alternate_history:how_to_tl
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- | ====== HELP: How to Write a Timeline (A Guide) ====== | ||
- | This page has been mostly constructed from [[http:// | ||
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- | ===== Factual Foundation ====== | ||
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- | **Write about what you know:** You know a lot of French history? Do you have freakingly enormous amounts of knowledge about Roman Generals? Do you know what was Churchill' | ||
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- | **Do your homework:** This is an Alternate history site with lots of people with history degrees and even more free time than you to research, and just for fun, they will pick at your TL and say it sucks...I know because I do it too! Try to avoid obvious mistakes and if someone notices some small ones, they are either nitpicking or have even more insanely big amounts of useless trivia than you... | ||
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- | I would dispute Point 1.) on the basis of Point 2.), viz : "Write about what you are willing to research." | ||
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- | ===== Causality and Consistency ===== | ||
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- | **Plausibility is Key:** No, the Wehrmacht cannot invade Britain with a POD in 1940. | ||
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- | **Butterflies rule, but are not absolute:** People will put Napoleon as Emperor of Japan with a POD in 1767 and say "the Butterflies did it!" | ||
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- | I'd argue about #4, personally. Yes, you can't butterfly Napoleon into being Emperor of Japan given 30 years head start. (Moric Benowsky, on the other hand...) But you can make a good argument that every single person born after the POD would be different, and frankly I think history is far more of a chaotic system in a mathematical sense of the word - small changes have big differences, | ||
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- | They do have big differences, | ||
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- | **1.)** If you consider yourself to writing the TL of a truly alternate universe, then you essentially have to start " | ||
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- | **2.)** Because of a lot of small-scale chains of cause and effect, the POD and other changes will have subsequent effects. Sometimes these are track-able: one persons' | ||
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- | The difference here isn't absolute, but stylistic, and it changes over time. I personally prefer to try to ground my initial butterflying in some plausible chain of cause and effect. However, after a certain point, that's not really possible. | ||
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- | Additionally, | ||
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- | The same thing goes for events that have complex causes, like, say the French Revolution. Obviously, a TL that has a POD in the 1500s might plausbily avoid any sort of cataclysm in the 1780s; on with a POD in the early 1700s, however, might have some sort of event, but it should be what I'd call an analogue event. [[offtopic: | ||
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- | ===== Work in Progress ===== | ||
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- | **Plan ahead:** Don't ever try to write a timeline - much less a detailed timeline - without knowing what will happen later. Your characters can afford that, you can't. This is specially true in timelines centered about a war. If you just start writing hoping that ideas will come as you write, you will reach a dead end sooner or later, and your timeline will start looking sloppy. When I write I always have three text files: one for writing the actual updates that will be posted here, another one for random ideas and fragments that I want to use later and would probably forget [even though my current TL is stalled in 1941, I've got fragments set in the 80's there], and another one with a bare script of what I want to happen. I've got a script of how I want *WWII to unfold, and more detailed scripts for each theater. I even have scripts for important campaigns that I want to cover in detail [it sounds imposing, but it's as simple as writing " | ||
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- | I would completely dispute this. **The whole fun of writing a timeline is in seeing how the world develops** - if I already know, I won't be enthused to bother writing it. People seem to enjoy this approach; at least, I have a fair few readers for the decades of the ' | ||
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- | Me too - but **once you see how the world develops, you need some ahead planning to write coherently**. Maybe not that much using your format, but definitely using mine. | ||
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- | **Always have at least have the next one or two chapters written when you post a chapter.** That way you know where you are going. It's what I should have done with //Song of Roland// and it's what I'm doing with //Clavis Angliae//. | ||
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- | **Keep a Dramatis Personae, updated after each chapter.** It's all so that you don't end up chasing your arse. Family Trees are also good. | ||
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- | ===== Topic Selection ===== | ||
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- | **No one cares about your political opinions.** Timelines are supposed to be alternate history and history is supposed to be neutral...Chances are that you have an unnatural hate for the [[Ottoman Empire]] and an insane love for the [[offtopic: | ||
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- | Just notice that it is generally fine to write timelines that let countries, statesmen, religions, ideologies, and political movements, succeed (or fail) much more than in our timeline, as long as the point(s) of divergence and the following developments are plausible. Such TLs, often nicknamed " | ||
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- | ===== Presentation ===== | ||
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- | Order events in chronological order.\\ | ||
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- | Join a contest and force yourself to update often.\\ | ||
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- | Don't force yourself to write huge chunks at once. If you're doing a chronological AH, write a few years every night - say, three to five. If you're doing an Excerpt AH, write a paragraph or two.\\ | ||
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- | ...but force yourself to write something each day, or it will stall sooner or later. Don't worry about how it sounds, you can always correct it later before posting it. But write. I try to force myself to a daily page. (Unless you have an exam coming Monday...)\\ | ||
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- | Choose the name of your timeline or story // | ||
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- | Keep chapters briefer and concise enough. Even if your timeline uses a textbook-like format (instead of narrative) and is excellently researched and super-detailed, | ||
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- | ===== Attitude ===== | ||
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- | **Have fun.** This is supposed to be a hobby, not a job !\\ | ||
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- | **No life depends on TL writing.** Just do it, don't fear critisism. Just learn from it.\\ | ||
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- | **Become obsessed.** I've found out that thinking about plot issues and small details to add to the timeline is great for fighting boredom in boring classes, going to church and traffic jams.\\ | ||
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- | **For those who are students, allocate appropriate times.** Becoming obsessed is fine, but the problem remains that you have to stick with the OTL world with all its homeworks, essays and exams. Otherwise you'll have half-baked grades (and possibly) a half-baked timeline.\\ | ||
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- | ===== Discussions on writing timelines ===== | ||
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- | **[[http:// | ||
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- | ==== See Also ==== | ||
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- | **[[Alternate History Clichés]]** | ||
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- | **[[The Sliding Scale of Alternate History Plausibility]]** | ||
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- | **[[Useful Essays on Writing Alternate History]]** | ||
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- | **[[resources: | ||
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- | **[[pods: | ||
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- | **[[resources: | ||
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- | ==== Navigation ==== | ||
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- | **[[alternate history: |
alternate_history/how_to_tl.1493985964.txt.gz · Last modified: 2019/03/29 15:17 (external edit)