Lore & LilacStory time and reading order: building a timeline before it bites
Every novel has two orders, when things happen and when the reader learns them, and keeping them apart prevents a whole class of errors.
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Related glossary terms
- FlashbackA scene or passage that interrupts the story's present to show events that happened earlier.
- Nonlinear narrativeA story told out of chronological order, through flashbacks, multiple timelines or rearranged events, so reading order differs from story time.
- Timeline errorA mistake in the order, timing or duration of events, such as impossible travel, wrong ages or days that don't add up.
- Continuity errorAn inconsistency within a story, where a detail established in one passage contradicts the same detail somewhere else.
- BackstoryEverything that happened to a character before the novel begins, which informs the present story whether or not it appears on the page.
- Story bibleA reference collection recording the established facts of a novel, such as characters, places, objects, rules and timeline, so they stay consistent from chapter to chapter.