Chronology & story time
Track when chapters happen without losing the order in which they are read.
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Define time inside the story
Story dates are authored timeline markers. They can represent the dates or periods useful to your World; they are not writing deadlines. Give a chapter a date when you know when it happens.
Date labels are not parsed as a particular calendar. A label you type for the first time is added after the dates already on the timeline, so labels such as Tuesday or Spring do not supply an automatic chronological order. Date chapters in story order where you can.
A flashback may appear later in the book while belonging earlier in the story. Keep manuscript reading order and timeline position separate.
Date a chapter
- Open Plan and check the book named in the path along the top.
- Open the chapter’s actions menu (… on its row, or right-click) and choose Set when it happens….
- Type the date and press Enter. The date then appears on the chapter’s row; choose it to change it, or use Take off the timeline to remove it. This changes its story-time placement, not its words.
- The board’s footer counts how many chapters are dated. Review chapters without dates rather than assigning arbitrary times just to fill the board.
Use chronology for a continuity pass
Compare chapter events and entity locations in story order. Look for travel, knowledge, ages, and conditions that need to change between scenes. Check the actual prose before changing a fact.
Plan marks a chapter that Reads out of order when its story date differs from reading order, and reports a character filed under chapters that share a date but are filed under different places. These are flags to review, not automatic repairs: a flashback or a deliberately coarse date may be intentional.
Authored continuity records provide an additional view. Neither is a promise that every temporal inconsistency has been detected automatically.