Want To Tell Better Stories And Become A Better Writer? This Software Can Help
You may be surprised to learn that the subject of this article is Aeon Timeline. You may also be thinking that I’ve overpromised with the title of this post. How can a timeline tool help you become a better writer?
Well, the TL;DR is that Aeon Timeline is more, so much more than a timeline tool. It is a fully-fledged story-planning application with a robust set of features that can help you brainstorm, plan, write and also edit any form of writing you choose to throw at it.
So, let’s find out how it can help you improve as a storyteller and writer.
Time-based Story Planning
This one may be an obvious place to start, but this feature, as far as I am aware, is not available in any other story planning application. Some (Wavemaker, and Plottr, for example) boast timeline functionality. But they are very different features to Aeon Timeline’s comprehensive handling of chronological events.
The above image is taken from an example file, included with Aeon Timeline, showing Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, mapped out with dates.
There are a few things worth noting.
- Aeon Timeline looks gorgeous, with plenty of screen real estate, a clean, crisp UI, and plenty of colour where it is most needed.
- All the events are clearly mapped out on a timeline, which can be scrolled left and right, and zoomed into and out of easily. Down to the second if the user requires it.
- Each of the events shows a title, the date, and then some further information about characters, locations and so on. These are what Aeon Timeline calls relationships. More on Relationships below!
Spreadsheet View
Entering information is quick and easy in Aeon Timeline. One way of doing so is through the Spreadsheet view. The image below shows the different types of event detailed in Wuthering Heights. Marriages, Deaths, Births, and even Historical Background events are all easily entered. Columns can be added and hidden to show only relevant information. All of this is important because events drive stories. And you need to understand how when you are writing your novel.
Such detailed handling of time in a story-planning application is perfect for planning complex and detailed storylines.
Dates and times offer a unique selling point for Aeon Timeline, but the application doesn’t force you to use them. Events can be added and ordered without them. But if you want to know when an event took place, then having a detailed visual overview of that information will make your life easier by allowing you to look for continuity problems within your story. No one wants to make the mistake of having a character who was killed on a certain day, turn up a few days later, alive and kicking!
Relationships
Aeon Timeline provides a visual representation of how different story elements relate to each other.
The above two images show how Aeon Timeline makes the kind of essential information writers need access to readily available. After all, story is about What Happened, To Whom, When, Where, And Why. It is also about How What Just Happened Affects What Happens Next. And Aeon Timeline can even help with that. But more about sequences and connecting events in a later article.
Relationship View
Relationship view makes it effortless to allocate individual relationships to an event. So, you can easily select which characters were in a particular scene. In which location that scene took place. As well as which of the story arcs (or plot lines) the scene featured.
Subway View
And then there is Subway view. A great way of seeing how events, people, and locations are all connected.
Here, the view is only showing which characters take part in each event. But I could have also chosen to add other important information to this view.
Every Thing within Aeon Timeline is called an Item. So, characters are Items, as are locations. And of course, Items can have relationships with other Items:
Here, we can see that Linton is Heathcliffe’s child and Isabella is his wife. An essential tool for writers wanting to keep track of a large list of characters and their relationships with others.
Also, we can easily see how old that character was when said event took place.
This is because Characters can also have dates assigned to them.
Relationships in Aeon Timeline effectively do the heavy lifting for writers. They provide a way to keep track of and visualise the many intricate connections that can exist in a story. Such insights can lead to increased creativity. Plot lines that may have otherwise been left to stagnate can be developed. Characters who were introduced early in the narrative, but have largely been ignored since, can now have their dramatic potential fully realised.
Narrative Structure
In version 3 of Aeon Timeline, the chronological handling of events was complemented with the ability to track a separate Narrative order.
Narrative and Outline views allow the writer to develop a Narrative structure for their story, independent of the chronological structure of the events. In other words, writers can now include Flashbacks, flash-forwards, or any other kind of time travelling magic in their novels, and still record when each event took place, as well as its narrative position within the story. And Chapters, Scenes, even Passages, can all be moved around easily enough when you change your mind about the structure of your work.
Aeon Timeline also provides a comprehensive, two-way syncing mechanism between itself and Scrivener or Ulysses. And, once a timeline file is set up to sync between either of these applications, any changes made to one side of the sync will be reflected automatically in the other.
Writers can either use Aeon Timeline to plan their novel and then sync that plan through to their writing software. Or, they can be a pantser, get their heads down and write. Syncing that first draft into Aeon Timeline to pull it apart and analyse it for inconsistencies and continuity problems, later. Either way, being able to see the details of your precious first draft visually, inside Aeon Timeline, makes you a more productive and successful writer.
Properties
Below are two images from a timeline file that I created, showing Hansel and Gretel as a Crime Thriller (which it is at its very core). I’m showing it because I have utilised properties more extensively than the Wuthering Heights example.
You can see the kinds of Properties that a writer can utilise to detail and track every element of their story.
The vigilant writers among you will recognise the start of a Story Grid scene analysis (custom-built by myself and Copyright Story Grid). You will also see that there is a section for the plot Summary of the Scene, which is an Aeon Timeline built-in property. Everything else, though, is up for grabs and can be changed and added to by going into settings. Meaning the same level of detail can be applied to characters, locations, story beats, or whatever custom properties you wish to set up to help you write.
Aeon Timeline’s Properties, allow writers to build detailed characters and intricately scoped out worlds. Making both writing and editing a much more creative, productive and organised endeavour.
Conclusion
That’s it for this initial post. I have only really scratched the surface of what Aeon Timeline can do. I’ve not covered the Mind Map feature or Dependencies and Constraints (which build logic into start and end times for events). Nor have I covered filtering, which is super powerful in Aeon Timeline.
However, this is only the first in what will hopefully become a series. So there is plenty still to cover. But I hope you can see how this fantastic software has a lot to offer writers who want to strengthen their writing.
Aeon Timeline is available on a rolling feature release licence for macOS, Windows, iPadOS, and iOS. One licence covers up to five devices, and it is available on a 14-day trial period.
Written in Ulysses, without the ‘aid’ of Artificial Intelligence
