Chronology mistakes (a character in two places at once, a timeline that quietly contradicts itself between subplots) get easy to miss once a story has more than one storyline running in parallel. Deckle's Timeline is built to make these visible instead of buried across chapters.
What You'll Need
- Events added to Deckle's Timeline for the key moments in each storyline you want to check.
Step-by-Step
- Give each storyline its own plotline (lane). Separating threads by color makes it immediately visible which events belong to which subplot, rather than one undifferentiated list.
- Place every key event on the shared axis, using whatever unit actually fits your story (Day, Age, Cycle). The label is just for readability; the underlying position is what matters for spotting overlaps.
- Use duration events for anything that spans time: a journey, a siege, an illness, so you can see at a glance whether it overlaps with something that shouldn't happen during it.
- Link each event to its Codex characters. Filtering the Timeline by one character shows every event they're involved in across every plotline at once, the fastest way to check "was this character actually free to be here?"
- Add Calendar Markers for anything both plotlines need to agree on: a shared eclipse, a war's start date, a season change, so every lane is checked against the same fixed point instead of its own internal logic.
- Filter by plotline one at a time, then by character, to review each thread's internal consistency before checking them against each other.
Common Mistakes
- Tracking only one plotline and assuming the others line up. Chronology problems are almost always at the intersection of storylines; check each thread individually, then cross-check the overlaps specifically.
- Treating every event as a single point when some genuinely span time. A character can't be in two places in the same instant, but they can absolutely be traveling during another plotline's single-point event. Duration events are what make that distinction visible instead of ambiguous.
- Skipping character links because it looks like extra setup. The payoff is exactly the "was this character free to be here" check; without the links, you're back to searching manually.
FAQ
How do I check whether two storylines' events actually happen at compatible times?
Put both plotlines' events on the same shared axis (which Timeline already does by default) and look for overlaps, especially around duration events. A character can't have a single-point event in one plotline while a duration event says they're elsewhere in another.
What's the fastest way to see everywhere one character appears across every subplot?
Filter the Timeline by that character's Codex entry. It shows every event they're linked to, regardless of which plotline it's on.
Do I need real calendar dates for this to work?
No, a consistent relative axis (Day 1, Day 2, and so on, or whatever unit fits your story) is enough to catch overlaps and ordering problems, even without a real-world calendar.