Creating Character Timelines - Book Writing Coach

A Book Coach’s Perspective

It’s important to understand your characters, and what makes them important to the story. By creating character timelines, your story will be more cohesive and your characters more engaging. A character timeline helps you answer questions like, Why is the main character the main character? What made the villain a villain? What is the inciting moment?

I'm working with one of my The Book Writing Academy clients right now on character timelines. Having written the introductory chapters, he's now got to a point in his story where this is a necessary step.

Why is a Timeline Important?

Writing a new story can be exciting—but also overwhelming! Creating character timelines helps identify and avoid plot holes. Setting aside time from actual writing to create a timeline has many pay-offs, which include coming up with more engaging, believable characters and having clarity about what drives your main character/s.

What are the Benefits of Creating Character Timelines?

A timeline helps you:

Move your characters through the story
Keep track of all events happening in the story
Know where your characters are at all times
Get to know your characters better before you write too much of the story
Look ahead to your characters’ future. While events may change as you’re writing, have an idea of where each character is headed to help them get there
Include only events that are relevant to the plot
Avoid plot holes.

Even More Benefits of Creating Character Timelines

A timeline is the ‘big picture’ of the story. It:

Allows you to see the beginning, middle and end of the story
Plotting your story graphically lets you see the book from the reader’s perspective. Is there a pattern? Does it make sense?
Helps you choose what to include or not include in your story
Helps you avoid unnecessary backstory. It helps you see how much information you might be tending to ‘dump’
Gives you a map to follow.

The Tools for Creating Character Timelines

You can:

Draw a timeline by hand. Creating the timeline on butcher paper or an A3 sheet from a desk pad is ideal
Create a timeline with sticky notes or a whiteboard
Create a digital timeline using an online tool
You can plot the timelines of all your characters in an Excel spreadsheet if you’re so inclined. This may help you see even clearer the intersecting moments between them. Personally, I prefer a visual representation like a chart but it’s up to you.

Questions to Ask Yourself in Building a Timeline

How old are the characters when the story begins?
Where are the characters in the story (location)?
What is the inciting moment? (Purpose of the story.)
What are your main characters’ goals?
What other characters do they interact with?
How old are your characters when the story ends?
How does the story end?

Tip: You won’t necessarily include all these details in the timeline, but knowing the answers will help you paint a picture.

Key Components to Include when Creating Character Timelines

Character arc—What major events shape your character, before and during the story?
Characters’ ‘why’—why your characters are who they are. What made them that way. How they change and how that relates to other characters in the story.
Character end goal. Where do you want each character to be by the end of the story?
Track your character’s movements—from city to city, place to place.
Identify important backstory and foreshadowing. This helps you keep track of what readers know.
Events critical to the development of your story.
Track the major points for the various subplots in your story. Do you have the right balance and proportion for each?

Tip: Avoid including every single event in the timeline—just include major ones. You won’t fit everything in otherwise!

After Deciding the Starting Point of your Story…

Think about what brought the character to that point, e.g.:

Traumatic events
Joyful events
Key people they’ve met and interacted with
Actions they took
Any events/situations/circumstances/experiences that could be defining for them throughout the story.

Remember: Your story isn’t set in stone yet. You can always change the beginning later.

The Beginning and the Ending

Don’t start the timeline (or your story) on the day your characters are born—unless it’s important to the story. You’re not writing their biographies.
Start at a point of crisis or change—the reason for your story—to engage readers immediately.
Add the events you need to get through to the end of the story.
Stop when the main character reaches his/her goal.

Tip: You’ll clearly see unnecessarily repetitive scenes/backstory/information and superfluous characters.

When to Create the Timeline

If you love structure in your writing, you'll probably want to create your character timelines before you start writing the story.

Nevertheless, if you already have a clear idea of where your story is heading and want to get the introductory chapters written, then the time to create your character timelines is once you've done that. This is what my coaching client mentioned above is doing.

Putting it all Together

Fill in the steps that will get your character to their end goal. Consider:

Major milestones
Major and minor (not too minor) events that define the character’s experience
Beginning and ending of important relationships
New people they meet
Major shifts in their mindset and/or beliefs.

Example Timeline

The timeline below is for the character of George Sand in my historical novel Winter in Mallorca: Turmoil to Triumph. As you'll see, it covers the main events only of the story. I also found it helpful to include locations and dates in some of the boxes.

slide showing chopin book for creating character timelines

Final Tip

When creating character timelines, start simply. Create a timeline for your protagonist first, then for any other main characters. There would normally be no more than three. Then create a character timeline for your antagonist, if relevant. Make sure all timelines work together.

Acknowledgements

Seeking Help With your Writing?

One-off

If you have specific concerns or questions and would like one-off coaching to address them, book a 'Clarify & Unravel Your Writing' session of 1.5 hours here.

Programs

If you are yet to start writing your book, or you’ve started but have come to a grinding halt, take a look at our book programs.

Self-Led Book Writing Programs

Like to work on your own? Then you’ll find a self-led program to suit you. The 7 modules of The Writer's Starter Kit will get you over the hump of starting to write your book, providing a template and guidance: https://bookwritingcoach.com.au/l/writers-starter-kit/ Get Your Book to the Finish Line DIY is a 12-week self-led program modelled on the group program: https://bookwritingcoach.com.au/l/book-finish-line-diy/

Book Coaching Programs

Need accountability and guidance to get your book written? You can choose the 3-month small group coaching program Get Your Book to the Finish Line™ Group Mastery or the 6-month 1:1 The Book Writing Academy.

Have a Chat

Would you like an initial chat to sort through your ideas? Book a complimentary chat here: https://bookwritingcoach.com.au/book-your-consultation/