Allright, you lazy, good-for-nothing beatniks! Get out of that got, drop your linnen and stop your grinnin’!
• “Modern Day” including INFECTED, CONTAGIOUS, ANCESTOR, NOCTURNAL and anything I write that takes place in our current world
• “Crypt Era” for all the stories that take place about 500 years from now
• “GFL Era” for the stories that take place 700 years from now
1. At a glance, you can see the exact order of the stories. When new Junkies enter the Siglerverse, if they so choose they can read the entire GFL series in order.
2. Infinitely expandable: we can keep adding stories for decades, and the system will continue even after I’m dead and some other entity takes over the Siglerverse franchise.
1. What happens if I eventually add an era between “Modern” and “The Crypt?
2. Fifteen years from now, could get kludgy. Imagine ARealGirl and I find some great franchise characters in THE MVP that we want to develop with their own stories and/or series. Or, imagine Quentin’s detective Frederico is a breakout star with y’all, and we want to give him a series of books. As the stories pile up, we could see cumbersone names like THE DETECTIVE, Book 3.5.1.4 of the GFL Series (Siglerverse 3.3.5.1.4)
1. Shows clear order of the stories.
2. Ten characters max (4 for year, 2 for month, 2 for day, plus two decimals)
3. Infinitely expandable. We would have a limit of 365 possible products for each “year,” but we’d never hit that number, so we’d be able to drop new stories into the timeline whenever we like without multiple sequential decimals.
2. It might not be clear that things take place at the same time as other books, unless we put the full date range. For example THE REPORTER happens during THE ALL-PRO. Unless I put a full date range (beginning date, end date), it might not be clear that one story takes place during another. Not sure this matters as far as reading things in order, but it is a factor.
To get around the problem of existing books being out of date. Really 1 existing owners are a junkie and most likely know the Sigler Universe however the paperback and others would need something ? So a system which can be used and stuck onto existing books. I know not best but a solution ?
Maybe junkies can buy the stickers and it be released with book 5 more incentive for existing junkies to get them and another thing to add.
What do people think ?
I would like a system which is much simpler a mix of Numbers and letters.
Having a letter which represents a letter for each Era.
E.g.O = Old M = Modern, F = football era, N = Near Future.
Then for Books in the Series to Address the problems of denotion between a main book and subsets we could have M = Main Book, N = Novella, Then the final 4 numbers would tell you the sequence on the system cause there’s going to be alot of books however to enable books to be added without having to go and renumber things later you could have a spacing of 100 between main books. Scott would have more of an idea of how many sub books there could be in certain situations. But the idea is the numbers is to try and keep the sequence in tact with the letters to provide the era and book type.
The Rookie would be GM0001
The All Pro would be GM0100
What do people think ?
So far I think that a combo of a three letter code with 4 number date on the spine is enough info that doesn’t overcomplicate things… Then on the second page you go with Mr. Fahrenheits idea of graph timeline with a link to take people to an updated version… On that timeline you can click on links that can give you the exact stardate down to the millisecond.
few typos….its 4am here lol
Remember that the other races will have other calendars too.
I agree that a stardate time line would be best approach to know where in the timeline current and future books fall.
As romanda said a YYYYMMDD.HH(mm) would be the best format to use. As for books which jump around the timeline, you could just assign them the stardate the over begining date (i.e. the book starts 2686 jumps to 2675 then to 2690 you could assign it 2675MMDD.HHmm).
As for what to put on the cover, I agree less is more. Simply putting the year on the cover/spine should be enough. You could place the complete number in the front or back page along with the most up-to-date (at time of print) timeline and a webpage to the visit to get the most current timeline.
Scott, the problem as I see it is you are looking at this all wrong. Think outside the box like when you write.
You are trying to bring your books and identify them into a system that is of our world, very one demensionally. This is just ass backwards. You need to be taking our world into yours.
Create your own system. For instance, create an alien type symbol and/or numbering system. (Sklorno, Kreterakian, or Quyth perhaps?) Blend them together to denote where they intersect each other. Then there isn’t a dependency on sequencing like you are struggling with right now.
Think multi-dimensionally. Try not to look at time in a linear fashion but bend it and warp it how YOU want it to be. Identify them by where they intersect each other.
We’re entering your world through your books, please don’t try to bring your books into our world like this.
But, if you want a simple timeline like others have suggested here from Star Wars, meh…. I can certainly understand needing to dumb it down for mass consumption. Just my 2 cents.
