Timeline
The Timeline visualizes when your characters appear throughout your story. See at a glance who shows up in which chapters, spot gaps in character appearances, and track how your cast weaves through your narrative.
Note: Characters only appear on the Timeline after you've assigned them to chapters. You can do this from the Chapters Block on character pages, or from the Chapters page by editing a chapter and assigning characters to it.
Reading the Timeline
Each colored bar represents a character's presence across one or more chapters. Characters are grouped by importance level (Primary, Secondary, Background), making it easy to see how your main cast compares to supporting characters.
- Chapter headers show the chapter number and how many characters appear in that chapter
- Continuous bars indicate a character appears in consecutive chapters
- Split bars show when a character disappears and returns later
- Importance groups separate Primary, Secondary, and Background characters
In a series, the Timeline shows every Book's chapters in reading order, so you can follow a character's presence across the whole series. Clicking a chapter from another Book switches you to that Book.
Tip: Click any chapter header to jump directly to that chapter's detail page. Click a character bar to navigate to that character's page.
Toolbar Controls
The toolbar provides several ways to filter and customize the timeline view:
- Character: Filter to show specific characters, a selection of characters, or all characters
- Chapters: Narrow the view to a specific chapter range (e.g., Ch 1-5)
- Importance: Show only Primary, Secondary, or Background characters
- Spacing: Switch between Comfortable (larger bars) and Compact (tighter rows)
- Zoom: Scale the timeline from 50% to 300% for more or less detail
- Sort: Order characters by Presence (most chapters), Alphabetically, or by First Appearance
Fine-Tuning Positions
For single-chapter appearances, you can adjust exactly where within the chapter a character appears. Hover over a bar to reveal drag handles on the left and right edges. Drag these handles to indicate whether a character appears early, middle, or late in a chapter.
You can also drag the entire bar left or right to reposition it within the chapter. This precision is useful when multiple characters share a scene and you want to show their relative timing.
Chapter Statistics
Click Chapter Statistics to see insights about your character distribution:
- Average Density: How many characters appear per chapter on average
- Most/Least Characters: Which chapters have the highest and lowest character counts
- Longest Absence: Which character has the largest gap between appearances
- Most/Least Frequent: Characters who appear in the most or fewest chapters
Tip: Use these statistics to identify pacing issues. A character with a long absence might need a reminder scene, while characters that are featured too much might be preventing other characters' development.
Tips for Writers
- Track your protagonist: Filter to your main character and verify they appear consistently
- Spot dropped threads: Look for characters who appear early then vanish
- Balance your cast: Use importance groups to ensure Background characters don't overshadow Primary ones
- Plan story arcs: Visualize when antagonists enter and exit to build tension
- Check chapter density: Chapters with many characters may need simplifying; chapters with few may lack conflict