Topic: Aeon Timeline
This will only be of interest to writers who have complex stories with a lot of characters and challenging timelines to manipulate/maintain.
Due to the complexity, length, and number of characters in my novel, I have to lean on several tools to keep organized. I use Ninox Database for research, character profiles, photos, and a million other details. (Frankly Scrivener is a better solution, and I am trying to move everything there, but I may just give up as I’m so imbedded in Ninox that it may be an exercise in futility.) I also use Evernote, iOS Reminders, and iOS Voice Memos.
But the hands down best tool that I have in my writer’s toolbox is Aeon Timeline. It’s not for everybody, frankly. It’s as user-friendly as timeline software comes, but it still requires a basic understanding of scheduling software, namely understanding relationships and task dependencies, which scares most people off. (Frankly, it shouldn’t. I used to teach scheduling, and I could have people up and running on scheduling software in a forty-five minute class). Most stories aren’t complex enough to need such a tool, frankly, but for stories that cover long time spans, have multiple overlapping story threads (complex mysteries, for example), or complex action sequences, it’s a terrific tool. I have been using scheduling software for a couple of decades, and there is really nothing I have found that is close to this that strikes the balance between flexibility and ease of use.
I like it in particular because I can work with the same app at both the macro level (years) and the micro level (seconds). It looks spectacular, both in the spreadsheet view and in Gaant (timeline) view. It can even go broader for those working on epochal scale. It’s developed for writers and integrates with Scrivener. It’s the only app I found that works great at a seconds level, which sounds nuts, but I have a critical accident scene where the whole accident occurs over a period of a few minutes and it bounces back between three POVs, so I needed to track all three POVs at a second-to-second level to keep things in sync. I also have several other complex action scenes (an arson from two POVs, for example) that need to be timed down to the second; it would have been orders of magnitude more difficult on paper.
At a macro level, I have all my characters in it, with birth and death dates, as well as key milestones. These relationally link with each other to keep me from tripping over myself and having timeline logic errors. This has proved uber-helpful when I have had to change the age of a character, which would’ve precipitated a cascade of event conflicts without a tool like this.
I found the app saved me recently when I realized I needed to shift all the scenes of about twenty Chapters back in time by three months. Since the timeline is all linked, I just moved the first event, and all the other events recalculated for me, which allowed me to go back and easily rework scenes (3 months causes a shift in the season, so descriptions/activities, etc. needed to be altered).
So, for anyone who is looking for a stellar piece of timeline software, I recommend Aeon. I have been using it for a long time, and it just keeps getting better. I have both the MacOS and iOS versions. I mainly use it on my iPads.
