Connecting multiple arc points

Q & A
#1

[ N00B here, evaluating to see if Aeon Timeline is what I want for this project. ]
I have three characters: A, B, and C.
I have an Event.
I want that Event to serve as step 3 in A’s Hero’s Journey.
I want that Event to serve as step 2 in B’s Hero’s Journey.
I want that Event to serve as beat 1 in C’s archetypical Detective/Mystery arc.
I want to look at the event and it’s corresponding prose to make sure the prose is doing what I need it to, and when doing that I don’t need just “Hero’s Journey step 2” and “characters A, B, C are there”; I need to see that it’s “step 2 of B’s Hero’s Journey,” etc.

What’s the idiomatic way to accomplish this? I’ve tried making an Item Type for Story Arcs and for Journey Steps, and for Arc Beats, etc. and I’ve looked through the example templates for Hero’s Journey and Multiple Story Arcs, etc. and I’ve worked through the various Tutorials online and read through the documentation online, but in the end, I just can’t seem to figure out how to get what I want. Presumably I’m missing something core.

How do people do this?

#2

More information would help. Are you building the story in Aeon Timeline or syncing with Scrivener, or plotting, creating a timeline and then write down the line? What you are doing or using in addition to Aeon Timeline will shape people’s responses.

1 Like
#3

Good to know! :slight_smile:
Synching with Scrivener: Yes
Plotting vs Pantsing: Yes (both)
I tend to plot and plan major arcs before writing, then do exploratory writing within that framing, then go back and iterate on the arcs, add details, reorder things, change things, add subplots, etc. and then iterate back and forth between the two processes. It’s kinda of level-of-detail refinement approach, but it includes often overhauling the high levels after I’ve gone deep on a lot of the details.

I do tend to do initial branstorming in Scapple, but moving into a plotting tool would be the end of the usefulness of the scapple brainstorming.

#4

I use scrivener. For me keywords work well. They sync to each event and I create character, location, save the cat beats, foreshadow or anything else I want. I make a keyword for every character and created a custom metadata text field with wrapped text I call story notes, you could also do in scrivener’s synopsis. But the story notes can be added in aeon or scrivener and syncs back and forth. Easy way to have scene based notes for both programs.
The keywords give me all the info to create the same info that n aeon.
Love scapple but now use simplemind pro. One time fee but like scapple on steroids.

1 Like
#7

Syncing with scrivener: I think I have figured out just fine (and: Yay!).
I’m more of asking how Aeon Timeline works, or is intended to be used.

I want to match the archetypical beats of one plotline to various events, and the archetypical beats of another to various events, and I want to be able to produce a view that shows just that plotline with the beats labeled (or whatever the right term is for that) so that I can see that I developing that plotline well. Should I use an Item Type for the beats (as the Hero’s Journey template does)? What if I have two (or more) plotlines that follow the Hero’s Journey? Is there a way to just use the one Item Type? Do I have to use that one Item Type and put two (or more) copies of all those beats in it, labeled (again: perhaps not the right word) for the plotline I want to follow those beats? Should I make a different Item Type for each plotline?

What’s the idiomatic way to manage this?

At the end of the day: if it’s hard to manage the mapping of multiple plotlines with different archetypical beat patterns, or multiple ones with the same beat patterns, then I’m not sure the rest of the benefits of AT incline me to adopt it as a tool in my toolbox. It looks like it has sooo much potential! :slight_smile: I’m just not sure how to use it in its intended way…

#8

You can have a filter view, or use the subway view and can see where different groups of events share an intersection.

1 Like
#9

Figured it out (maybe not the most idiomatic method, but it seems to be working fine with the rest of Aeon, so maybe it’s fine).
I followed the pattern in one of the templates for Groups of People: made an Item Type called “Beat(s)” and another called “Arc(s)”. Arcs are just a collection of Beats, and the only thing that shows up under the Beats side panel are Arcs. Each Arch has the “character” field, so I can associate an Arc with a character.
Then I made an Arc with beats for the hero’s journey I wanted, and associated it with character A; then copied that whole Arc as another arc, and just changed the character associated. For my mystery/detective arc: I just create another arc and give it the beats I want.

So far, that appears to be all- happiness :slight_smile: !