Create a Historical Timeline on Scrivener

How I Did It

Dear friends, this one is mainly for writers, but readers may be curious about how a novel is developed and written. In this case, a historical novel using Scrivener.

I use Scrivener to write my novels, blogs, and articles.

It’s an online way to keep track of everything writerly, without having to resort to notecards or anything else on paper. Some folks find it daunting as it offers oodles of possibilities, but one can begin with only the basics.

The Scrivener view contains three sections.

On the left is the binder which lists chapters, scenes, years, months, whatever you set it for.

The middle is where you write your pages.

The right is metadata—pretty much whatever you want it to be about what’s in your binder or on your pages. There’s a place for a synopsis, keywords, and notes. For a historical novel, I take advantage of the Notes Section to help me write chapters and scenes on a timeline.

Setting it up

I couldn't resist taking a photo of these two travel timelines in one picture.

Binder: For example, each chapter takes place during a specific time and place, and I researched facts that occurred during those times. In my latest novel I created chapters for each location that I thought might be included in my novel—in this case, Texas, Mexico, some southeastern states, and Nassau.

Notes Section: I copied historical information that happened in those locations or that might be known by characters at that time.

Synopsis: I typed the year and month(s] in which the information took place.

No Need to Number Chapters

I’ve likely got more chapters and timeline that I can actually use, but that’s one of the pluses of Scrivener. It’s easy to eliminate entire chapters or scenes, even change their order, and Scrivener will keep track of it all. This is one reason why you need not number chapters, the chapter number will automatically change when you eliminate or rearrange.

Another example of dual timelines—who crossed first?

Writing scenes: plot and characters

Once I have all the historical information in my Notes, I can begin writing the scenes. What happened in fact during a specific time often dictates what occurs in a scene. During the time my novel takes place several murders occurred, as well as other political and social conflict. Being aware of these occurrences helps me to come up with plot ideas and character reaction.

As the story develops, I can write a short synopsis for each chapter which helps me find scenes later on if I want to make an addition or a change. Another aid to finding scenes is that you can give each character point of view a specific color. That is, if you want to quickly find a particular point of view scene, you need only look at those scenes listed in your binder with that character’s color.

Those are the basics and how I use Scrivener for my timeline and developing a novel. There’s lots more available, but learning and using it takes perseverance.

How do you use Scrivener?