I have been checking a ton of reviews on Aeon, and usually, I dip out within two minutes because I quickly realize that my writing methods don't match up with the reviewer's method, so the review wouldn't be helpful for me personally. But then you said you had a Twinnings #4 Earl Grey, and I immediately thought "he's my people. This is the review that will be the most helpful." And I was right! Thanks for this!
Glad I could help! i have to admit, I'm in the same position as you - and the lack of decent videos explaining it surprised me. I will return to Aeon before too long with some further thoughts. Hopefully they'll help too.
Thanks for your review,. much appreciated. I've been considering both Plottr and Aeon Timeline, and I have landed on the latter. Time will tell how useful it will be, but it looks promising.
I just started with Aeon and that is how I found you. Like your review and am also on the third day of learning. And as I am an pantser I will use it while working to keep an overview so that I can look at my novel when writing the next in the series. Love it so far.
Welcome aboard! It's a hugely powerful piece of software - I do find planning and keeping track of things really tough, and Aeon is definitely one of those tools that will help. I just wish I could plan better in advance!
This was a very enjoyable review - thank you! I have been using Aeon Timeline for a while now and played around with a dummy file quite a bit before using it on a real project. I find myself revisiting this dummy file quite often to try out something I'm not quite sure how to use or something I don't understand. Aeon Timeline is very powerful software but unforgiving. The facebook group are very helpful - there are a couple of very knowledgeable people there. Your suggestion of a series of video tutorials - maybe something similar to what L&L do with Scrivener would be a game changer for this software!
Thanks so much, Adelaide. I am really glad the video was useful and fun. I'm still planning to use Timeline more, but writing and editing has taken over for a while. April will mean a new story, though, so I'll be getting back into it again then.
Great review! I'm currently using the Narrative View to keep track of my NaNoWriMo's WIP that I'm mainly pantsing. It's been super useful so far. I love that you don't really need to plan or get too detailed beforehand for it to be usefull at any point of the writing process. I create entities and events as I write and it helps me get a better view of the whole picture of the story I'm currently pantsing. It'll make revision and rewrites so much easier in the future!
Really interesting. I'm just starting a new novel (which is due in January, so I'm hoping Aeon will keep me on track!) and help get the book completed on time!
Thank you so much for this review. I loved that you showed all the icons and the different ways to break up the screen. It looks like it's exactly the kind of software I could use. And the fact it syncs to Scrivener is perfect.
The story arc thing is organizational. Let's say your story is about Jack and Jill's ascension of the hill behind Little Red Riding Hood's house. One story line would be Jack and Jill. Events like climbing the hill, the metaphysical thirst driving them, Jack's thwarted apotheosis, all that stuff would be added to the Jack and Jill story arc. The Little Red Riding Hood storyline would include Red's childhood, her journey to Grandma's house, the wolf's affection for Red from afar, and discovery of Grandma's fate. There might be another storyline for the wolf with his misunderstood youth, Grandma's evisceration, and the unsolved murder of the fourth little pig. Then, you can filter your views by story arc and see just Little Red's life or Jack and Jill's rock climbing, or perhaps Little Red's story arc as it relates to the wolf's passions. The spreadsheet is the best way to get data into the timeline, but there are other ways, too. For instance, I added custom fields to Devonthink for start, end, participant, arc, and other Aeon fields. If I use Devonthink's metadata summary export feature, I get a file Aeon will import without synchronization. Or, add extra columns to OmniOutliner for Aeon info. Export OO as CSV to import directly into Aeon. You get the timeline and all the relationships filled out in Aeon with zero extra fiddling. But what if I plan in Curio? Tag index cards that go in the timeline, search for that tag, and then export the search to CSV. The Aeon fields are added to the notes metadata for the index cards in the form of @@start=mm/dd/yy, @@relationship=participant, etc. A quickly written Python script transforms that into an input file for Aeon. Also, I believe I should probably click the "like" button on this video. If I've rattled on this much about it, I must have liked it. On reflection, yes, I did. Very nice presentation. More, please!
Thanks for that, Johnny - I think you should be making videos about it rather than me! I suffer from not using Devonthink, OmniOutliner or Curio - I don't know any of them! However, I think I'll be able to input direct into Timeline for the future. I really like the mind-mapping section, and being able to just plug away with the spreadsheet, adding new events to my heart's content, that makes a lot of sense. All in all, I'm impressed with it and will be giving it a damn good pasting!
