half way through writing, I realized that my timing was a bit off. Looking into that, I also discovered that, in one particular case, the time I had foreseen for one of the characters to recover from an event was not at all realistic. In order to fix all that, I created an excel file in which I could easily move events and timings around until it all made sense. Only then did I rework the story. That excel proved extra useful later on, because, when I was already in my second round of reviewing and editing, I decided to include something extra from my actual life at the very beginning of the story. Any reader can pretty much date that event to a 3-month period in 1998-1999, as it involves a particular song playing on the radio. Checking my excel made me realize quite easily that this meant that I had to change a few other timings, as there was already another recognizable time anchor further down the story line.

 

[gunhilltrain]

So, I am writing this series, The Chambers House, and about the second chapter, I realized I was getting lost in my own house and in my own story. I realized that in a house with only three main levels, a basement,and a secret room I had not disclosed yet in the series, my main character had walked up several more floors in the house and into rooms on the wrong floors.

Yes, I do know how to fix this, and I have, though I think there might be a slip or two in Chapter Two. For fun's sake, I am leaving it in.

In my case, I created a document with the floors and a list of each room and its description and anything else about the floor that needs to be known. I thought about drawing an actual map but then figured that would be overkill as long as I recall the place's layout.


But it did cause me to wonder if any of you have fun stories about not getting your continuity right with your stories and if people pointed it out to you.

If you feel like making a layout drawing, and it helps you, then go ahead. Sometimes I look at real estate listings to get a general idea of what a fictionalized house looks like. The story is set in the 1970s, but this wooden nothing-special house now goes for a cool $1.6 million. In 1975 it would have been about $50,000.

Greenpoint Avenue, Long Island City

 

[gunhilltrain]

I've always been very vague about where the series takes place because it wasn't really important. I kinda consider it Everytown, USA.

Somehow it's more satisfying to have a specific time period and location. Minecraft has a whole layout of what my college once looked like - it's was still much the same in the 1970s. Now many, although not all, of these buildings are gone. It still exists, however, in some part of my mind.

https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/the-city-college-of-new-york-1952/

 

[rebel_code]

The titular House in my "Housemates" series is almost exactly from memory a house where I lived in college. I did change the geographical orientation so that the side I wanted would be south-facing and get the flower garden. Apart from that, I couldn't get lost in that house if I tried.

I also made a calendar to keep track of when chapters were happening, so the continuity wouldn't get too far out of whack.

(Sadly, no, the goings-on in my house were nothing like those in the story.)