Save The Cat

[Amontillado]

Obsidian is free. With great respect for all the enthusiasm behind Obsidian, Devonthink is a lot more powerful. A lot of its power lies in what you can do with basic features. The potential tends to be revealed over time, not on a quick read of the user’s guide. Both are easy to use.

Arcs can probably be used any way you want to. I think the intended use is for plot threads. For instance, Luke Skywalker’s arc starts with frustrated farm boy. He becomes a curious doubter, then a despairing student, and finally a galactic hero.

You can create a category, called an arc, that would be the parent for every scene in that progression.

It sounds like that’s what you propose, so you’re right in line with the intended use.

It’s intriguing. I’ve used Aeon for years, always as a way to diagram a story already locked in marble, or the history of a situation. Using it as a potter’s wheel to evolve a story sounds fascinating.

I intend to give it a whirl.

[Amontillado]

This is cool - an entity can only appear once in a mind map. Once you put a character, arc, location, or anything somewhere in the mind map, it can’t appear anywhere else.

But you can create an arc to use as a mind map node. Relate every character, location, whatever, to that arc.

Now, when you click on that arc in your mind map you’ll see its data in the inspector. Go to the relationships tab. You can click on any related thing and jump to it.

When you put an arc in a mind map, you can navigate to everything it relates to.

That is a way to put a group of entities in a mind map node.

Also, if a character plays a role in multiple spots, you can relate him to multiple arcs.

Interesting.

[ctutt (Charles Tutt)]

I love this! Thanks for sharing. It’s very helpful and also motivating.

[ctutt (Charles Tutt)]

Some good suggestions here. I’m a visual thinker as well.

I’m trying to limit my “tools” to the Apple ecosystem as much as possible although I’ve chosen Scrivener as my main writing tool because I can keep my projects better organized with it. I’m far enough along with Scrivener’s learning curve to be fairly comfortable with it. Can’t say that about Aeon, though. It does look like Aeon offers some very attractive compatibilities with Scrivener.

Obsidian looks attractive but also a little overwhelming. I tried Devonthink many years ago and left it behind when I switched over to Apple. I didn’t know it was even still around.

You’re getting me enthused. Thank you for that.

Charles

[SCN (Steve)]

I just tried this. Very cool!

I’m not sure, though, what the advantage of putting an arc into the mindmap is when you can just open the Story Arcs tab and create/click on whatever story arc you need. Doesn’t adding an arc to the mindmap just unnecessarily clutter it?

P.S.: I inadvertently deleted this post and it wouldn’t let me post it again without changing it. Maybe this “P.S” at the end will let me post it.

[Amontillado]

I’m just shotgunning, actually. The idea of an arc is that it’s a collection of other things - the relationships. It’s probably overthinking.

[Amontillado]

You may be thinking about something else. Devonthink has always been Apple-only.

Obsidian can do complex things, but it doesn’t have to.

If you want to try it, think of it as a Mac Finder or a Windows Explorer. The left hand pane is a list of files and folders.

The first advantage over Explorer or Finder and files in subdirectories is that you click on a file and it’s open for editing. You can flip around through dozens of files without cluttering your screen with editor windows.

The next advantage is if you type two square brackets, you’ll get an autocomplete list of existing files for forming a link. Once you start linking files, Obsidian will show a map of how things connect.

All of which is a little off topic for here. If you think an organized deck of index cards could help, give Obsidian another look. It will also make a nice back end for Aeon.

[SCN (Steve)]

Thanks, everyone, for your helpful suggestions. I want to circle back with the outcome.

I’ve come up with at least five ways to track my Save the Cat! story beats (and there are probably more!). After much experimentation, I’m really happy with using Story Arcs as a means of tracking and, when helpful, focusing on the beats. In case it’s helpful, here’s a screenshot of how I set things up in the Story Arcs feature.

As you can see, by nesting them into the three-act structure, I can view my novel – or even my entire novel series – by Act or by any story beat or combination of beats.

I am amazed, truth be told, at how useful this will be, particularly because Story Arcs filtering applies to all the views, whether Timeline, Spreadsheet, Relationship, Subway, Narrative, Outline, or even Mindmap. This is why, of all the methods, I’ve chosen this one.

[mcharris (camharris)]

Thanks for the discussion. I’m looking to do a similar template for a blend of Story Grid (https://storygrid.com) and Blueprint for a Book (Blueprint — Jennie Nash Book Coach). I’ll start a separate topic when I’m ready to dive into this project.