I’m at 6 minutes and already decided, forget it. Just the time to set this up! It’s made for people who can’t remember anything. Nah, not for me. Thank you for reviewing!!!
I'm at several weeks learning it ... and I agree with you. I'm much more happy with Obsidian, which I've discovered recently. I'll be looking to review that early in the New Year.
All those lines and colours...I'm already feeling anxiety. Seems so anti panster to me. I just jot my own notes down and write my story. But I do know there's value in a program like this. So I want to learn. 😁
I will do my best. Just now it's likely to be delayed a little because of needing to go in for an operation next week, but I'll try to get something down.
So glad that you've finally caught up with Aeon v3. I remember you said that it wasn't your cup of tea (chilly or otherwise) a few years back but I find it well worth the investment in time (forget about cost) and the dividends valuable. It certainly is complex but it will become second nature - in time. Or is that timeline?
Thanks for that, John - just writing up my thoughts for the next Patreon, and I do agree about the value of it and the investment in it. As to cost - that is only for those who regularly complain about the vast expense of software or Astrohaus Freewrites! I keep having to explain my rationale, which is that I don't begrudge investment if I can see a return on it. With Timeline I think that value is plain enough (now I'm getting to grips with it!).
@@writerlywitterings There's nothing wrong with spending money on helpful software. All I ever need is a word processor, and Libre Office is free and does everything I need. Despite this, I always buy the latest pro version of MS Office. It isn't cheap, but it has a couple of features that help when working with an agent, and even more when working with an editor. And it's a tax write off. It's either buy it, or give the money to the IRS.
Thank you for getting me hooked on Twinings #4! You’re correct - an amazing cup of Earl Grey. I just wish there were more options to buy it on this side of the pond :-(
I drink Twinings at times, but I have recently switched to Republic of Tea's Earl Greyer. They use bio-degradable tea bags, which I rather like. And the tea is great.
Glad you enjoyed it! I've just had a new packet arrive of Twining's "Plummy Earl Grey", which is, to my taste, just sheer perfection as a breakfast cup ...!
I have to agree with you there. It was a real shock when I learned that usual tea bags would not biodegrade if left out (when I was camping on Dartmoor and leaving tea bags buried lightly). Now I have to bring the damn things home. Apparently they will compost if put in an industrial composter such as our councils use over here, but even then they degrade into micro-plastics. Which doesn't seem much of an improvement to me. I'm much happier with old-fashioned loose-leaf tea in a tea pot!
@@t0dd000 I tried that one a couple years ago. If I remember correctly, it was a bit heavier on the bergamot, versus the Twinings #4 which is smokier. The biodegradable tea bags is a huge perk though, I wish that were the standard.
Thanks for your review, Mike! I like Aeon Timeline a lot. As you say, it's very flexible, but, just as with Scrivener, there can be a learning curve that may put off some people. However, I think it's worth sticking at it and making it your own, focusing on the features that make sense to you and not worrying too much about the rest. I agree that there could be some better training videos made to help out. The only thing I don't like about Aeon is that you can't use the Julian calendar, much less have a timeline that goes from Julian to Gregorian: which sounds niche, but if you were planning a big non-fiction work about British history, this would be a bit of a problem. Similarly, if you wanted to write a biography of, say, Shakespeare, you have to be very, very careful about the week days automatically assigned by Aeon to dates you add to your Shakespeare timeline: do not rely on Aeon to give you the correct day of the week! Fortunately, you can get it to switch off the display of week days to prevent confusion. So if you need to remember that Shakespeare was baptised on a Wednesday, you'd have to write this in manually in a note to that timeline reference. Otherwise, Aeon is a powerful piece of kit.
Thanks for that, Ash. I hadn't realised that there was that issue with the calendar systems. I'll clearly have to return to my very well-thumbed edition of the Royal Historical Society's HANDBOOK OF DATES to verify everything!