I have to agree. It need to stay simple. Put the year that the book, novella, short story is happening in on the spine with an updated time line in the book will help keep everyone up to date.
So how will this affect books like The Rookie hardcover, which has already come out and been sold out. Will there be a second run on those in hardcover? Like I said in my earlier post, I think junkies already know and understand the Siglerverse enough to not worry about beiing confused. But for the uninitiated….
I like the date system idea, but I absolutely think (and agree with what’s been said above) that the book cover is the worst place to put a big numbering system. You could perhaps get away with dates on a cover but not things like “book 3.1 of series x”. The cover of a book should be the best thing for that book, not the series as a whole.
Seriously Scott,
putting more stuff on the Cover of a Book is a safe way to get potential buyers confused. I am a bookseller for 8 years now, and have seen it happen many times, too many times…
I side with Mr. Fahrenheit. Come up with 4 Icons, each for every Era and put that Icon/Logo on the Spine of the Books.
Then add a Timeline in the Front or the Back of a Book. The Expanded Universe Timeline of StarWars is very, very good and quite easy to decipher.
And u can include the newest timeline with every reprint of the current edition.
That way you can avoid the problem, with a non up to date timeline in older books.
Hope that helps.
Cheers from good old Germany.
(Sorry for my english, its quite early over here ;-))
Sure a fancy numbering system would be nice, but for newer mebers you can add in a page towards the front of the book with a website link written on it that says “for a full siglervese timeline visit http://www.scottsigler.com/______“. That way you can keep it updated.
or on the binding if you want to get rid of the nuber system you can put one of those square barcodes that you can scan with your smartphone that takes you to a taxonomy diagram like Mr_Fahrenheit’s
I’m in with the simple minded crowd: do not put a number code on the cover – for the large majority of potential readers, it will be confusing rather than enlightening.
Anything requiring a cipher to understand does not add to buyers appeal.
I have no really new ideas, but would recommend a combo of several of the previous mentioned:
In toto: keep it simple
Finally: I’m taken w. Mr. Fahrenheit’s timeline – it’s a super cool illustration that’ll work wonders as a ‘Also by Scott Sigler’ page #2.
Sorry this formula should read:
Ok, here we go….
One last thought, while dead tree copies can’t be fixed, could a timeline in ebook format be updated as new versions come out?
I agree with Shadygirl. Mr. Farenheit’s idea is awesome. A tag of some sort on the flyleaf and a timeline on the first page inside the cover lets a reader quickly see where the book generally falls. That way the timeline endures. More specific info about the books in a specific segment of the timeline (e.g. order to read them, relationship of the books) could be elsewhere if necessary or useful.
I’ve always enjoyed how they put a visual timeline in the front (or back) of the Star Wars books.
The only problem with that is old books don’t have the new timeline. But, a link to an evergreen timeline site could work, so long as the site is maintained and updated regularly.
Wowzer… lot’s of great Ideas here.
You guys, this is all great stuff. We really appreciate the time you are putting in here.
the only thing I’ve found in a short perusal for Isaac is a chornology for his Positronic and Foundation series. He starts by using the current date of the common era. C.E. Like most scientists. Then he switches to 1 F.E. I’m guessing that stands for Foundation Era as that is where it shows up. Here’s the link.
http://www.sikander.org/foundation.php
I’m a fan of charts. Regardless of the nomenclature, I need some sort of image to keep everything straight. The chart showing the chronology of the Enderverse on the Ender’s Game series wiki page is a great example of this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game_(series)
Either way, if I get confused by a flat list, I want to take a look at some sort of chart to give me context.
Make me wonder what Isaac Asmov did. He wrote a ridiculuos number of stories, all in the same universe, and added more stories later all throughout the timeline. Anybody know? If he developed a system, it’s probably a good one to copy.
Nice work here @mrf!
Ah yes, sorry Waista. Should have made myself clearer on that. I was ignoring the idea of creating a nomenclature to be included in the titles because it struck me as an incredibly bad and confusing idea. I have yet to come across a classification scheme based on numbers or letters that is easy to instantly understand and expand. I respect the FDO’s ability in publishing novels, marketing and self promotion, but I think this is a bad idea.
Wasn’t advocating putting this on the cover either, in the first few pages alongside, ‘Also By the Same Author’ type of thing. I’ve never seen anyone buy a book without leafing through it first.
