Fiction Event subtypes: Flashback, Flash Forward, Backstory

Q & A
#1

I’ve got a complex story universe with lots of backstory I need to keep track of, but without having it intruding into the actual story I’m writing. Plus, I’ve got lots of flashbacks. There are a number of references in the documentation to these subtypes of Events (as well as (Flash Forward").

For example, the “Settings: Data Types” article states that the fiction template will have the option of including ‘Flashback’, ‘Flash Forward’, ‘Story Arc’ and ‘Backstory’ items.

The “How To Track Your Story vs. Backstory” article states that, within Fiction templates, these event types can be added using “Timeline Settings” under the Data Types tab.

I have never yet found a tab called Data Types. I have been guessing that whoever wrote the documentation meant Item Types — if so, the documentation should be corrected to use the actual terms the software itself uses, to avoid confusing us users. Regardless, I find nowhere in the Fiction templates any Backstory, Flashback, or Flash Forward event types. (I do, however, find Story Arc. Thanks for that.)

After a lot of frustration, it finally occurred to me that maybe I have to create these event subtypes myself. Is that indeed the case? If not, what am I missing?

And if it is the case, please say so in the documentation so that other people don’t have to go through the same frustration that I have!

1 Like
#2

Yes, AT3 can be a little confusing at first glance because its concepts are quite abstract in favor of high flexibility. The wording has also been changed from that of the previous version. And you are absolutely right: the documentation should always use the wording of the user interface.

An item type is a kind of template from which items can be created. For example, you could have an item type “Character” from which you create the items “Jack” and “Jill”. Or an item type “Event”, from which you create items like “Jack meets Jill”. I think that the predefined item types of the supplied templates (which are tailored to the usual use cases) should be enough to get you started.

Read more about this in the documentation:

I think that first of all you have to make a fundamental distinction between events on the timeline and the building blocks of the narrative which can be associated to events.

With “Flashback” and “Flash Forward”, I would categotize chapters or sections of the narrative. Personally, I would prefer to use tags or properties for this. Of course, the associated events are then arranged on the timeline before or after the events of the main storyline. However, there also seems to be an event subtype for this, see here

Regardless of this, you can assign the events on the timeline to arcs, which enables grouping and contributes to a clear overview. For example, you can call such an arc “background story” to distinguish it from another arc that you call “main story”.

Basically, you are completely free to do this. You can create a system based on the item types of the templates provided, and if that is not enough for you, you can create your own item types. Conversely, you don’t have to use all existing item types. For example, I prefer to use “Arcs” for everything to categorize events as described above.

I hope this helps a bit.
Cheers,
Peter

EDIT:
After I wrote my post, I looked again in the knowledge base and found the article about “How to track…”, which I didn’t know myself.

1 Like
#3

Our recent update to templates did remove the item types Flashback, Backstory etc. from the default Fiction template, I apologise that the documentation is out of date in this regard, it is something we currently working on updating.

There are two main ways you can manage separating their story from their backstory. The Fiction > Historical Fiction template demonstrates how the timeline can be divided into story vs background events. This uses a different item type “Background Events” which is similar to the Backstory referenced in the older documentation. You would have to create them yourself if you are using the Fiction template currently.

The Fiction > Novel template demonstrates how the Narrative is used to separate events into a narrative to create a story.

Our Novel guide also briefly touches on backstory elements, which is located here: Create a Novel Outline | Aeon Timeline