Honestly, having to learn how to use Scrivener, or anything like it, would have made me stop writing. I write with a fountain pen, and that's all I need. Before I start writing I do read two of three of the most definitive books on the era that I can find, if it's set in a location I know very little about, each book dealing with a different aspect. This takes about a week. If it's North American history, I need to do very little reading. Then I start writing. This is what works for me, and for many, many of the writers I most love. I did most of this before I even had the internet, or when the internet had very little in the way of good information. Now the internet has it all, especially if you aren't afraid to make phone calls, which I've found still work far better than E-mail or texts. It's much harder for people to say no over the phone. I was the most unbelievably ignorant person imaginable when I decided to sit down and try to sell a story. I knew zero about grammar, other than reading straight through a grammar book before I started writing. I didn't know you were supposed to do more than one draft, so I tried to make the first draft perfect because I was afraid an editor would change it so much it wouldn't feel like my story. I didn't even know editors rejected stories, though I learned that lesson pretty soon. I think it was my fourth story, maybe my fifth, that got a rejection, and I decided I'd better read more about writing. I got a few magazines and a couple of books from the library, and they straightened me out on a number of things. Really, it's just a matter of what is fun, and what bores me. I think it's that simple. Complex software for writing is not fun. Even a word processor is not as much fun as using a fountain pen. Rewriting and revising are not fun, so I do everything possible not to need to do either. I think most first drafts are bad because the writer works in a way that makes bad first drafts okay, a part of the process. I can't do that. My first drafts need to be salable as is, and without any need for an editor to do anything. If they aren't, then I'll never get a draft that's any good. Heinlein and Asimov. Heinlein wrote one draft. Asimov did a second draft, but there was no revising or rewriting. It was just a clean up draft. He said if he had to rewrite or revise a story, it would never be any good. That's the way it works with me. I'm not a luddite, except where writing is concerned. I do tend to prefer fiction written before word processors and the internet came along. I own some pretty fancy, expensive software, and I know how to use it, but I wouldn't dream of using it for writing. It's just not how my writing mind works. I really can't even imagine how I could writing using such software as Scrivener. I can, and have, written novels on a manual typewriter, on an electric typewriter, on an electronic typewriter, on a standalone word processor, and with MS Word when deadlines were extremely tight, Thankfully, I can now write with a fountain pen and just read it into Word, so there's no need to worry about switching to a word processor for a tight deadline. I think such software is great for those with minds that can function that way. I have no doubt it helps tremendously, though the proof is always in what happens to the finished novel. But I simply can't do it. Strictly for me, if it isn't fun, if it bores me, it turns into work, and I didn't become a writer because I wanted to work. I became a writer so I wouldn't have to work. Honestly, I'm probably a lazy, shiftless, no account bum who lucked into a way to make money without actually having to take orders, or struggle in trying to build a business, or really to do anything I didn't want to do. If it weren't for writing, I'd most likely be homeless. I would have stayed in the wilderness, fishing, hunting, and foraging for my food, prospecting and trapping for what little money I needed, and would have been content. I did just that for about two years. That's what I had planned for my future until I met my wife to be. I was leaving for Alaska the next day, but I met her in a convenience store, and it was instant love. So writing it was. Turned out to be a wonderful alternative to the wilderness. A great wife and three great boys should be enough to make anyone happy. But if it weren't for the writing, for being able to write well in the only way my mind works properly, I wouldn't have them.
Yes, pretty much invariably. I still use the Freewrite to input many of the scenes early on, but when it comes to collating scenes, editing, and rejigging my stories to get them into shape for the final draft, it's all in Scrivener. I don't know what I'd do without it, to be honest!
Thanks for helpful video. Can Aeon Timeline 3 show multiple timelines? Say you're writing about WW2 and you want a timeline for Churchill and one for FDR, Stalin and Hitler? Thanks.
Almost - you can filter by any of the properties associated with events. Let's say you use Story Arc to show Churchill and events related to him. You can show a timeline with only those events. Of course, an event related to Churchill might also be related to Stalin, so you might get better focus if you filter by person and choose Churchill. Or Churchill and FDR to get all event related to them. Aeon is wonderfully flexible.
Thanks for that, Johnny - that makes a lot of sense. There's still a lot I have to work out with this, but the software does look really powerful and very useful ... it's just the time to set it all up that is daunting at present!
