Number crunching

Today I decided to change the age of some of my characters (yet again). Partly it's because I've decided to make June a POV character for book 2 (Are you excited?!! I know I am!!) and therefore I need her to be a bit older, and partly it's because I'm thinking I need to narrow down the age group of my audience a bit more, and it's likely to lean more towards the older teens.

So at the start of the book June is now 10, Theo 13, Lacie 15 and Izzie and Rowan 16. It doesn't really change anything for any of them since I'm not changing the way they act (which I think is appropriate for their new age as much as it was for the old one), just their age on paper. So you might ask: why all the fuss?

Well, the exact age of my characters matters a great deal because it impacts on how much time has elasped since events in the past occurred. And this matters greatly because in my book because, as Esther says, 'Time doesn't pass the same in your world than in ours. That is to say it passes much, much more slowly.'
It passes 8 times more slowly, to be precise. And I have a whole spreadsheet of when certain things happen so that I don't get confused (which I do. All the time.)

It looks like this:

*** Spoiler note: I've hidden what all the dates and times actually mean, so this should be relatively spoiler free. ***

This means that every time I change when something happens, or how old someone is, I have to change the whole blooming spreadsheet. And if I'm honest, it takes me a long time to remember what my calculations mean, let alone fix them.

So there. This is what I did this morning. And that, kids, is why you should listen to your Maths teacher. You never know when it might come in useful.