![]() Events can be dragged and moved to new times, just like moving post-its on a board.You can indicate whether an event is an ‘event’, backstory, flashback, or flashforward.Events can have duration (not just a single dot on a line no matter how long the event takes).Timeline view is flexible and intuitive.When a timeline event is dragged to a different day the information in the spreadsheet automatically updates. Start and end times are automatically added to the relevant cells in the spreadsheet. The rows can then be dragged and dropped onto the timeline, on the appropriate day. For example, if the view shows spreadsheet view and timeline view, it is possible to enter a list of scenes (just the scene descriptions) in the spreadsheet. The program can show more than one view of the same information and the information can be manipulated in one view and automatically update in the other. The Science Fiction template allows the creation of nonstandard calendars (including varying how many hours per day, days per week, weeks per month, months per year, and years per ‘era.’ Aeon Timeline comes with preset templates for general fiction, for historical timelines, and for Science Fiction. For writers who don’t mind working on-line and can handle a complex application, Aeon Timeline provides a powerful tool. The feature that really won me over was ‘narrative view,’ which provides the ability to drag timeline events into a non-linear narrative scene sequence that can be viewed either as an outline or a series of ‘cards’.Īs an added bonus, once everything is all neat and tidily organized, Aeon Timeline can sync with Scrivener or Ulysses to create a scene ‘list’ ready for you to fill in the story. This is the first app that meets the majority of my organizational requirements within the same package. Each of the elements (persons, events, locations) can be color-coded. This app, built for project management as well as writing projects, combines a timeline a spreadsheet a mindmap a database of persons, places, and events the relationships between them (who did what where) a subway diagram to visualize those relationships and the ability to track themes and even story arcs. These are narrative elements that all writers have to manage, but I never seemed to find a workable strategy until I heard about Aeon Timeline. narrative sequence (particularly if the story is not being told in chronological sequence).locations of events and where the various characters are geographically during any specific event.which characters are involved in specific events.the chronological sequence of events (including backstory events).What am I trying to track that has defied all of these strategies? Basic story elements: This screenshot shows a mindmap for one of my stories that tracks POV characters (box colors), events (shaded boxes), relationships between events (lines between boxes), and narrative sequence (outline boxes), but chronology is inexact, and character locations had to be tracked off screen. Similarly, mindmap apps provided a good way to map scenes and relationships between them, but keeping the events in correct temporal sequence proved onerous. When I decided to tell a story in non-chronological sequence, I was back to post-it notes in addition to the timeline app. For example, a timeline app provided a clear temporal sequence, but tracking characters through the various events was difficult. Most of these tools tracked one or two narrative elements effectively, but then I had to track other elements using secondary organizational strategies. A home grown Microsoft Access relational database.A number of published guides and workbooks on how to organize a novel.Multiple ‘mindmap’ software programs (including Mindnode and Scapple).Scrivener’s corkboard and outline features. ![]()
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