I don't know whether I just don't have a mind that works that way for fiction, or whether it's just my personality, but I could never bring myself to use any kind of outline. I just start writing, and keep writing until the thing is finished. I can do backstory or anything else without the aid of outlines, or even notes. I don't even want to know what is going to happen on the next page until I write it, and certainly don't want to know how it will end. To my surprise, when I looked at the writing methods of my twelve favorite writers not too long after I first started writing, eleven of them wrote the same way I do, and the twelfth did a very brief one page outline. I do not count Shakespeare in the twelve I first checked, but he did write some of his longest plays in a fortnight, with a quill pen, and often bragged that he "never blotted a line". I really was afraid that I was the only writer silly enough to write fiction that way. I've always written one draft with no rewriting or revising, and no editing except for sometimes tightening dialogue. Probably because an article about Robert Heinlein made me decide to write my first story, and this is how he said he wrote everything. For a pre0high school dropout with no knowledge of grammar at all until I read through a grammar book before writing that story it seems like a stupid choice, but it worked and that first 7,500 word short story written in two days sold to the first magazine I sent it to, and paid more than my day job did in a month. Robert Heinlein or not, though, I think that's just how my mind works. I hate plotting, so I never plotted anything. I hate attempting outlines, which I did try, so I just didn't outlining. My entire procedure has always been to find a title I love, and that title generates the first sentence, and the first sentence generates the story and I don't have to think about anything beyond the sentence I'm writing. It sounds dumb to some, impossible to others, but when you research writers throughout the last, well, since Shakespeare, a big bunch of very good writers worked just this way. Many of the pulp writers had to work this way, of course, because they had no time at all to do anything except sit down and write a salable first draft with no planning at all. Those who wrote the old time radio programs also had to be fast. I remember reading about one who took a train from the Midwest to California, a two day trip at the time, and he wrote seven finished, ready to go radio dramas in those two days. Some of the pulp writer wrote two novels a month, and a few wrote a novel a week. I know a science fiction writer who filled a hole in an editors catalog by writing a very, very good 100,000 word novel in three days. He started Friday, and finished it Sunday night. I can't even type that fast. Because of this, I came to believe that to a large degree, process affects product. I think there's a difference in novels, or short stories, and everything between, if they are written without an outline, without any planning in advance, and fiction that is heavily outlined and planned. Obviously, both can be excellent, both can, and have, become classics, and as I aged I came to love many writers who outlined heavily, though I still usually preferred those who did not. But I think they are different types of reads. They certainly seem different to me, largely in pacing, and very often in the amount of side story, and in the large amount of description and narrative. I think it's telling that just about every writer I loved for many years did not outline. I never know this until after I find a new writer I love. Only after I read a writers work and love it do I look up his or her method of writing. Or did. Honestly, I now read more classic novels, or reread my favorite writers of my youth, and far fewer new novels. There are novels, and a handful of nonfiction books, that I've read a dozen times, and I learn something new from each reading. I have started writing again, though what I can do now remains to be seen. My health is getting worse, not better, not even remaining steady, but you can only play the cards you're dealt, though I would certainly cheat if I could. But I can't so I may as well do my best to use whatever time I have left as well as I can. As a saying we have goes, "If nothing else, it's something to do." Having something to do matters, I think, and while I do many things, I need to do something else, something that matters, and I think writing is it. Bad health, yes, but my mind still works. . .I think. We'll see, I guess. I always wrote everything with a pencil at first, then with a fountain pen, if the deadline was long enough, and only used a typewriter or word processor if an editor wanted something yesterday. Now I'll just write with a fountain pen because I've found speech to text works just about perfectly with the latest version of MS Word. I've read several short stories into it, and it's just about flawless with almost zero training. Sorry for rambling on. It's just that I've always been fascinated by how different writers go about what is essentially the same task.
Really interesting, and thanks for the comments. I have to admit, I've only ever planned one book - my first - and I stopped because it was so obvious to me that since I knew who the murderer was, the way I wrote the story meant any reader would be able to guess too! Since then, all my other 50-odd novels, ten novellas and all the short stories have been written by me sitting at a keyboard with a blank screen. The stories come to me and they are as much a surprise to me as they will be to readers. However, I'm returning to at least two books a year, and now I need to start seeing how to write more efficiently, I think. This software may not work and I may well return to the old approach. My problem is, with UA-cam and other distractions, I need to get better use out of every minute of every day. I just hope this does work!
