Welcome
Radial Timeline is a writing system that transforms how you visualize, organize, and structure narrative work. Think of it as a living manuscript where your story breathes and evolves alongside your creativity.
The fastest way to begin is to create your first scene. Use the button on the welcome screen or open the command palette (Cmd/Ctrl + P) and select Radial Timeline: Create basic scene note. This gives you a place to write immediately—no elaborate setup required.
If you prefer to establish a framework first, the Book-Designer helps you sketch out acts, subplots, characters, and optional beats in just a few minutes. Either approach works; the system adapts to your creative process rather than forcing a single workflow.
Once you have a scene, open it and start writing. Scene details—like character tags, subplot markers, or structural beats—can stay blank until you need them. Radial Timeline keeps file order stable while making story order flexible, so you can reorder and explore scenes visually in the timeline without disrupting your vault organization.
As your manuscript grows, you'll refine the structure in Settings → Core or return to Book Designer whenever inspiration strikes. The framework evolves with your story, not against it.
Your manuscript deserves protection. Back up your Obsidian vault regularly—sync alone won't guard against all forms of data loss. Obsidian provides a comprehensive backup guide, and services like Obsidian Sync or the Obsidian Git plugin make this seamless.
The wiki organizes resources by how you work, not by feature lists. Scenes-Structure-Timeline offers a gentle primer if you're starting fresh. Writers migrating from Scrivener or similar tools will find Migrating-from-Other-Apps helpful for understanding Obsidian's markdown-based workflow.
For hands-on guidance, Fresh-Vault-Onboarding walks you through building a new manuscript with Book Designer and structural beats, while Existing-Vault-Onboarding shows how to connect notes you've already written. Once you're comfortable, Core-Workflows reveals techniques for planning, drafting, and tracking progress across your novel.
As your needs deepen, explore Timeline-Modes to visualize your story through Narrative, Publication, Chronologue, and Gossamer views. The Inquiry tools help you analyze scenes and themes, while the Author-Progress-Report tracks your drafting and revision momentum.
Advanced writers can dive into YAML-Frontmatter for full schema control and custom fields, consult the Commands reference for command palette shortcuts, or experiment with AI-Analysis workflows to unlock optional scene analysis features.