How do events and the timeline work?
An event is something that happens in your story: a birth, a death, a battle, a journey, a meeting. Give it a date, a place and the characters involved, and it appears on the Timeline. Events also power several continuity checks, such as a character who appears after they die.
Add an event
- Open Timeline and choose New event.
- Fill in the Title and choose a Kind: general, birth, death, battle, meeting, journey, founding, ceremony or discovery.
- Choose a Place from your bible.
- Enter a Date, and an end date under Ends (optional) if it lasts more than a day.
- Add Participants.
- Optionally add a Description, a Source chapter, and Revealed to readers in if readers learn about it later.
- Choose Save.
If the book is vague about timing, use When, in words ("the winter after the flood") and leave the date blank. You can tick Secret — never show on the public reader wiki for events readers shouldn't see.
Dates use your world's calendar. See In-story dates and calendars.
Reading the timeline
The Timeline view draws dated events left to right:
- The top lane, All events, shows everything.
- Below it, each character gets a lane. Add or remove lanes with Add a character lane….
- Zoom with the magnifier buttons, jump to Years or Months, or choose Fit to see the whole span.
- Click an event to open or edit it.
Switch to List for a year-by-year list, which is easier to scan on a phone. Events without a date appear under Undated.
How events feed the continuity check
- A birth or death event sets the lifespan of its first participant, unless that character already has a "born" or "died" fact.
- Any other event with a participant outside their lifespan is flagged as Appears after death or Appears before birth.
- Two overlapping events in different places with the same participant are flagged as In two places at once.
- An event that ends before it starts is flagged as an Impossible date range.
The sample's "Council of Varrow" is flagged because Lord Aldric attends it after his death event.
Filling the timeline faster
The Timeline builder prompt asks ChatGPT or Claude to list a chapter's events in order with in-story dates. Paste the reply into Import to review them. See Use ChatGPT or Claude with the prompts.
Common questions
Why doesn't my event appear on the timeline?
Only events with a date are drawn on the timeline. Undated events are listed under Undated below it.
Can the continuity check use events?
Yes. Birth and death events set lifespans, and events with a place and dates are used to spot a character in two places at once.
Keep your story straight
Who Where When keeps every character, place and date in your books, and tells you when the story contradicts itself.
Start your story bibleMore in Building your bible
- How do entries, facts and sources work?Entries are the people, places and things in your series. Facts record details about them, with dates, a source chapter and a quote.
- How do in-story dates and custom calendars work?Set your world's months and eras in Settings, then type dates like "3 Frostmoon 412" on facts and events. Here's how dates are read and ordered.
- How do family trees and relationships work?Link entries with relationships like parent of, member of or rival of. Who Where When draws a relationship graph and family trees from them.
- How do I add maps and pins?Upload a map image of your world, drop pins on it, and link each pin to a place or other entry in your story bible.
- How does the continuity check work?Who Where When checks your bible on every change for conflicting facts, deaths, births, two places at once, ages and duplicates.
Related
- How to keep a story timelineTrack in-story dates separately from chapter order, and keep ages, travel times, flashbacks and invented calendars consistent.
- How do I use ChatGPT or Claude with the prompts?Copy a prompt built from your bible, paste it into ChatGPT or Claude with a chapter, then import the reply. Here's each prompt and when to use it.