Hi Michael, did you eventually write the two books with the help of using this software or did you end up turning back to notebooks and scribbles to make sense of your timelines and characters? I'm considering purchasing it - I tried it a while ago as a demo - and I'm still not sure. Advice greatly appreciated. 😊
Ah - the constant search for helpful software. No, in the end I found it was no good for me. Mainly because you have to spend so long invested in getting every detail right for the software to work effectively. I'm not really a planner, I'm a writer by the seat of my pants, and I've discovered a new software package - Obsidian - which seems to work better for me. I may try to make a video comparing the two early in January. Apologies for taking a while to respond.
@@RavagesOfHonor My pleasure - I'm getting to grips with the camera, editing videos, as well as the software - and running into a deadline for the next book in January, so it's a little hectic. You know how it is! Have a great Christmas, and best of luck with the writing.
I have been checking a ton of reviews on Aeon, and usually, I dip out within two minutes because I quickly realize that my writing methods don't match up with the reviewer's method, so the review wouldn't be helpful for me personally. But then you said you had a Twinnings #4 Earl Grey, and I immediately thought "he's my people. This is the review that will be the most helpful." And I was right! Thanks for this!
Glad I could help! i have to admit, I'm in the same position as you - and the lack of decent videos explaining it surprised me. I will return to Aeon before too long with some further thoughts. Hopefully they'll help too.
Thanks for your review,. much appreciated. I've been considering both Plottr and Aeon Timeline, and I have landed on the latter. Time will tell how useful it will be, but it looks promising.
Glad I could help!
The flurry of Patreon videos was much appreciated. Many thanks!
You're very welcome! I'm glad someone liked it! I suddenly had a number of people drop from my subscription lists, so not everyone approved!
Thanks for putting this up.
My pleasure!
I just started with Aeon and that is how I found you. Like your review and am also on the third day of learning. And as I am an pantser I will use it while working to keep an overview so that I can look at my novel when writing the next in the series. Love it so far.
Welcome aboard! It's a hugely powerful piece of software - I do find planning and keeping track of things really tough, and Aeon is definitely one of those tools that will help. I just wish I could plan better in advance!
This was a very enjoyable review - thank you! I have been using Aeon Timeline for a while now and played around with a dummy file quite a bit before using it on a real project. I find myself revisiting this dummy file quite often to try out something I'm not quite sure how to use or something I don't understand. Aeon Timeline is very powerful software but unforgiving. The facebook group are very helpful - there are a couple of very knowledgeable people there. Your suggestion of a series of video tutorials - maybe something similar to what L&L do with Scrivener would be a game changer for this software!
Thanks so much, Adelaide. I am really glad the video was useful and fun. I'm still planning to use Timeline more, but writing and editing has taken over for a while. April will mean a new story, though, so I'll be getting back into it again then.
Great review!
I'm currently using the Narrative View to keep track of my NaNoWriMo's WIP that I'm mainly pantsing. It's been super useful so far. I love that you don't really need to plan or get too detailed beforehand for it to be usefull at any point of the writing process. I create entities and events as I write and it helps me get a better view of the whole picture of the story I'm currently pantsing. It'll make revision and rewrites so much easier in the future!
Really interesting. I'm just starting a new novel (which is due in January, so I'm hoping Aeon will keep me on track!) and help get the book completed on time!
Thank you so much for this review. I loved that you showed all the icons and the different ways to break up the screen. It looks like it's exactly the kind of software I could use. And the fact it syncs to Scrivener is perfect.
Glad it was helpful! I'm still getting to grips with it, but it's so far teetering between "too much time to learn" and "bloody hell, this is good!"
The story arc thing is organizational. Let's say your story is about Jack and Jill's ascension of the hill behind Little Red Riding Hood's house. One story line would be Jack and Jill. Events like climbing the hill, the metaphysical thirst driving them, Jack's thwarted apotheosis, all that stuff would be added to the Jack and Jill story arc.
The Little Red Riding Hood storyline would include Red's childhood, her journey to Grandma's house, the wolf's affection for Red from afar, and discovery of Grandma's fate. There might be another storyline for the wolf with his misunderstood youth, Grandma's evisceration, and the unsolved murder of the fourth little pig.
Then, you can filter your views by story arc and see just Little Red's life or Jack and Jill's rock climbing, or perhaps Little Red's story arc as it relates to the wolf's passions.
The spreadsheet is the best way to get data into the timeline, but there are other ways, too.
