Newbie questions (very basic)

Q & A
#1

I would like to use this thread for questions (really basic) as I try to work with this program. I have owned it for about a year and read the general literature and tutorial but I need more help. I imagine other people who are newcomers to this program just walk away from it because these basics are not explained anywhere. So here goes as I try to work with it and simple things turn out to be issues.

Simple thing–seeing up the narrative with its little squares and blocks which we are supposedly able to manipulate and move around. I’ll use a made up example: "School " as the first element and then underneath that I could have grammar, high school, college-- and then I decide that’s not my first chapter --but rather another opening such as “computer.” Or if we want to use narrative, perhaps I’m writing about the horse race and Vronsky–and then I realize, oh no, I’ll start with “All happy families are alike”–that should be the opening line–really world literature and readers depend on this (if Tolstoy were using Aeon Timeline. Poor Tolstoy- the damn program won’t let him move his square about the happy families to the top. It’s stuck at the Vronsky horse race crash.
In the banal example --I want to move “computer” to the top–but “school” refuses to move down.
Please advise.

Edit. I think I figured it out. Tolstoy would need to add to the square to the right and then it can be moved around. He was trying to add about happy families under the Vronsky horse race that is to the first square on the left with all its subsets (such as Anne’s husband noticing how Anne is looking at the handsome Vronsky) and this is apparently impossible.

Edit 2. Problems Again. So now Tolstoy was able to get the happy families line at the top but he wants to add about Oblonsky and how the house is in an uproar. However, poor Tolstoy, Aeon won’t let him move those to that position.

Edit 3: that problem solved. The program moved the “scene” to the right–the scene about Oblonsky with his body man and the house in an uproar–so they were horizontal and Aeon let Tolstoy move that to under Chapter one.
New Question. Why is aeon calling the subsets under Vronsky horse race “passages?” (passage 1, 2, etc) but calling the subsets under happy families chapter, scenes? Both can be okay names but I don’t see how to change these. And what is a “passage” exactly. TY

#2

Hi Missy,

There is a lot to unpack in your questions. Rather than try to tackle each question, can I ask whether you have visited https://help.timeline.app? There are a lot of help articles there and I’m sure you will find them insightful.

Having said that, I would agree that it can be daunting to get to grips with some of the basics of Aeon Timeline. It has been mentioned elsewhere on these forums, that it would be useful if there were other resources available, such as video tutorials to help explain sone of the concepts. And that need clearly still exists. I am even considering doing a series of videos myself as Aeon Timeline is such a powerful and flexible tool for creative writers, it would be great to see more users benefit from using it. However, I am busy, and making videos is time consuming and time is literally money for writers.

There is a beta running at the moment which aims to simplify the visual elements and make onboarding easier. But I don’t think your concerns have been addressed and users may still be intimidated by the software. Although I get the impression that the developers see the beta as only the start of making the software easier to use.

But in the meantime check out the help articles and see if they provide any insight.

Warmest regards

Andrew

EDIT: I should have also asked whether you have tried the tutorial built into Aeon Timeline? It covers some of the basics and can be found by clicking on the speech bubble style icon with a question mark in it.

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#3

Hi Andrew,
It’s actually an awesome app, but I want to have mastery of it and see if it will actually work for a WIP. I started entering various timeline events about a year ago. I created some kind of new category called “Buddhist Teachings” in the relationship view. That’s not showing up under “category” in the spreadsheet. Yes, thank you for the link. I have read their knowledge base and also the tutorial. I will read everything again for a fourth time. I’m just playing around with the program when I take breaks from my writing. I figure even if I can’t figure it all out, it helps my brain focus on overview and also helps me see some of my projects.
I’ll keep working with it.
Warmest Regards and happy writing!
Missy

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#4

Hi Missy,

Apologies. You already stated that you had read the literature and completed the tutorial. So my reply wasn’t of much use to you. You stated that you added your Buddhist Teachings in Relationship view. Which makes me think you added it to an existing Item (Character, Location, Story Arc). If you look in the sidebar on the left do you see it in any of those tabs as an Item?

Categories don’t exist in Aeon. But there are Items, Relationships and Properties. Items are as I described. Characters etc. and you have instances of those; Character A, Character B. But also Scenes and Events are Items. Relationships exist between Items. So Character A could be Character B’s opponent. With Opponent being a relationship type. If both characters are in scene 1, they have a relationship to that Scene. And that relationship might be Participant. Properties are used to describe various elements of an item.

If you created an instance of an Item when you created your ‘category’ then it is highly likely that is why it didn’t show in Spreadsheet view. Because if it was a Character Item you created it may not be set up to show there.

If you wanted to add Buddhist Teachings separate of existing items you would need to add a new item. The place to do that is in Advanced Settings. This can get a little complicated if you haven’t done it before. But once you get used to it is quite straightforward.

Apologies f you know all of this and if I’m wrong about how you created your Buddhist Teachings ‘category’. But I think the basics are worth pinning down.

I also wasn’t sure about your description of building the Narrative. Were you trying to do this in Outline or Narrative view?

Andrew

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#5

I made a series of tutorial videos, but they are in german. There are english subtitles that are created automatically by YT. I’m afraid a lot of them don’t make sense, but maybe it’s fine enough to understand what it’s about. I also made one video in english, maybe it helps for starters to get some basic concepts of the app: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtB2B657olU

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#6

I am in the same boat as Missy. Had the program for quite a long while and am still struggling to wrap my head around it. [Have read the documentation and and am doing tutorials.] I don’t want to hijack the thread and hope it’s okay to add newbie questions here.

I’m trying to create a template that would help me map out a season of television. One long arc, with a variable number of episodes. [If I could do multi-season, would be awesome, but wish list.] Within the episode structure I’d like to see this:

[Season] Episode > Act > Sequence > Scene > Beat > Shot

Ideally, each of these could have (1 - n) instances. (Shot may have (0-n)). I’d like see this/arrange the episodes in Narrative view.

And for Subway view:
Since it’s TV, Characters would have Season Arcs but also Episodic Arcs. I saw a post about creating and using Item Types as a filters (for beats in various narrative structures) and I’m wondering if it makes sense to adopt that for what I’m trying to achieve. eg. Item Type = Season or Episode

Does this make sense?

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#7

It sounds good, but I would be the blind leading the blind. What I was doing this morning was working in the project management template which is a simpler template. It doesn’t have the narrative and narrative outline and it has names like “department.” So under “department” I put various categories related to my writing–one was a category with a character’s name; others were various topics. Then when I switched to subway view–this was rather cool–I could see all the writing pieces (called tasks in that template) each in its own stream. By working with this simpler template, it’s helping me understand a little bit more about how the program works.

Missy

#8

Robert,
Your English video is helpful and appreciated. I remember when I watched it a year ago, wishing your more in depth tutorial was in English. Thank you.
-Missy

#9

Thank you, Andrew. I had done some relabeling or made some technical mistake, which is why it wasn’t showing up.
Missy