Why a series needs a timeline
A series bible answers who and where. It does not, by itself, stop two books from placing the same winter a year apart. The moment you have more than one strand — a parallel story, a flashback, a character who is off-page — continuity wants a when.
I used to keep that in a spreadsheet next to the draft. It worked until I stopped opening it. The timeline has to live with the books, or it becomes another file you mean to update later.
What sits on the canvas
On Maldric the timeline is the page. Events are author-written cards: a title, an optional in-world when, who is on stage, an optional place, and a link to a chapter when you have one. Events that share a when sit in the same column.
You switch the rows between three lane modes:
- Plot lines — the threads you already keep on the plot grid.
- Timeframes — a main line, parallel strands, and branches that fork and rejoin. You write those tracks. Maldric does not propose a timeframe.
- Characters — one row per person, so a path reads left to right.
Each series can have an author-written calendar — the ordinary calendar by default, or named months if the world needs them. Dated chapters can sit as bars on that ruler. The calendar is yours. The assistant never invents one.
The timeline is continuity you pin. Pending notes from a book stay pending until you accept them. They are not canon because a tool suggested them.
What it is not
It is not a second plot grid, not a Gantt chart, and not a review agent. Pulse, on the book, is how the draft feels in reading order — chapter length and an optional feel pass. Review is notes on the manuscript. The timeline is when-in-the-world.
Facts is the neighbouring reference: claims the chapters already made, with the quotation. If chapter four said October and the board says winter, you are the one who decides which is right. Neither page edits the other.
It is also not a substitute for the bible. A face on the board opens the character snippet; the long sheet still lives with the cast. Keep both, and you stop answering the same question in three places.
How events get there
You can add an event in a cell, drag it, and edit it in a dialog. Chat on the rail will discuss the board and can pin a pending event when you ask. “From a book” can pull draft events from a manuscript onto the board as pending. You accept or reject on the node. If the assistant is off, hand-entered events still work.
That is the same ownership rule as the rest of the desk: you write, you ask, you apply. See your manuscript for how the files leave with you, and the folder-of-docs comparison if you are deciding whether a canvas is worth leaving a spreadsheet for.
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A shorter version of this story is on the home page. I also post build notes on Notes.