For instance, I added custom fields to Devonthink for start, end, participant, arc, and other Aeon fields. If I use Devonthink's metadata summary export feature, I get a file Aeon will import without synchronization.
Or, add extra columns to OmniOutliner for Aeon info. Export OO as CSV to import directly into Aeon.
You get the timeline and all the relationships filled out in Aeon with zero extra fiddling.
But what if I plan in Curio? Tag index cards that go in the timeline, search for that tag, and then export the search to CSV. The Aeon fields are added to the notes metadata for the index cards in the form of @@start=mm/dd/yy, @@relationship=participant, etc.
A quickly written Python script transforms that into an input file for Aeon.
Also, I believe I should probably click the "like" button on this video. If I've rattled on this much about it, I must have liked it.
On reflection, yes, I did. Very nice presentation. More, please!
Thanks for that, Johnny - I think you should be making videos about it rather than me! I suffer from not using Devonthink, OmniOutliner or Curio - I don't know any of them! However, I think I'll be able to input direct into Timeline for the future. I really like the mind-mapping section, and being able to just plug away with the spreadsheet, adding new events to my heart's content, that makes a lot of sense. All in all, I'm impressed with it and will be giving it a damn good pasting!
I’m at 6 minutes and already decided, forget it. Just the time to set this up! It’s made for people who can’t remember anything. Nah, not for me. Thank you for reviewing!!!
I'm at several weeks learning it ... and I agree with you. I'm much more happy with Obsidian, which I've discovered recently. I'll be looking to review that early in the New Year.
Thank you, Michael.
You are very welcome
All those lines and colours...I'm already feeling anxiety. Seems so anti panster to me. I just jot my own notes down and write my story. But I do know there's value in a program like this. So I want to learn. 😁
I am still rather like you. I like the basic "sit down and write" - but just now I have to have an outline because my next deadline is looming!
I’m with you. Just looked at Plottr and that has no learning curve and it can come in handy
Great review!!
!wait for a new video about aeon timeline, please
I will do my best. Just now it's likely to be delayed a little because of needing to go in for an operation next week, but I'll try to get something down.
I'm one of those crazy Linux desktop guys. I will have to play with one of the competitors to Aeon Timeline.
I'd be interested to see what you reckon is the best competitor and how you rate it, Todd.
So glad that you've finally caught up with Aeon v3. I remember you said that it wasn't your cup of tea (chilly or otherwise) a few years back but I find it well worth the investment in time (forget about cost) and the dividends valuable. It certainly is complex but it will become second nature - in time. Or is that timeline?
Thanks for that, John - just writing up my thoughts for the next Patreon, and I do agree about the value of it and the investment in it. As to cost - that is only for those who regularly complain about the vast expense of software or Astrohaus Freewrites! I keep having to explain my rationale, which is that I don't begrudge investment if I can see a return on it. With Timeline I think that value is plain enough (now I'm getting to grips with it!).
@@writerlywitterings There's nothing wrong with spending money on helpful software. All I ever need is a word processor, and Libre Office is free and does everything I need. Despite this, I always buy the latest pro version of MS Office. It isn't cheap, but it has a couple of features that help when working with an agent, and even more when working with an editor. And it's a tax write off. It's either buy it, or give the money to the IRS.
Thank you for getting me hooked on Twinings #4! You’re correct - an amazing cup of Earl Grey. I just wish there were more options to buy it on this side of the pond :-(
I drink Twinings at times, but I have recently switched to Republic of Tea's Earl Greyer. They use bio-degradable tea bags, which I rather like. And the tea is great.
Glad you enjoyed it! I've just had a new packet arrive of Twining's "Plummy Earl Grey", which is, to my taste, just sheer perfection as a breakfast cup ...!
I have to agree with you there. It was a real shock when I learned that usual tea bags would not biodegrade if left out (when I was camping on Dartmoor and leaving tea bags buried lightly). Now I have to bring the damn things home. Apparently they will compost if put in an industrial composter such as our councils use over here, but even then they degrade into micro-plastics. Which doesn't seem much of an improvement to me. I'm much happier with old-fashioned loose-leaf tea in a tea pot!
@@t0dd000 I tried that one a couple years ago. If I remember correctly, it was a bit heavier on the bergamot, versus the Twinings #4 which is smokier. The biodegradable tea bags is a huge perk though, I wish that were the standard.
