The Catholic Writers Guild

This week I want to attack a sneaky problem that sometimes slips into manuscripts: Describing events out of order.

Remember our editing goal is to get the right picture into our reader’s head – and that includes helping the reader to see what is happening when.

Usually accurate order isn’t a problem. Mary pours a drink, carries it to the table, and sits down to read the paper. 1, 2, 3: pour, carry, sit. If that’s how it’s happening in your head, that’s how you’ll put it on paper, and that’s how the reader will see it. No problem.

Now let me show you another perfectly good writing pattern: 1, 2, 3 + a little history:

Jim sat down, opened the paper, and sipped at the coffee he’d left on the table from breakfast.

Susan locked the bedroom door, pushed the bookcase in front of it, then hunted under the bed for the gun Uncle Sieve had left there.

1, 2, 3: Sat, opened, sipped. 1, 2, 3: Locked, pushed, hunted. We are seeing the actions that are actually happening in the story at this time, in the order that they happened. It’s good.

At the very end, we are making reference to something that happened earlier. But we are not out of order. The reference to the past action is just there to help the reader understand what is happening now. Maybe it’s something the reader already knew about, maybe not.* But in any case, we’ve accurately described the order of events that are happening now, and given the reader a clear picture. Good work.

But the brain is sneaky. It remembers language as patterns. And when we’re not looking, we might borrow that 1, 2, 3 + history pattern, but accidentally type something like this:

Ben climbed out of the pool, combed his hair, and then picked up the towel he’d tossed on the ground after drying off.

What Ben actually did: 1 – Climbed out, 2 – dried off, 3 – tossed towel, 4 – combed hair, 5 – picked up towel.

What we wrote: 1 – Climbed out, 4- combed hair, toss – wait a minute, I thought he was sopping wet, and where’d that towel come from, and he’s already dry?!! 1, 4, 5, 3, 2.

We’ve taken a perfectly good language pattern, but applied it haphazardly. It probably slipped in when the ol’ brain was on auto-pilot. No one sets out to intentionally confuse the reader, I hope.

The double-difficult part when you edit is that you, the author, already know how the story really happened. So when you review your work, it is very easy to miss these little flubs, because you know what you meant to say, and your brain is visualizing the proper picture as you read.

So be extra careful. 1, 2, 3. Pause when you see a list of actions, and make sure you’ve put them in order.

*In the gun case, yes, the reader needs to know about it. You can’t just have guns popping up in your story at the hero’s convenience. But old coffee? No foreshadowing necessary, as long as it isn’t going to become a major plot point at this moment.