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Three-Time Periods – One Book

StuartNorfolk
Tue, 08 May 2018 11:00:11 GMT

I'm highly incentivised to use Aeon now that it's available on iOS as well. I'm currently working on a fiction novel that takes place in three distinct time periods. The first period is current day, the second period takes place 800 years ago, and the final time period takes place in the future. There is a link between the characters 800 years ago, the present and future. I want to be able to share certain similarities or traits between the characters. Is there any advantage if I use a different template other than fiction, like history for example? I mean, I could set all three periodic story arcs in one fictional timeline, but I don't want to clutter things up too much. I suppose, thinking about it, it comes down to a matter of individual preference. I mean, I could set up 'bookmarks' for the different time zones if I was going to run them in one Aeon Timeline, but I'm going to have a lot of characters collectively from the three time zones. Is there any way of splitting them into there respective zones, but maintaining a connection/ reincarnated link between them? Your thoughts, observances would be most welcomed. Stuart

aeonjess
Wed, 09 May 2018 00:04:37 GMT

Hi Stuart, There is no way to link different timeline files, if that is what you are thinking of (one for each time period). If you want to have the same characters etc for each period, then you would have to have them all in the same timeline file. We provide a few ways to help people manage large amounts of data. One is Entities. In the Fiction template, you will see that there is an Entity Type called "Arc". If you create three Arcs (one for each time period) and then assign events to the arc it corresponds to, you can group the events in the vertical space by Arc, or filter the events by Arc. This can help you manage the different periods of your novel, while keeping all the events in the one spot. You can assign characters to each event as well, so you can filter or group by Character. The templates in Aeon Timeline are able to be modified, so if there is an entity type in History that you would use, you can add it to the Fiction template, or just add some that are completely new. For some beginning information on how to get started using Entities you can read our support material here: https://help.aeontimeline.com/article/20-key-concepts and here https://help.aeontimeline.com/article/21-creating-your-first-timeline You can read about adding new Entity types to the template here: https://help.aeontimeline.com/article/67-timeline-settings and adding Entities here: https://help.aeontimeline.com/article/68-manage-entities Let us know if you need more help in this area. Jess

StuartNorfolk
Wed, 09 May 2018 10:18:02 GMT

Many thanks for that Jess. Another question if I may; I have already been working quite extensively with my project in Scrivener and set up quite detailed information on the various characters, is there a way to associate that characters info with the various events, and creating the character without having to retype the information again, do you know? I understand the concept of the Arc's within Aeon and creating three Arc's for each of the timelines makes sense, thank you. In addition, I also have an Arc which spans several books. The characters are like oversee'ers, or God's that are of an infinite quality. I suppose it would become unwieldy to have several books within one project, but could I duplicate that Arc for further use in subsequent projects/Aeon Timelines? Stuart