Thanks for your review, Mike! I like Aeon Timeline a lot. As you say, it's very flexible, but, just as with Scrivener, there can be a learning curve that may put off some people. However, I think it's worth sticking at it and making it your own, focusing on the features that make sense to you and not worrying too much about the rest. I agree that there could be some better training videos made to help out. The only thing I don't like about Aeon is that you can't use the Julian calendar, much less have a timeline that goes from Julian to Gregorian: which sounds niche, but if you were planning a big non-fiction work about British history, this would be a bit of a problem. Similarly, if you wanted to write a biography of, say, Shakespeare, you have to be very, very careful about the week days automatically assigned by Aeon to dates you add to your Shakespeare timeline: do not rely on Aeon to give you the correct day of the week! Fortunately, you can get it to switch off the display of week days to prevent confusion. So if you need to remember that Shakespeare was baptised on a Wednesday, you'd have to write this in manually in a note to that timeline reference. Otherwise, Aeon is a powerful piece of kit.
Thanks for that, Ash. I hadn't realised that there was that issue with the calendar systems. I'll clearly have to return to my very well-thumbed edition of the Royal Historical Society's HANDBOOK OF DATES to verify everything!
Honestly, having to learn how to use Scrivener, or anything like it, would have made me stop writing. I write with a fountain pen, and that's all I need. Before I start writing I do read two of three of the most definitive books on the era that I can find, if it's set in a location I know very little about, each book dealing with a different aspect. This takes about a week. If it's North American history, I need to do very little reading. Then I start writing.
This is what works for me, and for many, many of the writers I most love. I did most of this before I even had the internet, or when the internet had very little in the way of good information. Now the internet has it all, especially if you aren't afraid to make phone calls, which I've found still work far better than E-mail or texts. It's much harder for people to say no over the phone.
I was the most unbelievably ignorant person imaginable when I decided to sit down and try to sell a story. I knew zero about grammar, other than reading straight through a grammar book before I started writing. I didn't know you were supposed to do more than one draft, so I tried to make the first draft perfect because I was afraid an editor would change it so much it wouldn't feel like my story.
I didn't even know editors rejected stories, though I learned that lesson pretty soon. I think it was my fourth story, maybe my fifth, that got a rejection, and I decided I'd better read more about writing. I got a few magazines and a couple of books from the library, and they straightened me out on a number of things.
Really, it's just a matter of what is fun, and what bores me. I think it's that simple. Complex software for writing is not fun. Even a word processor is not as much fun as using a fountain pen. Rewriting and revising are not fun, so I do everything possible not to need to do either. I think most first drafts are bad because the writer works in a way that makes bad first drafts okay, a part of the process. I can't do that. My first drafts need to be salable as is, and without any need for an editor to do anything. If they aren't, then I'll never get a draft that's any good.
Heinlein and Asimov. Heinlein wrote one draft. Asimov did a second draft, but there was no revising or rewriting. It was just a clean up draft. He said if he had to rewrite or revise a story, it would never be any good. That's the way it works with me.
I'm not a luddite, except where writing is concerned. I do tend to prefer fiction written before word processors and the internet came along. I own some pretty fancy, expensive software, and I know how to use it, but I wouldn't dream of using it for writing. It's just not how my writing mind works. I really can't even imagine how I could writing using such software as Scrivener. I can, and have, written novels on a manual typewriter, on an electric typewriter, on an electronic typewriter, on a standalone word processor, and with MS Word when deadlines were extremely tight, Thankfully, I can now write with a fountain pen and just read it into Word, so there's no need to worry about switching to a word processor for a tight deadline.
I think such software is great for those with minds that can function that way. I have no doubt it helps tremendously, though the proof is always in what happens to the finished novel. But I simply can't do it. Strictly for me, if it isn't fun, if it bores me, it turns into work, and I didn't become a writer because I wanted to work. I became a writer so I wouldn't have to work.
