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Timeline

Order story events by in-story date, real-world date, or narrative sequence — and branch them for alternate storylines.

Available on Lite Plus Pro Small Team Studio Production Enterprise
Updated April 27, 2026

Build a chronology of story events you can filter, reorder, and branch for “what if” narratives.

When to use this

Reach for the timeline when chapter-by-chapter order no longer tells you what actually happens when in your story. It is the place to track in-story dates, sequence flashbacks, lay out parallel plotlines, and sketch alternate-history branches without disturbing your main canon.

Three ways to order events

Every event can carry up to three independent ordering signals. Use whichever match how you think about your story — you do not have to fill all three.

  • In-story date (Relative Timestamp). A free-form label like Year 342, Third Age, Day 14, or Chapter 3. PlotLens stores it verbatim — it is not parsed or sortable on its own. Use it as a human label.
  • Absolute date (Absolute Timestamp). A real-world ISO datetime, e.g. 1923-04-12T09:00:00Z. Use this when your story takes place on the standard calendar and you want chronological sorting by Time.
  • Narrative order (Ordering Number). An integer that places the event in an explicit sequence, independent of any date. This is the default sort and the right choice when “what happens next” matters more than “what year is it.”

Sort the timeline by Sequence Order, Time, or Date Added in ascending or descending order at any time.

How events get on the timeline

Timeline events are added manually. Open the timeline for a project and click Add Event to create one. There is no auto-extraction from your documents — even though the empty-state message hints that events are “extracted automatically,” that is not how the timeline currently works. Treat the timeline as a place you curate by hand.

You can link an event to a source document so future you remembers where the moment came from, but the link is for reference only — it does not pull events in for you.

Timeline empty state with the Add Event button highlighted

How to add an event

  1. Open your project and go to Timeline.
  2. Click Add Event in the top right.
  3. Fill in the fields you have. All fields are optional, so add only what you know:
    • Event Name — short label for the event (up to 255 characters).
    • Description — what happens (up to 5,000 characters).
    • Event Entity — link the event to an existing entity of type Event, if you have one. Choose None to skip.
    • Relative Timestamp — your in-story date string, e.g. Year 342 or Chapter 3.
    • Absolute Timestamp — an ISO datetime if your story uses calendar dates. Malformed values are ignored silently, so double-check the format.
    • Ordering Number — an integer to place this event in narrative sequence.
    • Participants — select one or more characters involved.
    • Location — pick the location entity where the event happens.
    • Document Source — link the event to the document it came from.
    • Branch — assign the event to a narrative branch (see below).
  4. Click Save.

You can edit any field later — saving a change patches only the fields you touched.

Create Event dialog with fields populated

Linear view vs branch view

The timeline has two layouts:

  • Linear is the default. Events run top to bottom in a single column using whichever sort you have selected. Use it for the main spine of your story.
  • Branches is a multi-lane flow graph that draws each branch as its own track. Use it when you are comparing parallel storylines or alternate timelines side by side. The branch view also has an NPC-link toggle so you can show or hide cross-lane character threads.

Switch views with the toggle above the timeline.

Toggle between Linear and Branches views

Filtering

The sidebar lets you narrow the timeline without leaving the page:

  • Search — substring match across event name, description, the in-story date label, and entity names. Case-insensitive.
  • Entity type — restrict to character, location, event, item, organization, or concept.
  • Participant — show events that include one or more specific characters.
  • Document source — show events linked to a specific document.
  • Branch — show events on a single branch.
  • Sort by — Sequence Order (default), Time, or Date Added.
  • Sort order — ascending or descending.

Click Clear filters to reset everything. Filters are encoded in the URL, so you can bookmark a filtered view or share the link with a collaborator.

Branches

Branches are separate narrative lanes for the same project. Use them to:

  • Sketch what if scenarios without disturbing your canon timeline.
  • Lay out parallel plotlines that converge later.
  • Plan alternate-history or multiverse arcs.

Each branch has a name, a color, and an optional parent branch — so you can model “the main timeline” with sub-branches that fork off. Create and rename branches in the Manage Branches dialog from the timeline page.

Branch flow view with parallel narrative lanes

Plan availability

  • Lite unlocks the basic timeline — add events, view them in linear order, and use the core filters.
  • Plus unlocks the full timeline experience, including branches and the branch flow view.
  • Pro, Small Team, Studio, Production, and Enterprise include everything in Plus.

The free tier does not include the timeline. Upgrade to Lite or higher to start building one.

Limits & edge cases

  • Conflicting dates. PlotLens does not flag mismatches between ordering numbers and absolute dates. If event A is sequenced before event B but its absolute date is later, both will save without warning. Pick a single source of truth for each timeline.
  • Malformed absolute timestamps. A bad ISO string is dropped silently; the event saves with no absolute date attached. If your date is missing after save, re-check the format.
  • Empty required fields. Nothing on an event is required, including the name. You can save an event with no name and no description — it will appear as an unnamed entry until you fix it.
  • Orphan participants. If you delete a character who was a participant in an event, the event keeps the dead reference internally but stops displaying it. The event itself is not deleted.
  • Duplicate ordering numbers. Multiple events can share the same ordering number. Ties fall back to creation date — give events unique numbers if you need precise control.
  • Branch hierarchy. There is no built-in protection against pointing a branch at itself or creating a cycle of parents. Keep branch hierarchies shallow and acyclic.

Common pitfalls

  • Treating the timeline as auto-generated. It is manual — you decide what goes on it.
  • Mixing in-story dates and absolute dates in the same project without a convention. Pick one as primary; use the other as a label.
  • Forgetting to set an ordering number, then sorting by Sequence Order and seeing a flat list. Events without an ordering number collapse to position 0.
  • Creating a branch and forgetting to assign new events to it — they will land on the main lane by default.