Forum Discussion
Creating a Fantasy Calendar
ChristianHauer see if the attached does everything you want. I locked the sheet except the 2 green cells where you enter the start & end dates but there is no password if you want to unlock it.
I am currently writing a fantasy story that takes place in another world. The current story has time travel, the characters travel back in time 200 years. To keep continuity between the dates of when they left and when they arrive in the past I want to make a calendar where it can format the days of the month to match the year selected. Just as one might for a regular calendar. So if I choose to look at the months of the year 2034, I’d just have to type in that year, and the calendar would arrange to that year’s set up. Then if I needed that date to correlate with something back in 1834, then I could type in that year and see that year’s date arrangement. Factoring in leap years of course. Having similar attributes to using the date() or month() functions in Excel to make a dynamic calendar.
Let me know if more information is needed.
Thank you!
I'm just realizing, based on what you wrote this last time, ChristianHauer , that it sounds like your time travel is between THIS world (and THIS calendar) and THAT fantasy world and THAT fantasy calendar. Is that correct?
So this leads to some more questions. I don't know if you're aware that behind dates in Excel is a serial number. The number for today, 1/4/22 is 44,565. Day one, in Excel's universe (which I suppose qualifies as a fantasy world of its own), is Jan 1, 1900. Days before that would carry a negative number, but I think in reality (in Excel reality) they get tricky. So the questions:
- ARE your characters going back in time from our Julian calendar to your fantasy calendar, trips representing 200 years of tessering? (I assume you're familiar with L'Engle's classic and the very real phenomenon of the tesseract)
- Or are they in the fantasy world the whole time, so they go back from (Fantasy year) 4325 to the year 4125?
- If it's just the latter, that they're always in your Fantasy universe, then could you orient us to what the "current year" is, and we'll at least know to start year zero back four thousand fantasy years (or whatever) for the sake of "fantasy realism."
And any other info that would help us picture/envision that fantasy universe will be, well, helpful.
- You're welcome and best of luck
- Let us know when the book comes out.
- Yes! This looks fantastic! Thank you! And thank you to mathetes for helping too! I’ve appreciated both of you guys’ help and interest in this project!
Great job! I was still in the earliest stages; would have taken a few more days...
ChristianHauer I'm going to assume this meets your every need unless you come back looking for more.
ChristianHauer see if the attached does everything you want. I locked the sheet except the 2 green cells where you enter the start & end dates but there is no password if you want to unlock it.
- My ideal outcome would be a calendar that shows all of the months of a year, with the days, and being able to type in a year to change that view. Basically, a function that can keep the numbers of a day (like Excels built in numbering system) and spit out a view that would look similar to the Julian calendar, but the fantasy world calendar. Similar to mathetes idea.
The story I’m writing is one of a series of stories. The current story has time travel over 200 years, and some dates being referenced, so it would be nice to “realistically” bridge that gap of time, instead of just guessing the dates. Also, a later story focuses specifically on one week way later in the future from the first story. Because of that distance, and because I want to keep day, month, and year continuity, I’d like to see each year laid out by months with the months showing days, much like a 12-month calendar of ours would have. But the fantasy world 14 month calendar. Basically, a micro-macro view.
Does that make sense? Or does it seem like I’m running in circles? Thanks! - Sry from the context I thought you had a template already (e.g from the web or something) that you wanted to adapt.
I'm still confused what the spreadsheet will be used for. Is this just a tool for you to create a consistent date in the alternate calendar or to see year's of this alternate calendar? In one case you talked about needing a function that can tell you # days between 2 dates and another location you want to see a 14 month planner based on a year. Is any format for this ok? Do you really need all 14 months of a single year or would it be more useful to have the month of a starting date and the month of the end date and # days between? Really hard to guess what you are looking for when we don't know what for/ how you're are planning to use it. - I have very little knowledge of commands in Excel, so I wouldn’t know how to make that from scratch. But if you could help me with the commands I would need, or know of a YouTube video or similar tutorial that could show me all of the different pieces I need to put that together, I could work at it.
- so I was trying to suggest if you have a lookup to go from day-of-year (i.e. 1-365/366) to fantasy date and back. Since both calendars are based on same #days/year (inc leap years) then you convert it to our calendar, use excel function, then convert it back to fantasy calendar all based on day#. I think it should work. My only concern is the days between the 2 leap days in leap years but like I said you need to account for that in the lookup table.
As for creating a 14 month planner that is done using various techniques. Depending on the technique used may depend on how you would adapt it for your fantasy calendar.. - But wouldn’t that show me the figures for the Julian calendar? I would like to have the figures for the fantasy calendar. Also, my preference would be if I could have all 14 months of a year displayed in block format on a worksheet, like we might have in a “planner” document for Excel with our 12 month calendar. And then be able to change what year I’m looking at by typing in a new one. I don’t know how feasible that is, but that’s what my ultimate goal would be.
I hope that makes sense. Thanks for your insights! - so i just read this thread and what I think you are looking for is a way to either:
a) give a year, month, day (in the fictitious calendar) and find out what day of the week it is, and
b) given 2 dates know how many days happened between them (in that fictitious calendar)
I think all you need is a look-up that defines every day as what day # it is in the year (and adj for leap yrs). So given 2 "dates" you use that look up for each then convert them to our calendar and use the date functions in Excel. So for example if they travelled back in time from 2068-14-20 (day 359 in that year) back to 1968-01-22 (day 22) then you use excel
=DAYS( DATE(2068,1,1) + 359 , DATE(1968,1,1) + 22 ) - I’m glad you’re having fun! I was worried I was being too unclear and vague that it was annoying. I really appreciate all your help and your questions! And I’m sorry if I seem cagey about the story itself, we are in the last phases of development before my sister begins to illustrate for it so I’m trying to not get too many details out yet.
I know how that is! I have a job working sheet metal so take all the time you need.
I’ll have to look into “Time and Again” I have not heard of that! It sounds interesting. Just wanted to drop a line saying I'm having fun with this, even making some progress. It'll likely take another couple of days, however, because I do have a life in the real world.
By the way, have you read Time and Again? https://smile.amazon.com/Time-Again-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00AK9IY0O/ref=sr_1_1?crid=QXKI893YQXA0&keywords=time+and+again+by+jack+finney&qid=1641348384&sprefix=time+and+again%2Caps%2C58&sr=8-1
What little you've said of your story reminds me of this classic by Jack Finney. Weaves real history in with sci-fi with illustrations from actual news magazines of the past....
- Oh no, it’s not that complex, it’s just within the one fantasy world. Let’s use the year 1770 as a starting point (that’s when the technology starts to work successfully in their world), using the first month, first day from the table you constructed. The story itself takes place between their year 2068 (picture slightly more futuristic present day) and 1867 (Post US civil war/Prussian-German hybrid). Thank you so much for your help and patience!