Honestly, I'm probably a lazy, shiftless, no account bum who lucked into a way to make money without actually having to take orders, or struggle in trying to build a business, or really to do anything I didn't want to do. If it weren't for writing, I'd most likely be homeless. I would have stayed in the wilderness, fishing, hunting, and foraging for my food, prospecting and trapping for what little money I needed, and would have been content. I did just that for about two years. That's what I had planned for my future until I met my wife to be. I was leaving for Alaska the next day, but I met her in a convenience store, and it was instant love. So writing it was. Turned out to be a wonderful alternative to the wilderness. A great wife and three great boys should be enough to make anyone happy.
But if it weren't for the writing, for being able to write well in the only way my mind works properly, I wouldn't have them.
Is Scrivener still your main writing tool? Thanks for sharing as always, very interesting.
Yes, pretty much invariably. I still use the Freewrite to input many of the scenes early on, but when it comes to collating scenes, editing, and rejigging my stories to get them into shape for the final draft, it's all in Scrivener. I don't know what I'd do without it, to be honest!
Thanks for helpful video. Can Aeon Timeline 3 show multiple timelines? Say you're writing about WW2 and you want a timeline for Churchill and one for FDR, Stalin and Hitler? Thanks.
Almost - you can filter by any of the properties associated with events. Let's say you use Story Arc to show Churchill and events related to him. You can show a timeline with only those events. Of course, an event related to Churchill might also be related to Stalin, so you might get better focus if you filter by person and choose Churchill. Or Churchill and FDR to get all event related to them.
Aeon is wonderfully flexible.
Hi, Izabela, Johnny has answered this better than I could! I still have a lot to learn about this software!
Thanks for that, Johnny - that makes a lot of sense. There's still a lot I have to work out with this, but the software does look really powerful and very useful ... it's just the time to set it all up that is daunting at present!
I don't know whether I just don't have a mind that works that way for fiction, or whether it's just my personality, but I could never bring myself to use any kind of outline. I just start writing, and keep writing until the thing is finished. I can do backstory or anything else without the aid of outlines, or even notes. I don't even want to know what is going to happen on the next page until I write it, and certainly don't want to know how it will end.
To my surprise, when I looked at the writing methods of my twelve favorite writers not too long after I first started writing, eleven of them wrote the same way I do, and the twelfth did a very brief one page outline. I do not count Shakespeare in the twelve I first checked, but he did write some of his longest plays in a fortnight, with a quill pen, and often bragged that he "never blotted a line". I really was afraid that I was the only writer silly enough to write fiction that way.
I've always written one draft with no rewriting or revising, and no editing except for sometimes tightening dialogue. Probably because an article about Robert Heinlein made me decide to write my first story, and this is how he said he wrote everything. For a pre0high school dropout with no knowledge of grammar at all until I read through a grammar book before writing that story it seems like a stupid choice, but it worked and that first 7,500 word short story written in two days sold to the first magazine I sent it to, and paid more than my day job did in a month.
Robert Heinlein or not, though, I think that's just how my mind works. I hate plotting, so I never plotted anything. I hate attempting outlines, which I did try, so I just didn't outlining. My entire procedure has always been to find a title I love, and that title generates the first sentence, and the first sentence generates the story and I don't have to think about anything beyond the sentence I'm writing. It sounds dumb to some, impossible to others, but when you research writers throughout the last, well, since Shakespeare, a big bunch of very good writers worked just this way.
Many of the pulp writers had to work this way, of course, because they had no time at all to do anything except sit down and write a salable first draft with no planning at all. Those who wrote the old time radio programs also had to be fast. I remember reading about one who took a train from the Midwest to California, a two day trip at the time, and he wrote seven finished, ready to go radio dramas in those two days. Some of the pulp writer wrote two novels a month, and a few wrote a novel a week.
I know a science fiction writer who filled a hole in an editors catalog by writing a very, very good 100,000 word novel in three days. He started Friday, and finished it Sunday night. I can't even type that fast.
Because of this, I came to believe that to a large degree, process affects product. I think there's a difference in novels, or short stories, and everything between, if they are written without an outline, without any planning in advance, and fiction that is heavily outlined and planned.
Obviously, both can be excellent, both can, and have, become classics, and as I aged I came to love many writers who outlined heavily, though I still usually preferred those who did not.
But I think they are different types of reads. They certainly seem different to me, largely in pacing, and very often in the amount of side story, and in the large amount of description and narrative. I think it's telling that just about every writer I loved for many years did not outline. I never know this until after I find a new writer I love. Only after I read a writers work and love it do I look up his or her method of writing. