What Lies Beneath the Story - Pulling it all together

Whatever It Takes - a Tom Douglas thriller

Part 3

If you have already read Parts 1 and 2 of this blog series, you will know that I start with a single idea and build from there. Part 1 of this series looked at the structure of the story, and Part 2 focused on character and research. Both parts are available from the blog menu.

Timelines and structure – The jigsaw and the unravelling

In a thriller, timing is everything. If someone arrives too soon, the tension collapses. If a reveal comes too late, it loses its weight. Keeping the timeline accurate isn’t just about continuity - it’s about maintaining credibility, pacing, and pressure across every thread of the story.

I use Aeon Timeline to manage this. It’s where I map the sequence of events, the time that elapses in a scene so I know what time it is when they move to the next. The logistics – the details I checked in the research phase – can all be logged. For example, if Tom is in North Wales and has to reach Chester, I work out the route and how long it would realistically take. Then I can automatically check what time it is when he arrives.

If two characters are travelling at the same time, I need to know whether their paths might cross. If a discovery is made at 10 a.m., I need to be certain that no one mentions it before it happens. These may seem like small things, but they’re the kind of errors that pull readers out of the story.

Aeon allows me to plot everything visually — scenes, characters, locations – and to see how they overlap in real time. When a book has multiple points of view and shifting geography, that visibility is essential. It’s all too easy to write numerous scenes that happen in one day, only to realise it would be able 3 am when your story says it’s actually 10:30 at night!

Every scene can be given a duration and a start time to make sure scenes don't overlap and to check for time of day.

And because Aeon syncs with Scrivener – the software I use to build my story – I can adjust the timeline mid-draft without losing track. If I shift a scene in Aeon, I can see the impact immediately in Scrivener. If I reorder a reveal in Scrivener, I can update the structure and chronology in Aeon without confusion, and check that events don’t overlap. It means the timeline isn’t static — it evolves alongside the story. But it’s controlled.

I never expect the structure to stay fixed. But I do expect it to work - and the only way to manage that is with tools that respond and highlight any errors.

Writing into the unknown – Letting the story shift as it reveals itself.

Even with a clear structure and a carefully mapped timeline, the story doesn’t always go where I expect. Characters take shape and behave in ways that weren’t planned. A scene that seemed incidental starts to increase in significance. Something a character says - or doesn’t say - can change the tone of a chapter, or the trajectory of the plot.

This isn’t a flaw in the process - it’s part of it. By the time I start writing, I know my characters well enough to trust them. If they push the story in a different direction, it’s usually because it feels more realistic. The challenge is staying open to those changes without losing control of the story.

This is where Scrivener becomes essential. I use it not just to write, but to manage the complexity of a novel in development. Every scene is visible. I can colour code by point of view, track subplots, and follow individual threads — a lie, a location, a character’s movements — without getting lost. It’s easy to move a scene, to re-order, to isolate just the sections told from a particular character’s perspective and make sure the progression holds.

For me, planning is essential. But the story always evolves and moves in directions I hadn’t anticipated. By using flexible software tools, I can keep control and not lose track of where the story is going.

What keeps me writing – The characters, the process, and wondering what happens next!

I love the process - from the first idea to the finished book. There’s something satisfying about building a story, piece by piece, knowing that every detail counts. The planning, the structure, the research - it all matters. I need to know that the world I’m creating makes sense to my readers, even if only a fraction of the detail that I’ve uncovered makes it onto the page.

It's the characters that keep me coming back to the writing, though. I have to know them completely - how they think, how they move, what they avoid, and what they can’t let go. By the time I’m writing, they’re part of my life. They come up in conversation. They’re debated, argued over, revised. My husband is very patient! They need to feel like real people that readers care about. There is nothing more unsatisfactory than reading a book – no matter how well written – where, as a reader, you don’t really care who lives or dies!

I have to say that from the first spark of an idea to writing the final sentence, the process is one I thoroughly enjoy. And when it’s finished — when the characters step back and the book is done — I miss them more than I like to admit.