Mapping a Storyworld Timeline

World first, then Plot. This is the mantra I think is so important for developing an episodic series. The principle being that a series lives and dies by it’s dramatic sustainability and if you focus on plot before fully considering the rules, contexts and natural pressures of your story-world, you run the risk of writing your series into an unsustainable hole. A good series should become self perpetuating by the natural dramatic momentum generated by it’s story world. Get the Story World right and Plots should just flow…

So, then the question becomes How to build an effective story world, how to conceive and articulate that world and it’s natural dramatics? My Celtx Series Development Bible Template (which you can download here) lays out categories and an approach for constructing a series bible and a recent reading of an article about journalism info-graphics has me considering another useful tool as part of that kit - the Timeline.

In a previous post I broke down the important distinction between Settings, Contexts and Background: Setting is the here and now of the story world, it’s present. Contexts are the rules behaviors and cultural conditions of the story world at that Setting point. Background is how the world became as it is, what transpired to bring about the circumstances of the story’s here and now.  Whilst there’s nothing revolutionary or rocket science about these definitions they are very useful for articulating a storyworld. And they also allow us to see the usefulness of a Timeline as a potential way to build and construct a compelling story world with enough fuel to sustain your series. 

Defining the setting here and now of a storyworld becomes a more effective and sustainable dramatic vehicle if you can clearly articulate how the Here and Now came about, what events and circumstances transpired to bring the current situation Setting to bare? 

Seminal film scholar David Bordwell defines narrative cinema (as we know it) as a series of events in a cause and effect chain within time and space. It’s a remarkably succinct and powerful definition which allows us to see Story as predicated on Causality - cause and effect - where an event triggers an action which leads to new events which cause new actions and so on. What Catherine Millar, head of screen content at AFTRS, describes in wonderfully simple terms as the “BUT, SO” process. Think of it like this, Once there was X who was Y, BUT then Z happened. SO X had to do A. BUT then B happened and SO X and to discover C in order to D. BUT then…. You get the picture. This is a causal-chain and its the fundamental base element of storytelling.

This simple idea can be the most effective tool for constructing a storyworld timeline. Each event on your timeline is a cause, a trigger that will result in a effect later on down the line. The most profound effects felt within the here and now Setting of your story world.

In this regard we might consider storyworld Timeline events as tending to fall into three main categories:

INFLUENCING EVENTS

- things that happen that alter behavior from that point or which shape, redefine or alter a character, entity or institution driving it toward the current state of being in the Setting of the storyworld’s Here and Now.

DECISIONS

- specific choices taken by a character, society, organization or entity which represent a fork in the road. Points on the timeline where a decision was made that altered the trajectory of the ‘storyworld’.

MILSTONES

- a moment or event in the timeline where a threshold is passed and from which there is no turning back for a character, institution or society. A timeline Milestone is a saturation point, a moment of critical mass and transformation.

By this triumvirate we have a process of storyworld construction where we can see Influencing Events and Decisions as being dramatic triggers that lead to Milestones, thresholds of no return in the storyworld. And it is the constructing of Milestone thresholds that are the foundation of your Storyworld - the rules in which it will function.

By way of example we can look to the definitive storyworld of the Harry Potter series. The example below is a timeline of major events in the Harry Potter world. Importantly the timeline sets out events that precede the launch point of the story as contained in the books and provide the background context for that plot as a section of the bigger timeline. 

[click image to go through to the interactive version of the timeline]

Looking at the events on the timeline we can see that they tend to fall into the three categories detailed above. 

Influencing Events, those things that prompt change or impact upon the characters and institutions down the line, can be seen in such points as the TriWizard Tournament  and Dumbledore becoming headmaster Hogwarts. These are simple events that have profound importance and impact down the timeline.

Similarly there are Choices inherent in the timeline; those specific decisions taken at a fork in the road. We see this in Tom Riddle opening the chamber of secrets and later the choice by Hogwarts to reject Voldermort for a teaching position. The importance of choices is that if a different choice been made the storyworld would be entirely different. eg, if Voldermort had been given the teaching position he may never have turned into such a nasty prick.

Finally the timeline encapsulates clear Milestones; Tom Riddle becoming Voldermort being the most obvious. This milestone of transformation clearly represents the point of no return, not just for the character of Tom Riddle but for the Harry Potter storyworld as they we it. 

The key point to this idea of conceptualizing your storyworld timeline events as straddling these three types is to ensure that the storyworld has natural dynamism and energy. If your timeline, for example, is populated entirely with Influencing Events but is lacking in Decisions than this may indicate that your Influencing Events are not compelling or high-stakes enough as they haven’t forced characters or institutions to make decisions. Likewise if you are lacking Milestones - timeline points where there is a point of no return - then you may have neglected to provide your characters and institutions with thresholds to pass. Such stories will likely be lacking crises, climaxes and natural peaks of drama to be built towards. The result being a storyworld that is dramatically flat lacking tension and release.

In this way the constructing of a timeline not only serves as a powerful tool for conceiving a storyworld but also a way to test your storyworld, to measure its robustness and dynamics to ensure its dramatically sustainable.

The Celtx Plot-View add-on provides a perfect tool within a Celtx project to visually assemble a storyworld timeline and arrange timeline events in accordance with the three types. The Plot-View changes the standard index card view so as individual cards are arranged in a linear assembly from left to right. It also provides vertical layers for cards so that they can be colour coded and positioned in a vertical hierarchy. These two elements give us the perfect way to visualize your timeline. 

Create an index card for each new event on your timeline and put the details of the event in the notes section on the back of the card. From there you can change the colour of the cards. Create 3 colour labels, one each for the three categories of timeline points - Influencing Events, Milestones and Decisions. 

In the plot view then you can assemble your timeline points left to right in linear sequence of events and also raise or lower the card on the vertical access to indicate its status as an Event, Milestone or Decision. The simplicity of this tool is its greatest strength as it provides a very visual and literal way to construct and view your timeline. You will be able, at a glance, to see the balance between the three different types and provide for your writing a clear reference for how events have shaped the characters and their world.

When you have a clear articulation of setting, contexts and background of your storyworld you give your self the best chance of devising an episodic series that is sustainable and dramatically dynamic. You can buy the Plot-View Add-On for Celtx for $4.98 from Celtx.com or get the entire super bundle of celtx add-ons for $14.99.

Comments

[Junior Buckley]

Very Helpful Article Mike, thank you. Was wondering if you had any other articles about storyworlds? Im working on the Immersive Writing Lab Competition and the other lessons are still absent :S

[Mike Jones]

Thanks Junior. Glad you found it useful. There are a number of Storyworld and narrative construction articles on my site. Have a look under the various tabs or do a search for Storyworld, you'll find some useful stuff. There'll also be some new posts on the IWL Circalit site.

Mike