Keeping History Straight

The Dream’verse is a big place, and a lot of people live in it (this happens with universes) and a lot of books take place in it (seven and counting.) For years I’ve been looking for a way to keep track of things in the name of consistency.*

I tried spreadsheets, but spreadsheets are unwieldy and it’s hard to make comparisons (for me, anyway). I tried wikis. Wikis are excellent for tracking facts, but for tracking chronology…not so much. I tried a manila folder, but manila folders–let’s just forget the manila folder, shall we? The aftermath of that was Not Pretty.

Every once in a while I would be trying to work and I’d need to figure out how old a character was when something happened, or how much older one character was than another, or if two characters in two different books were, somewhere in their past, in the same place at the same time. It’d take me forever and I’d still not be sure I had it right  and I would ask my friends if they knew any good timeline programs. No one ever did. So I’d ask Google. I’d find some programs. None ever worked the way I needed them to, and I’d give up. Eventually I would come around to looking again.

I’m delighted to announce that I’ve finally found something that works for me. It’s colorful, simple to use, and completely clear. It’s not free–the trial version goes up to five events and heck, I used that up in ten minutes–but a lifetime membership is $29 and then I can make all the events and timelines I want.

Meet Preceden.

 

From Screen Captures

Look at it! The grey-blue at the top is Ben’s life. The vibrant blue is Eve. By hovering the cursor over the vertical black line (That’s called a “milestone.” The label is hidden by the pop-up, but it’s the date the Centurion’s Pride was destroyed) I can see in a moment that Eve was fourteen years and ten days old when her world changed forever (again.) Taro was 22 months and six days old the day he was orphaned.

I’ve added a second “layer” for books. That part shows the time-span of the books within the span of the characters’ lives. Like so.

From Screen Captures

You can see in a moment the order of the books! Which I know, but others might have trouble with since it’s not a direct series. You can see how much time passed between one and the next. By hovering over a character line at the right point, I can tell immediately how old a character was when certain events happened–even if he wasn’t in the book. (If he was in the book, than I should know how old he was. It’s one of the things I’m careful to figure out beforehand!)

Anyway, there it is. I’m extremely excited about it. So much that I’m having to hold myself back from making ALL THE TIMELINES until I can figure out exactly what I really need. You can imagine that main timeline could get awfully cluttered awfully fast!

Here’s one more I’ve created.

 

From Screen Captures

That should help me keep track of my progress, and give me something to look back on when I’m wondering just what I’ve done with the past month/year/decade. 😀

---

*I used to wonder how authors couldn’t keep track of such simple things as hair color. Then I revised the hell out of a couple novels and I knew.