How to sync the Narrative and a Timeline from Scrivener to Aeon Timeline?

Q & A
#1

I started my Autobiography (or should I say Memoir?) in Scrivener. it will not be very chronological (like starting in my 40ies and then have flashbacks whenever appropriate).

In Scrivener:
Right now I have a Draft with folders (Part I, Part II…) and documents in it (Chapters of Part I, Chapters of Part II…
In the Research folder I have a folder TIMELINE with subfolder per year and documents in that subfolders for important Events in that year.
There are no specific Locations or Persons in the Scrivener File.

Now I want to sync this Scrivener file with an empty timeline.

In Aeon Timeline:
I created a timeline document with “General” (Events, Locations, Persons).

But with the sync settings I have problems. I have two versions I can try:

  1. The “Narrative” would be the Draft folder - ok.
    When I add my TIMELINE folder then Aeon wants to know what Item Type this is - but “Event” is not possible to choose.

  2. The “Narrative” would be the TIMELINE folder - that would make the documents in it “Events” - that is good.
    But what would I do with my Drafts folder now? How can I sync it with Aeon Timeline?

How can I do this so on the long run it is the better solution?
I should have the TIMELINE folder somehow synced with Events, but not “as narrative”, rather as “True Timeline”, while the draft folder is the narrative :slight_smile:

Thank you for all hints in setting this up perfectly!

#2

ok, I wrote this question when I had apparently not enough insights on how Aeon Timeline works. I have it on my Computer since like 2016, but never really used it and so I was unaware of the basic concepts.

Here the answer to my question:

There is no way to have two separate “things” in Scrivener (Narrative and Chronological Timeline) and bring them separately into AT so all documents from both “things” are mapped to events in AT.

Because for AT there is no difference if an event belongs to the Narrative “or” to the Chronological Timeline - it is just an event which can be part of the Narrative or not.

So the problem was, that in my Scrivener project (which I started many years ago without regarding AT) I had the Chronological Timeline in the Research Folder (at first) and from there I copied texts and put them together in the Draft Folder (to create the actual text organized as chapters) - so technically I have two documents for the same event to mimic the idea of the Narrative in Scrivener.

That contradicts the philosophy of using only one event in the Chronological Timeline which then also can be part of the Narrative. But it is “the same” event while in my Scrivener project I have two separate documents for this.

So the solution I chose is: I put together the Draft and the Timeline in one folder and synced that, so in AT all documents are events.
Now I am working through the documents in my Draft folder one by one and see how I unify them with the documents from events from my former timeline. This needs some intelligence, because in the Draft I often put together like 3 events in one “chapter” instead of having them separate.

But I understand now everything way better, and though I feel a bit stupid looking at my original question I will leave question and answer here: maybe it is useful for somebody else starting with AT in the future.