Stephen King’s IT – a timeline of the epic novel

Hello all Tower Junkies and Constant Readers, and welcome to my latest post.

Today I reveal the latest King-related artwork I have been slowly and painstakingly working on for the last 18 months or so. Yes, it’s another time line, although this time it is only peripherally Dark Tower related. It’s a timeline of the novel IT!

The It time line infographic

The first Stephen King work I ever read was the first chapter of It, shortly after it was published. Back then, not only was I a scaredy-cat, I also was an intellectual snob and considered anything by Stephen King to be trash (having read nothing by him and so was completely unqualified to make an informed opinion – but hey, 21 year olds know everything right?)

I was at a friend’s house – my friend being a huge fan of King’s work – and his copy of It was just lying there by the chair so I picked it up and idly started reading. Before I knew it I’d read the entire first chapter. I remember thinking, yeah it’s trash, but it sure is readable trash! I couldn’t admit to myself that I wouldn’t mind reading more of this. Not then.

When I finally did read It, it was 30 years later, I’d read The Dark Tower cycle (several times), and also The Stand, Everything’s Eventual, and Insomnia. Since reading It I’ve read nearly 50 of King’s other works. And outside of the Tower, It stands tall as my favourite King work.

Apart from being a totally captivating story, I absolutely love the way the book is structured: the way it is constantly jumping between two main timelines (1958 and 1985) and also jumping back and exploring the long and disturbing history of the township of Derry – in fact, all the way back through pre-history if you include Mike and Richie’s travel to the AGO. I loved the way there were connections between the 1958 and 1985 cycle, that history was repeating not only in Derry, but specifically for the Losers. As Bill Denborough experienced in 1985,

Bill felt a queer doubling sensation … the old Derry was still here.

Or as Ben thinks,

Is something really stapling the past and present here?

And as my mind works, I started to think about how I could represent this structure. It became clear to me that I needed two parallel timelines, one for 1958 and one for 1985, and I should have a series of lines above those to represent all the history that came before.

And of course these lines should somehow cycle back on each other.

And that led to the idea of a timeline spiral.

So after many months of conceptual drawings and re-reading the novel whilst taking detailed notes, I came up with the infographic shown above.

For those who want to download it and have a closer look, you can go to the downloads page or else just click on the link here:

https://imgur.com/gallery/0jnRSDS

The download is a medium quality / medium resolution jpg image that looks okay on your computer screen and can be read when zooming in, although the quality limitations become apparent when you do.

To get a 600dpi ultra-high photographic quality poster of the time line (with less advertising of my blog 🙂 ), visit my shop at solnordalgraphics.etsy.com.

And for those wondering about a Dark Tower connection: there is an image of Maturin in the lower right corner of the poster!

Maturin in the Void, as Bill (1958), and then Bill and Richie (1985), are hurtling toward the Dead Lights

Long days and pleasant nights,

Chris

A pre-publication draft of the poster for final checking