Make a Book Report Timeline

A book report timeline lays out the main events of a book in the order they happen, so a reader can follow the plot at a glance. It is a common alternative to a written report, and it shows your teacher that you understood how the story fits together rather than just how it ends. This article covers picking the events, handling a book that never mentions a date, and building the timeline in Preceden.

Pick the events

Aim for somewhere between 8 and 10 events. Fewer than that leaves out too much of the story, and more turns the timeline into a chapter-by-chapter summary. It also fits within the free plan, which allows up to 10 events on each timeline.

Most plots have the same shape, so a good starting list is:

• The opening situation: who the main character is and where the story begins.
• The event that starts the main conflict.
• Three to five events that raise the stakes.
• The climax, where the conflict comes to a head.
• The resolution: how things end up and what has changed.

Check the assignment before you start. Many teachers also want the title, author and setting on the finished timeline, and the timeline's name is a natural place for the first two.

Story order or reading order

Some books tell events out of order, through flashbacks, several narrators or a frame story. Decide which order your timeline follows before you add anything:

• Story order puts events where they happened in the world of the book, so a flashback to a character's childhood sits at the start.
• Reading order follows the chapters, so the flashback sits where the book reveals it.

Story order is usually more useful, because it untangles what the author deliberately mixed up. If you use it, write the chapter each event comes from in its notes so your teacher can find the passage.

When the book gives dates

Historical fiction and many nonfiction books name real years, and sometimes exact days. Enter those as ordinary dates. Preceden accepts anything from a year on its own, such as 1943, to a full date, and Supported Date Formats lists everything the date fields read. If the book only hints at a date, check Approx. next to it in the event dialog.

When the book has no dates

Most novels never say what year it is. Preceden needs a date for every event, so use stand-in years that keep the events in the right order, then hide them:

1. Give each event a stand-in year. The simplest scheme uses the chapter number, so an event in chapter 3 gets 2003 and one in chapter 12 gets 2012. For story order, space the years by how much time passes in the story instead.
2. If two events share a chapter, split them with stand-in months, such as March 2003 and June 2003.
3. Click Appearance above the timeline, open Content Visibility, and uncheck Dates under both Display on Timeline and Display in Popup & Event List.
4. In the Axis section, uncheck every option under Position, then click Save Changes.

The events keep their order and spacing, and nobody sees the stand-in years. Dateless Timelines walks through the same steps with screenshots.

One layer per character or plotline

Put each main character or plotline on its own layer, and each one gets its own color. Click the Add Layer button above the timeline to create one, then pick it from the Layer menu when you add an event. A book with two narrators works well with one layer each, because the timeline then shows where their stories meet.

Keep it to two or three layers. A layer for every minor character spreads a 10-event timeline too thin.

Mark the climax

Open More Options in the event dialog for the climax and check Make this event a milestone. Preceden draws a milestone as a vertical line across the full height of the timeline, which makes the turning point easy to spot and shows where every character was when it happened.

Add evidence and pictures

Every event has a Notes field that accepts Markdown. Use it for the page number and a short quote that supports the event. A teacher who wants evidence will find it next to the event it backs up.

You can also add an image to an event from More Options, such as the book's cover on the opening event or your own drawing of a key scene.

Handing it in

Click Share above the timeline, then PDF, to get a copy you can print or upload. Print Your Timeline covers paper size and orientation, and Share a Link to Your Timeline covers sending your teacher a link instead.

For assignments about real history rather than a book, Timeline Projects for School covers picking a topic, ancient dates and citing sources. To follow one real person's life, see Make a Biography Timeline.