How to add story arcs?

Q & A
#1

This question is not fully constrained to story arcs but a bit on creating new types and making them behave in expected ways. The website and the forum gives some pointers but it would be nice to have the gaps filled in.

I based my timeline on one of the templates (I don’t remember which) which does not have Story Arcs. Since this is a story set in medieval times and want it to be historical correct, I’ve added a lot of real historical events and then I will add the (fictitious) story events. To try to keep in nice and clean and also take the opportunity to learn to use Aeon, I was thinking of adding Story Arcs so I would be able to group the events (“Divide timeline in stacked groups” in the lower left of the window). I have Events, Persons, and Locations so far and connected as appropriate, but I fail to set up the new type “Story Arc” as I expect it to be.

Instead of diving into what I’ve missed or done wrong, could someone explain how such a type should be configured? I think I will learn much better from that, then trying to repair my settings (I probably just missed one or two checkboxes…).

Are the default templates documented anywhere so I don’t need to create a new dummy timeline each time I want to explore how one of them is configured (and I wouldn’t be surprised if I would miss some crucial detail anyway…)?

#2

Nevertheless, I think this is the right way to go. You don’t even need to create a complete dummy project; all you have to do is select a template at the start and choose “Customize” to view the settings. If your screen is big enough, you can try placing this alongside your actual project.

In your case, you may want to take a look at the template for fiction. Go to the Timeline settings, then to the advanced “Item type” settings.
I guess, “Story” is what was called “Arc” with Timeline 2.

I’m still using AT 2 where the options are more limited. There, the entity type is “Arc” as well as the role. For my own use, I have created a translated and modified template where - in contrast to the original AT2 template - I allow multiple arcs per event.

Update
In your case, I would define an “Arc” item type and assign a relationship to it that defines the way events can be linked (which is the “role” in AT2).

Then you can instantiate the arcs (e.g. “Background” and “Narrative”, or “Historical Events” and “Storyline A”, “Storyline B” etc.) and link them to the events.

If you come to the conclusion that you have started with the wrong template, you can also try to set up a new project with the correct one and transfer your events via csv.

Edit
Of course, you don’t need multiple relationship types, as I initially wrote. Sorry.