Timeline issues

[of magick]

[Peter Murray]

In my still-unfinished timeline, I have two date columns. One is based in the 80s, because of the dates in Deep Wizardry, the other spans 2003-2005, to tie in with the publication date of Wizards at War. When A Wizard of Mars comes out, the second column will be revised to 2004-2006, assuming I have the energy.

(And Harry Potter is up to 1997 by the end of the book. But that's not relevant here.)

Oh, and this is my version of Spot, done in the 3D program POV-Ray.

[of magick]

Originally posted by Peter Murray:
In my still-unfinished timeline, I have two date columns. One is based in the 80s, because of the dates in Deep Wizardry, the other spans 2003-2005, to tie in with the publication date of Wizards at War. When A Wizard of Mars comes out, the second column will be revised to 2004-2006, assuming I have the energy.

Oi! I read through your entire timeline last night and I didn'te ven see the second table with the 2003-2004. My mistake. It's quite well done, if I do say myself.

(And Harry Potter is up to 1997 by the end of the book. But that's not relevant here.)

(Yes! I realised this soon after my posted. Bad memory I have.)

Oh, and this is my version of Spot, done in the 3D program POV-Ray.

Ooh, that's great! I actually saw that yesterday while browsing for YW fanart.

[Agent M]

This isn't exactly timeline related.. but it has to do with age, so close At some point in the book DD says that Nita goes to jr.high, but I'm pretty sure Nita and Kit always refer to their school as "the high school"... so is the middle school in the same building or what? It seems kind of weird that Nita is only 14... how old does that make Dairiene??

[Peter Murray]

High Wizardry says quite clearly that Dairine is eleven.
A Wizard Abroad says quite clearly that Dairine is ten.

Working out timelines and staying consistent with all the books is fun .
Nita starts ninth grade between AWAb and The Wizard's Dilemma. According to Kathy's notes, that's high school in LA but not in San Diego. I don't know what it is in Long Island. She is still at the same school as Kit, though. Maybe the schools are in the same building, as you suggest.

Aha! It's amazing what you can find on the web (I didn't even resort to Google, just youngwizards.com!) -
ROOSEVELT HS (Students: 1,290; Grades: 07 - 12)
DD went there, and presumably it's where Nita and Kit are. However, Dairine seems to be at a different school - maybe she's in grade 6. *shrug*

[Lauren]

Well, how many years apart are Dairine and Nita? I've never really been able to tell that well. Anyway, I believe the situation with schools is that Kit is in 8th grade, Nita is in 9th grade, and Dairine is either a 6 or 7th grader.

I seem to remember Nita mentioning in passing during WD that Kit was in some kind of accelerated program and that he sometimes took classes at the high school, but that he was actually enrolled and taking most of his other classes at a Jr. High or Middle school. I could be mistaken, or maybe they combined some of the jr. high grades in with the high school.

Now, assuming my guesses are right, that would make Nita about 14 years old, Kit about 13, and Dairine around 11 or 12. I'm more inclined to think that Dairine is 11, but I could be wrong of course.

Just out of curiousity, do we know any of their birthdays? Is it ever mentioned in any of the books, because I don't recall if it was...

[Moeen]

I think when DD writes the YW series, she does so independent of how much time passes in real life. For example, Dairine is using CP\M in HW and only a few months later in AWAL Kit is using a DVD player. There are also references to the collapse of the Twin Towers in WH and W@W, which you may have noticed. Either way, I don't think we know for sure what the YW timeline corresponds to in real life, but DD doesn't see this as a problem (as you may have noticed if you read her afterword to the 20th anniversary edition of the first book).

Nita and Kit are in the same grade, but Kit skipped a grade and thus is a year younger. You can find his age and birthday on his page at the Errantry Concordance.

According to this information, in W@W Nita is 14, Kit is 13, and Dairine is 12. They were both in eighth grade in the first book, but start ninth grade in fifth book, so moved from junior high school (grades 6-8) to high school (grades 9-12), or at least that's how the school system works in New York. I hope this clears things up .

[Peter Murray]

The Errantry Concordance says that Kit has been thirteen since DW. Nita is fourteen - it says so on page 1 of WAW. Dairine was eleven in HW.

If we knew any of their birthdays, I'd have put them in the timeline .

Kit was born 25th August (SYWTBAW), Dairine 20th October (HW).
I get the impression that Nita was born in April, but no book has ever said, and the Concordance doesn't have an entry for her yet, only a stub.

[Birdhead]

With regards to the original poster's question: DD has stated elsewhere (I believe somewhere else on this forum, but I can't find the link; so sue me.) that the books are set in the 'eternal present'; "it's always now everywhere," in the words of Terry Pratchett, so that whenever DD's writing can be assumed to be the time period in which the books are set. Timelines like Peter's which date year by year probably do it more for convenience of working out how much time has passed between the books- although considering the aforementioned HW/AWAb Dairine's Age conflict, it's questionable how useful worrying about it really is. :P

[wolfwizard114]

About the ages of the characters:
In SYWTBAW, when Nita was first checking out Kit's name in the spell diagram that brought Fred into the picture, she said, "You're birthday's August 25?"
"Uh-huh."
Nita looked at the symbol for the year. "They skipped you a couple of grades, huh?"
"Yeah, it's rotten."
They said a couple of grades, but he's only a year younger than her, and in WD some of the kids are making fun of her for hanging out with someone in a lower grade and younger (sorry, I can't really remember exact words, my boyfriend is borrowing the series from me). I was just wondering if anyone else picked this up.
Also, I think (Again, I can't remember exactly) that in AWAl that Kit, when he was in Darryl's mind with Ponch the first time (where it was all sand and tunnels) told himself "I'm not gonna let these shadows get to me. I'm 14!" (Not an exact quote, but whatever)

[Seraphine_valhalla]

According to DA Kit is one year younger than Nita (chapter1) and he was twelve, making her thirteen.
I could have sworn that in AWD that Nita was fifteen, or almost fifteen, this would make sense becasue in AWAL she says she's been doing wizardry for two years.
As for Dairine, in AWAb it is stated she is twelve (ch. Kilpedder Forge), so I'd assume:
Nita 15
Kit 14
Dair 13
at the end of AWAL

Cheers

[Moeen]

Figuring out a timeline for this series has been a real problem. There's also a topic on Timeline Issues in The Nitpickery. I've posted up my attempt at a timeline there, and you can find Peter Murray's attempt here.

[Dragon Writer]

you forget that dd is STILL writing these books. i think w@w came out in the last couple of years, if that. that's why there's a wizpod.

[Peter Murray]

WAW was officially published in October 2005, but was available in shops in September.

I haven't forgotten that DD's still writing them - as I noted above, my timeline's "current" date column will be updated so that AWOM is set in 2006 or 2007, whichever year it comes out.