Novel Timelines

Watching another movie set around a specific time in history and it reminded of my YA series.

Timeline are one of those scary activities in my head when it comes to editing one's novel and getting it in order.  As it overwhelms me to the point I don't want to start.  Trying to make sense of things and then to trek back for something set in the future then to go back about 200 years to understand the lay of the land in order to better understand why the current world in your novel is the way it is.

Granted it's probably more so tedious for certain genres (like fantasy, science fiction, historical, etc) vs writing something contemporary.

I've had to think about the TYW timeline a lot and it'll be one of the activities I intend to tackle once I get through the index cards.  To map out the timeline in book 1 but even move backwards, to the things I'm aware of that get the reader to present day and what's coming next, as in working on the next book and what plot lines will be picked up and how that fits in the overall timeline.

I'm exciting thinking about it, at least for right now.  But I'm glad to at least have a bit of understanding for the past.  Just need to unwind it a bit more since I think it'll have with the revision of TYW.