Hello. I’m trying to set up a spreadsheet (or database-style table) to track places in my story.
Each entry should have:
• Label: the name of the place (e.g., The House, The Hospital, The Hotel)
• Location: where that place is physically located (e.g., The City, The Island)
Conceptually:
• The House and the Hospital are in The City
• The Hotel is on The Island
The problem I’m running into is that when I create a new place (for example, The Hotel), the system automatically creates or links a reverse entry — so I end up with:
• The Island listed as being located in The Hotel
That relationship is incorrect. The island contains the hotel, not the other way around.
I also want to avoid having multiple values under “Location” for a single place. For example, I don’t want The City to show The House, The Hospital, and The City itself all listed as locations.
At this stage:
• I do not want nested locations
• I want one clear “place → container” relationship
• I want the structure to scale, since each city may contain many places and there will be multiple cities
My goal is a setup that is:
• Visually clean
• Easy to scan
• Flexible enough to handle many locations without duplicating or reversing relationships
What is the best way to structure this so that places correctly point to where they are located, without auto-creating incorrect inverse relationships? It’s been a while since I’ve used AT, so I’m sure I’m missing a step. TIA!