[deanlewis]

I don’t suppose you would share the template for this?

Cheers

[deanlewis]

Any chance of sharing this as a template?
It looks fantastic!

[ctutt (Charles Tutt)]

I like this. Thanks for sharing. Are you using Scrivener? If so, what does this use of Aeon Timeline add to the Scrivener Binder outline?

[SCN (Steve)]

I tried making a template but it didn’t save the Save the Cat beats–it’s certainly possible that I didn’t do it correctly. So, instead, here is my .aeon file that I am using for my novel. I’ve deleted the characters, objects, events, etc. – everything but the story beats.

I added a couple of sample scenes to show how I handle the Save the Cat beats. To make this as useful as possible, this approach allows me to click a particular story beat or, if I want, to click the parent of some nested beats. For example, I sometimes want to see the entire Setup beat, which consists of the sub-beats Opening Image, Theme Stated, and Catalyst. The key to making this as useful as possible is to enter not just, say, “Opening Image” on the Opening Image scene, but to enter the broader beats and acts above it. For example, on this one, for the story beats, I entered 3 Acts, Act 1, Setup, and Opening Image.

There are times I want to see, say, all of Act 1. This approach lets me do that, too.

In this scene, the All is Lost beat, I entered 3 Acts, Act 2, Bad Guys Close In, and All is Lost.

I hope this is helpful.

[CameronCooks (L J Cameron)]

I came upon this thread while trying to puzzle out a way to make family trees in AT, and happy to chime in my experience.

I used STC to outline and plan the beats in my memoir about my Dad and the 200 cookbooks I inherited from him. Lots of paper, colored pens and even flipchart-sized sticky sheets when I got started, and I finished planning before I discovered AT. That said, AT has been super-helpful as a place to capture news clippings and events like graduations and military service, & etc & etc.

Scrivener has been a godsend to organizing drafts as I test events/stories in different chapters. I’ve not worked out the best way to connect it to AT: I tend to use them in separate windows, just cross-referring as I get to different pieces of the story.

I came on this thread while trying to figure out how to use AT to make family trees. I’ve recorded everyone’s birth/death/marriage dates and made events linking parent to child/grandparent/grandchild relationships upon birth. But aside from viewing them all in one sprawling, 6-generation relationship chart, I’ve not stumbled on a good way to make them into a set of trees feeding down to my dad. (Yes, it’s all in Ancestry, but AT lets me capture facts about the connections.) I’ll post this question in a fresh thread.

[SCN (Steve)]

It sounds like a really cool writing project!

If I understand correctly, you need to (1) organize the information and relate things in certain ways. (2) You also need to organize your book into chapters that you’re writing in Scrivener.

Regarding (1), if I were doing a project like this, I might instead use Obsidian to organize the recipes and other information and relate it to the generations and, of course, to your dad. Obsidian, even without the use of community plugins, natively lets you view connections.

Regarding (2), I might use AT and Scrivener (synced) strictly for the narrative writing, taking advantage of the timeline function of AT to track the dates of everything.

I’m just thinking out loud in case it is helpful.

[CameronCooks (L J Cameron)]

Thanks for the thinking out loud, Steve. I’ll take a look at Obsidian, but with a downdraft already in Scrivener, and the data for births/deaths/events in Timeline, I’m wary of introducing another new piece of software at this point.

Most of the story is thankfully straightforward for time and sequence of events. It’s the Ancestors and Dad’s ‘first family’ that are being uncooperative: so many people, so many possible storylines! (I should write a novel just about his grandparents’ arrival and life in the US in 1880…)

Here’s the plan in Scrivener:

[CameronCooks (L J Cameron)]

I’ve been color coding the family lines generally, but it occurs to me I could color-code the four branches more specifically, then try sorting the spreadsheet by date > color to show what happens to whom when. Anyway, this is the ancestors’ data in Timeline:

[ctutt (Charles Tutt)]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing and please keep us posted on this project.

Charles

[CameronCooks (L J Cameron)]

Will do, Charles. Thank you both for the encouragement!

– Laura

[SCN (Steve)]

@CameronCooks

I’ll take a look at Obsidian, but with a downdraft already in Scrivener, and the data for births/deaths/events in Timeline, I’m wary of introducing another new piece of software at this point.

I understand completely.