I think I may have worked out the timing issues in Tuskers IV.  It was simply a matter of inserting the information that the events in this book are taking place a week to ten days after the Big Pulse (the event the precipitates the downfall of human civilization.)

I have to explain it away, but sometimes that's all that's necessary. As long as the explanation is reasonably believable, the reader will usually accept it. I mean, are they going to reject a story that has talking pigs because the timeline is a little sketchy?

They might.

The big surprise to me is how important that kind of thing is. People rarely mention the writing, they always mention the story. (Though whether that story is readable depends on the writing perhaps more than they consciously notice.)

It took me a couple of days to write the latest chapter, but when I finished, I thought it was pretty good. It's actually a pretty good example of how I've learned to be a better writer.

So the purpose of the chapter is to bring all the good guys together. In the old days, I might have had the group with the Tuskers and the humans meet up with the other group,  and try to explain why the pigs are talking, and so on.

Instead, I do it by way of an action scene. I have the humans who don't know about the Tuskers escaping the Zombie horde, a yellow school bus with children, almost to the safety of the compound where the others are. They're just about to be overwhelmed when the gates open and out come the Tuskers to save them.

So the bringing together of the two groups, is accomplished by much more interesting storyline AND it introduces the Tuskers in a way that doesn't seem forced, where the believability comes from their actions. It bonds the characters, introduces them to each other in a much more natural way.

I feel like these storylines come to me much more easily than they used to. I think in terms of how to tell the story through the action, instead of...you know...telling the story. Revealing character by action, instead of asserting, moving the plot forward by action, not by narrative.

I suppose that's a cinematic influence. I want to visualize the story all the way through.

I feel as though I'm becoming a better writer. I don't know if it's true, but I feel it.