“We want to develop a naming system that shows the exact timeline of Siglerverse cannon, and have that nomenclature be included in titles. We want people to be able to see, at a glance, the order of Siglerverse books.”…..
Some great ideas here but if I am reading it correctly the intent behind the numbering it is to locate each book in a timeline without having to know too much background about all the different stories of the siglerverse. If that is the intent then I would suggest just using the year.Eg The Starter would be ” a GFL Story : Year 2683 Jan-May”
Title Fight ” a GFL Story: Nov. 2682
The Crypt ” a Crypt Story: 2513-2515
You have the flexibility to put new stories where you want and nothing to decipher.
There’s my 2
Apologies for the posting fail as I tried to add that picture (edit post chucks me back to the main page btw). Anyway you can sort of get the idea of what I mean from that, it’s obviously very rough and ready but hopefully you can see how it would work. As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
If I get this right you’re basically trying to create a classification system, but you need to add to it on a continuing basis. I don’t think that you really want to go down the route of a numbering system at all. It’s going to get super unweildy and end up like a library, with the dewey decimal system, only librarians really understand it.
Personally I’d use something like a taxonomy diagram:
You get several benefits:
it’s really expandable
You can call the books whatever you like, it won’t matter
it’s really easy to see where you should start without a complicated numbering system.
In hardcopies you only need to add the relevant section, fans will be able to understand exactly where the book fits by looking at an extract of it.
For the softcopy (which you’ve mentioned you want to move to), they can see the whole system at once and you can auto-update when a new item enters the canon.
The downside is that it can get unweildy but since you only need an extract to understand where that book fits that isn’t really a problem.
I genuinely think that for ease of use by fans (especially new ones) any form of numbering system is a bad idea. A diagram is the simplest option.
It also means you can cross link stories. Take Title Fight, it happens between The Starter and The Rookie but is referenced in The Starter. If you’re universe expands as much as you plan that sort of instant reference note is going to come in really handy.
You’ll also have the ability to customise it with labels for different themes of content (e.g. football, military, politics) or nature of product (ebook only, videogame, hardcover only, audio only…)
+1 It is good I browsed through the comments a second time. The QR code idea (and plain text URL) to the website were what I came up with as well…
You should take advantage of having one clean timeline for all your books and use the date system. The date system should indicate starting dates.
yyyy.mm.dd – yyyy.mm.dd” style date ranges destroy the advantages of yyyy.mm.dd notation. Use yyyy for a product that spans more that a years time and yyyy.mm for a product that spans more that a months time but less than a year. Obviously this is less accurate than a range, but it’s better overall.
Book and Series labels are completely unnecessary in a date system that catalogues products in a single universe and timeline. Book and Series labels should only be used as a marketing tool to contextualise a product as it is being released. Fans will adopt these labels on wikis etc.
You do not need to preface the date with “Siglerverse” unless you intend to use the same dating system on future products that are set outside the Siglerverse.
I like option 3 – to whit:
Each cover has the title and the year the action starts.
On the cover page inside is a line(s) stating that this story covers action from start timestamp to end timestamp.
A timestamp has the following format (as defined in DB2 – hey, that’s where I live) YYYY-MM-DD-HH:MM:SS.MMMMMM
Thats Year, Month, Day, Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Microseconds
THEN, you keep a running list online that will allow anyone to print a list sorted by start timestamp at any time.
1. It keeps the cover fairly simple
2. It allows for infinite expansion, as duplicate timestamps are allowed!
3. It will always produce the correct order.
4. It’s maintainable!
5. The format is set in stone and never has to be revised (a severe drawback to option 1 – take it from a DBA, don’t build in a need to reformat, it is easy now, but you will hate it later)
Hmmm…both systems have their good points and their bad points. But here is the drawback for me on both of them, I am i love with book covers. I want to see a clean cover, with an amazing picture, a very clear title, and tell me who the author is…anything else clutters up the cover and makes it very unattractive to me. And I have been known to buy books based on covers alone, not even knowing what they are about…ok, to be honest I do that a majority of the time lol. Here is a thought that is not based on numbering or dating at all:
Why not add a page to the back or front of each book. This could be as complex or simple as you like…it this page would basically detail the different “eras”, and then would list in order the different works. You could even make this almost like a family tree. I have seen authors do this with character trees that are out of control, so you can instantly see who that character is and what book you’ve seen then in before. So…for example, let’s go with Infected, this page could look something like.
