Chronologue Mode

Constructing Your Story Timeline

Watch the full walkthrough on YouTube

Chronologue mode is essential for constructing and visualizing the chronological backbone of your story—particularly valuable for non-linear narratives, mysteries, thrillers, or any story where when events happen differs from when you reveal them. The palette matches Narrative mode (subplot colors only) so the timing comparisons stay clean while Subplot Mode retains the Todo/Working/Overdue and publish-stage overlays.

Core Workflow

1. Add chronological metadata: As you create scenes, fill in the When field (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM) and Duration field (e.g., "2 hours", "3 days", "1 week").
2. Switch to Chronologue mode (keyboard 3 or top-right navigation): Scenes rearrange to show story-world event order across the full 360° circle.
3. Activate Shift mode (keyboard Shift or click shift button or use caps lock): See the bones of your story's temporal structure for all scenes and subplots.
4. Compare elapsed time: In shift mode, click two scenes to see the elapsed story-time between them with the duration arc. Keep clicking more scenes as needed.
5. Analyze time gaps: Also in shift mode, discontinuities (large time jumps) appear with ∞ symbol—identify gaps that might need bridging scenes.

Minimum metadata: Chronologue only needs a year in the When field to place a scene. Year-only (When: 2045), year+month (When: 2045-07), or textual month+year (When: July 2045) all work—missing pieces default to the 1st of that month at noon. Month-only, day-only, or time-only values are ignored and treated as "no When" until you add at least the year.

Drafting calmly: Red "Missing When" number squares only appear once a scene's Status is Working or Complete, so Todo scenes can stay quiet while you're still sketching. When a date is missing, the hover synopsis displays the dates of the immediately preceding and following scenes (in narrative order) to help you pinpoint the correct timing.

Why this matters

Some authors choose to organize scenes in manuscript/narrative order, but Chronologue mode lets you construct and verify the underlying chronological scaffolding without the constraints of the 3 acts or title ordering. You can spot:

• Pacing issues (too much/too little story time between events)
• Flashback positioning opportunities
• Timeline consistency problems
• Missing transition scenes

Modes: Chronologue mode (key 3), Shift mode (key Shift) Settings: Duration arc cap, Discontinuity gap threshold (Chronologue section)

Discontinuity infinity symbols in Chronologue Mode

Duration Marks in Chronologue Mode (red, orange and normal)

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Planetary Time (Experimental)

For sci-fi and fantasy authors, Chronologue mode includes an experimental Planetary Time system. While Radial Timeline requires Earth time (Gregorian calendar) for its internal logic and physics, you can create custom "Local Time" profiles to translate these dates into your world's calendar.

Features:

• Settings: Define custom planetary profiles with specific astronomical facts:
  • Hours per day (e.g., 26 hours on Bajor)
  • Days per week (e.g., 5-day week)
  • Days per year (e.g., 400 days)
  • Epoch Offset: Shift the start date of your calendar relative to Earth's Unix Epoch (1970-01-01).
  • Custom Labels: Define custom names for months and days of the week.
• Synopsis Hover: In Chronologue Mode, hover over a scene to see its date converted to your active planetary profile. The date appears in the synopsis window with a dashed border matching the publishing stage color.
• Calculator: Use the command palette (Cmd/Ctrl + P) and search for "Radial Timeline: Planetary time converter" to open a calculator. Enter any Earth date/time to see the corresponding planetary date/time, or use the "Now" button.

Note: You must still plan and enter metadata using standard Earth format (When: 2045-05-20). This feature provides a "translation layer" to help you write scene content (e.g., "The sun set at 19:00 local time") without breaking the timeline's chronological structure.