Many writers have to double and triple check to make sure the timeline is correct for all events in a single book or especially a series. I have tried many timeline software programs and have found that
Aeon Timeline suits my needs the best. I know I have mentioned it and even shared information on it before, but this time I'm going to talk only about Aeon and how many things work.
When you go to open up a new project you get a screen that has many options including; Fiction, Basic, Project Management, Legal, Daily, Historical, Numberline.
I have only used the fiction. In the fiction setup you can change fix the beginning to end times, Number & name of months, number & name of days and how many hours in a day. This is great for world building. Below are examples of these.
As you can see, it has great customization features. For those that World Build, you have the ability to create your own times and adjust the names to go along with your stories.
Here is where you change the skin and set up what you want to show in the inspector. It's really easy to set up and use. You can always go in and change everything if you want it different after awhile.
Managing the Entities is simply.
On the left you see the timeline settings. Here you can add and delete Arcs and persons (entities). You can change the colors if you wish.
Below you can see under "Manage Entities" is where you see, add and change your "Arcs" and "Person". When creating a character, make sure you set up an "Event" for birth and link it in the this section so you can keep track of age and use the participation & observer function.
To add an event you just fill in this simple form and click add event. As you can see here is where you can add participants and observers. You can always add them later is you're not sure yet. Here is the place to set the duration of the event. I have several that last days and some that last just a few hours. Setting what time it starts it will automatically set the end time at the start time. This is what I usually do as long as I add a time. The title can be whatever you want, the color is whatever you have chosen for the project, I have several for my series. Leave "Parent" alone until you learn more about it. I haven't figured out a way to use it
with my situation, so I don't. Clicking on "Arc" you can place the event in any "Arc" you have set up.
Once you have it all set up and "Events" in place your "Timeline View" will look something like this in the light skin:
Here is what it looks like in the dark skin I usually use.
You can see all the different Arcs on the left. The color lines & dots show the Arcs in my "Global"arc. At the bottom you see the different colors I have chosen for my arcs names. I did that under "Settings" and "Colors". It helps me keep track of the arcs. Now I don't use arcs the way many others do, I use them for each book in the series. So, you can see here I have four books in the works and the "Global" one that shows everything, last I have births & deaths.
There is a great feature I love and that's the "Relationship" view. If you look below you can see that the arcs or for me books are listed to the left, then you have the events. Looking to the top right you see names, character names that is. Now, look down from those names and you can see the participants and observers. Look even closer and you can see their ages at the time of the event.
A closer look at the left side also shows you the time between events. Like this...
There you have it, my experience with Aeon Timeline. There are youtube videos on how to use Aeon but I found them to be too simple. Feel free to contact me on Twitter ( @jesdeh2o) if you have questions. I will always try and help.
HAPPY WRITING!
Surviving Brooklyn (Brooklyn Series Book 1)