Old Era
work 1
work 2
work 39
Modern era
work x
work y
Infected
work z
work b
You see the idea, but then this presents the problem of…well how to we have a completed tree on older books. Easily, you don’t. You add the books that are currently printed, then if something new comes out you update that book’s Siglerverse tree and all books that come after it. Obviously this is not a perfect system either, but it eliminates the problem of cumbersome numbers down the line.
I apologize in advance for any misspelled names. I tend to listen to audiobooks more than read these days so I’m mostly guessing.
I’m horrible at math and so I tend to shy away from numbers unless it’s something obvious. Seeing a big string of numbers would put me off. I’m definately in favor of an INTITIAL+DATE (GFL2683 or MOD2007, CRY*, OLD*, etc.) model. You only need to add additional years (GFL2683-2684), months (GFL2683.5), or days (GFL2683.5.19) if they are significant to a specific story. Most people are capable of figuring out a yearly sequence even if you only use the main year in which the story takes place. An advantage of this is not only is the sequence shown, but if you add eras or want to separate a mini series from the main one, then you just give it a new set of initials (FRED for example or whatever seems right to you). Readers can tell from the dates that the stories overlap, but it doesn’t force them to read them all if they don’t want to in order to figure out the order. Any stories you give their only intitials will probably need a certain amount of explanation anyway, so it’s not like the readers will be missing something if they get hooked on only a side-shoot of a larger era.
Look at the way you handled the modern era books already: readers who have read both infected and ancestor will put 2 and 2 together to get 4 that they take place roughly around the same time and have overlapping characters. You didn’t need any kind of numbering or lettering system to tell them this.Don’t forget to give your audience a certain amount of intelligence credit. After all, if they are into your stories, they probably appreciate the level of thought and detail that goes into them. 🙂
The problem, in general, is that you never tell stories the way you live life, from beginning to end, with no going back. If you write stories about the GFL, but they are side stories, then you’ll probably want to keep them in GFL* anyway. Say you are telling Gredok’s back story. Unless you are going to give him his own series, it’ll probably be labeld something like GFL2592 (I’m throwing out a wild number here that I know will be prior to Quentin’s time). That tells the readers who care that the story takes place 91 years before the events of The Rookie, but is lumped into the greater story of the GFL.
I also agree that some thought should be given for publishing some kind of timeline in the introductory pages of future books if you are going to be concerned with readers connecting the stories and think a lettering or numbering system is too complicated. Even a timeline accurate list without dates would be good enough: “In chronological order according to when they take place: Infected, Ancestor, Contagious, The Rookie, The Starter, The All-Pro”. Like that. Many of the series I’ve read in my life (most noteably the Dragonriders of Pern) have book lists in the front that have made an effort to at least list the books, which at least tells you the order in which they were written. It helps loads when trying to figure out the author’s logic. Yours would obviously be in story-chronological order, which is better, but it’s better than nothing for sure.
I guess overall, I like these two suggestions best. they both have the opportunity to address your chronology problem without getting overly complicated.
On a side note, concider sometime in the long-term future publishing an “Overview of the Siglerverse” type reference book. Hardcore fans love that kind of stuff. 😀 I have several of those in my library for LOTR and Dragonriders of Pern. They are great to collect!
Right, throwing my useless opinion into the ring. I think any sort of numbering system, while intrinsically preferable, is simply unsustainable in the long term, leading to ridiculous numerical monikers.
I gave it quite some thought, but like you, the only alternative that I could see was using the dates. To address the very real problem of stories taking place concurrently, I do think that the simplest answer is a range. It would be quite easy to put something like the following at the bottom of each cover/spine:
2683/11/27 22:30
–
2683/2/14 14:25
or just:
2683/11/27
–
2683/2/14
if you decide that hours are redundant, as it is visually preferable. This has a number of advantages, in that it is, as you said, infinitely expandable, and you will never have awkward problems about introducing a new era or series. It also becomes readily apparent which order stories should likely be read in, even if stories are overlapping or contained within another’s timeline.
Finally, a small detail; you should put a complete (to-date) timeline of all novels/novellas/anything in the first few pages. Despite never being fully comprehensive, it is an invaluable resource, and one that I greatly appreciated having in other series.
Well, that’s my two cents.
This veered a little off topic but I think it is relevant. I played around with the free timeline maker I mentioned further up in the post and thought you might like to see an example of what can be done. It is nothing special, but it gives a feel for the potential of an interactive timeline, especially being able to put links to the book sales pages. You could even put a QR code on the inside of the jacket that sends you to the timeline. http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/siglerverse
I agree with romanda and the stardate. You don’t get all the cumbersome “dots” that are in the “book 4.1.2.5. It also does not require you to remember which series comes first.
