One of the commonest means of building suspense in pretty well any novel in any genre is to have a clock and a deadline. I use that device very freely, and I’ve built some tools to help me use it.
Having aliens on another world use Earth’s Gregorian calendar is a bit of a stretch. Inventing your own calendar is a bit of work, though. Still, there are some benefits in terms of scene setting and atmosphere.
“We, Avrelius, Dux Avalonis, recognizing the historical significance of the event of renewed contact between the peoples of Earth and the Realm of the Dux, do extend an invitation to the Captain and ship’s company of RLS Explorer to attend at Our Court upon the Tenth Hour of Day Six in Tenday Twelve of the Year 3671 from the Ascent of the Fifth Rapture.”
The invitation they can’t refuse carries a good deal of scene setting in a relatively few words. The date and time at which our heroes have to show up in their best bib and tucker is a strong hint they’re on someone else’s turf, a long way from home.
In this as in a lot of things, spreadsheets can help. For this novel (Spymaster’s World) the scattered and divided worlds enduring the Long Night after the fall of the great Galactic Empire do retain some remnants, including the Imperial clocks and calendars.
So, I designed a calendar.
Imperial Calendar:
- 1 hour = 3000 Earth Seconds (No minutes, fractions of an hour).
- 25 hours in an Imperial Day
- 10 days in a Ten-day (Give it a name?)
- 250 days in an Imperial Year.
So far, so good. Next, every calendar needs a zero point. The Ascent of the Fifth Rapture was a key date in Imperial history, whose meaning has now been lost. (I think it sounds cool, and I’m the author.)
Now, pressing on to the nuts and bolts.
The Ascent of the Fifth Rapture occurred 2024 Earth years prior to I January 1970. The Earth second and the Imperial second are the same. (Coincidences happen.)
I block out my novels using a spreadsheet, which has a column for the date and time at which each chapter and scene begins. My workflow, obviously, isn’t everyone’s. However, you can still use the same method to build a a standalone sheet for conversion of dates.
The method is to calculate the number of seconds between the Ascent of the Fifth Rapture and the current date and time. After that, it is relatively easy to calculate the number of years, Ten-days and hours and get a date.
Formula 1: The Excel formula is =((D8-date(1970,1,1))86400)+(315576002024)
- D8 is the cell holding the present Earth date, formatted as a date.
- The first part of the formula calculates the number of seconds between the present and 1 Jan 1970, which is the zero point for Unix-based operating systems, and for most spreadsheets as well. Adjustment might be needed on this point.
- The second part of the formula adds on the number of seconds in 2024 years.
Formula 2: Now, the number of seconds needs to be chopped up into the appropriate bits. There are:
- 3000 seconds in an Imperial hour.
- 75000 seconds in an Imperial day.
- 750,000 seconds in a Ten-day.
- 18,750,000 seconds in a year.
=INT(#of seconds/seconds in a year) gives the number of years, rounded down. =INT(# of seconds -(#of yearsseconds in year)/# of seconds in a ten-day) gives the number of Ten-days in the current date, again rounded down. =INT(# of seconds-(#of yearsseconds in year)-(# of ten-days* seconds in a ten-day)/# of seconds in a day.) and similarly for hours.
I found it best to calculate each quantity in its own column, then put the whole thing together in another column, like this: =”Hour “&Hour&” of Day”& Day+1&” of Ten-day”&Ten-day+1&” In the Year “&Year+1&”of the Ascent of the 5th Rapture.”
When it’s all put together, type in an Earth date and time, and get out, for example, Hour 16.8, Day 5 in Tenday 11, in the Year 3493, Old Imperial Reckoning. Copy and paste into the manuscript, making sure it’s pasted as unformatted text. Done.
The +1’s reflect the fact that what you have calculated is the number of elapsed years, ten-days, and days. They put you into the time period you are actually in.
A novel set here on Earth can still have problems keeping track of time. If you have the action alternating between two (or more) different places on Earth, the time in one place can be the primary and the other calculated automatically to allow for time in a different time zone. If one character phones the other, and the recipient is woken up at 1:30 in the morning, there’s some dialogue to be had there.
=D8+1 in most spreadsheets will give you one day after the value in D8. To break it down to hours, you can use =D8+(5.5/24) to add 5 1/2 hours to the current time.
One other useful bit is a running clock. Your heroes have a deadline. Save a world, prevent a crime, whatever. Death Star approaching. Subtract the date and time of the scene from the deadline and you have the number of days, or even hours and minutes, with a little formatting. It’s one way to build suspense.
My novels have a lot of countdowns in them, and this is how I calculate them.
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