# Strands, timeline and outlines

> Strands for plot, arcs and weather; the board and the timeline that zoom from year to minute; story time versus reading order; and the six outline templates.

Source: https://author.geenius.io/docs/strands-and-timeline/

## Strands

A strand is a thread through the book. Kinds: plot, subplot, character arc, relationship, theme, setting, weather, mystery, structure and custom. A strand can follow a character (an arc), be a place (a setting) or be the weather. You can give a strand a colour and a group, hide it, lock it and reorder strands.

## Story views

Open **Story**. It opens on the view you chose, and you can switch:

- **Timeline**: clips per strand over time, with a lane for the checks.
- **Board**: strands against chapters. A thread that goes quiet for many chapters stands out.
- **Outline**: the structure strand and its beats.
- **Events**: a list, written as sentences ("Ilse is now at Terschelling") or as a table.

## The timeline

The timeline has **five zoom levels**: year, month, day, hour and minute. Empty stretches of story time are **folded** into break marks, and tiny clips merge into counted clusters when you zoom out. The axis is **story time** or **reading order** (by words). Dragging an event moves it in story time; a ripple option moves the later events of its strand too.

## Outline templates

Apply a template and Author adds a **structure strand** with one beat event per beat, each with a target position in the book. Six templates: three-act structure, the hero's journey, Save the Cat, seven-point structure, Freytag's pyramid and kishōtenketsu. Assign a beat to a scene and the check *beat off its mark* tells you when it is far from its target. That check is information, not an error.

## Tips

- Start with the main plot and one arc. Add strands when you need them.
- Use the board before a rewrite: it shows imbalance faster than the timeline.