I’d suggest yyyymmdd.time of day as he does. Simple and straight forward and also solves the problems of stories that begin on the same day.
Perhaps
a slight alteration to Option #1 – have the era names as
alpha-identifiers, rather than numeric, so it comes out as something
like:
OE
– Olden Era
ME
– Modern Era
CE
– Crypt Era
GE
– GFL Era
So
under this system, it becomes.
Infected
– ME-1
Contagious
– ME-2
Ancestor
– ME-3
Crypt:
The Crew – CE-1
Crypt:
Shakedown – CE-2
THE
ROOKIE – GE-1
THE
STARTER – GE-2
THE
REPORTER – GE2.2
TITLE
FIGHT – GE-1.5
Etc,
etc.
If
you replace ongoing sequential numbering with era-sequential
numbering, it allows for greater expansion of the era, and therefore
more flexibility for new eras. For example, if you wanted to put some
of the Bloodcast/Colour is Adjective short stories into the timeline,
but wanted them to occur prior to Infected, but they didn’t
necessarily fit into the Olden Time Era, you could easily create the
new category of the Pre-Modern Era (PE).
Or
if you wanted to have ancient alien visitors beating up some
dinosaurs (or collecting samples for the eventual invention of
Dinolition), you could have the Jurassic Era (JE). Whereas this would
fall under the Olden Times era of the current Option #1.
While
there is the con of readers having to be aware of the eras (though it
would simple enough to lay out in the “other books by the FDO”
page, I’m not sure how, under the current system, you would number
a story that, for example, comes before the Rookie, but isn’t part
of the Crypt – so something like one generation before Q on Micovi
would be a GFL story, rather than a Crypt story, but would it be
4.0.1 or something, to indicate it occuring before the Rookie?
(And
yes, I’m sure there’s other flaws, but it’s 6am, it’s the
best I can do for now).
The fact that you used my favorite Sklorno line, makes me agree with you 🙂
If we limit this to the current “Series” then i think there will be issues. If this is simply an addition to the end of the book name, or even listed in the front of the book by this date then i think it solves the problems.
using the 1/2/3.whatever will not work because of the idea of future books being in between these books, etc.
Having prefixes, or 1000/2000/3000 will not work because at a future date they will come back and add books in the middle of that, and if they are to fit in the “time line” then your back to trying to fit them in to some strange # sequence.
If its in there as a date then it will be simple for anyone to look up what 24560103.0444 means. Or even have this in the newer books where it shows the yyyymmdd.hhmm type thing, on the page with all the other books.
Then even if 2 books happen on the same day, there is a way to know what one is in what sequence without trying to figure out what “era” it is, or “what series”. If its 1 universe, then it should have 1 date system.
Its the “siglerverse” and not the GFL/INFECTION/CRYPT-verse, if they all happen with set dates (which they seem to do) this makes much more sense.
This also makes it very easy to maintain a timeline, since all the books have the date/time on them.
Again, just my 0.02.
As another has said, complex numbers will be difficult to use. I suggest a simple large number. Start off with a large numbers for each era
I hope I am not under thinking this situation. I like the K.I.S.S. method for any problem. Here is what I see as a simple solution.
First, ignore the whole flashback concern…If a junkie can’t figure that it is a flashback they are not worthy…they should be killed…and eaten.
Here is my simple combination of what I have read from others.
1. Have at the top the ERA like you have in the GFL Series books
2. At the bottom you can put the main year that the story is centered…example 2012
3. On one of the first pages of the book have an up to date list of products from that ERA in order of the date timeline when it is set to start (flashback start not included)…example
Modern
2009
Infected (Novel) 1/1
Infected (Graphic Novel) 1/1
Scary Perry: Home Invasion (PC Game) 5/8
Presidential Files: The Blue Triangles Book 1 (Novella) 7/1
2010
Contagious (Novel) 1/1
Presidential Files: The Blue Triangles Book 2 (Novella) 7/1
2011
Ancestor (Novel) 1/5
2012
Nocternal (Novel) 3/1
4. At the end put in a listing for the link to your website and to the timeline located on the website for additional books they may want to read.
