Some months ago (Timelines and maps, January 2015) I talked about setting up a timeline + map for my Kephrath stories. At that time I was just using some third party pages for which I entered data in some convenient form and then linked to a remote web page. This time around I have done it properly and used a proper Javascript library (https://code.google.com/p/timemap/) within the context of my own web site – check out http://www.kephrath.com/Timeline.aspx for the result. The link is also in the blog menu above…

Fundamentally this works in exactly the same way as the third party pages, but of course I now have much more direct control over the content and appearance. Basically the source data is supplied in a format called JSON – easy to grasp and prepare, but rather strict and unforgiving about the details of formatting. The JSON data includes not only the events themselves – dates and descriptions – but also the details about colours and layout.

The latest version of Google maps allows you to remove modern artifacts such as roads, country names, and the like, so is ideally suited for me. Or indeed many of my historical fiction co-authors who write about various times in the past.

So far, key events are in place for In a Milk and Honeyed Land, and Scenes from a Life. I am currently in the process of entering the additional data for The Flame Before Us – this book covers only a few months of time, unlike the two earlier books which spanned a considerable number of years. So the dates will be rather squashed together. But of course the beauty of the system is that as I write more books, the new fictional history – and any relevant actual historical events surrounding it – can simply be added in.

Remember: http://www.kephrath.com/Timeline.aspx !