This would give them the list of books in that era and in what order to read them…a location to look up the timeline and other timelines in case the book they found is old. If we as followers of the FDO can’t figure out that maybe this novella or that novel land in the timeline of another we should be…well…found unworthy…killed…and eaten!
I’m just saying…
I’ve seen this kind of thing in other book series, but ultimately have not found it very useful. At some point, something is going to get written that needs to be squeezed in between some existing books, and a divergence will need to be managed.
I think they both have their faults. After reading all the posts a few concerns I have would be, it needs to be simple to see which books are the main books in a series and which are the additional books which the first system sort of does, but damn it could get confusing with more than 3 or 4 decimals. The date system, does not clearly identify this either, and you will have things in the dates (especially in the crypt character stories) that have flashbacks. Also you will get a lot more confusion from new junkies with this system. Definitely have both a complete list in order of your books in the front of each one, and an explanation page of your sigler verse number or else you will get the same eternal questions from new readers
I think you need to do a two tier system as you have made examples of but not use the initial decimal. State the era,OLD, MODERN, CRYPT, GFL, and then the book #, and sub story #, etc but keep it as short as you can. This also allows for expansion into new story eras (You can give me my own battalion in the army for that suggestion, I don’t need my own tank).
let me re work your examples to show you:
( “THE ALL-PRO, Book 3 of the GFL Series (Siglerverse GFL 3) )
REPORTER would probably be Book 2.1 of the GFL Series (Siglerverse GFL 2.1). THE CRYPT, Book 1.0 (Siglerverse CPT 1) would be followed by THE
CRYPT, Book 2.0 (Siglerverse CPT 2), and if I go back and write things
that happen in-between, it would be THE CRYPT Book 1.5 (Siglerverse CPT 1.5)
This is infinately expandable. Say your right and Fredericho is a big star and you start his own series, instead of ” THE DETECTIVE, Book 3.5.1.4 of the GFL Series (Siglerverse 3.3.5.1.4)”
Give him his own prefix. FRED 1.4 FRED 1 Fred 2.5 FRED 5.7
and update the timeline in the new books, and your master timeline on the top of the web site, which I can’t seem to find one easily anywhere (web site, siglerpedia, forums) (HINT HINT (ok that suggestion gets me my own helicopter)
ok hopefully that helps. I know it is not perfect, but maybe it can spawn a more perfect idea, and does break your problem of expandability.
I agree with romanda and I don’t think the cons listed for option #2 are that big of a deal.
“front inside flap” if it is a hardcover or the back if it is a paperback. Add a blurb about this book taking place in between The Manager and The Owner. So I would say have the start date, but not more than that on the cover/spine.
I kind of like Romada’s idea of a star date system. While yes it may seem cumbersome in the end what you are trying to do is tie everything together. You can use Tsolo888’s timeline creator to clearly define the eras, even use them on the spines if you want to define eras for people that just want one era. You had mentioned if someone was just into one thing, lets say football for example, you could put on the spine or where ever for the Rookie:
Well, I have to say I’m for option 2. In fact, I was for option 2 before I read option 2, because I was thinking about it while reading the intro and option 1. Yes, it doesn’t give you an idea of what short stories or novellas take place during a previous one, however it gives you the best chronological numbering system I think even simplifying it to year and month of first action would be fine, that might help to demonstrate some of the books that are in the same timeframe, especially if they are started in the same month (yes, seveal books with 2684.5 might be a little confusing, but how often does this happen?)
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/timetoast-interactive-timeline-creator/
Obviously, this is all just my ignorant opinion. So here goes:
I think the “stardate” approach works very good, with yyyymmdd.partofday
This makes it consistent no matter when the book/story takes place.
THE ALL-PRO story begins on January 2, 2684, the title would be: “THE ALL-PRO, Book 3 of the GFL Series (Siglerverse 2684.1.2)
more like 26840102.?? – start of date? would that be 01- 1 am? 23 = 11 pm?
Keep all the .’s out except for the part of the day.
This way if you have a story that happens to start say at 10pm and one that starts at noon on the same day, it would look like:
26840102.12 – Story starting at noon
26840102.22 – Story starting at 10pm
Heck you could expand it to mins too if need be.
26840102.0930 – 9:30 pm
26840102.2205 – 10:05 pm
Then things that happen in the “current times”
20120119.1004 – when i was typing this in.
this makes it possible to have a story take place any time and just simply show when the story “starts”.
Problem is, what if the story “jumps” around in time? Could you use the #’s for chapter headings?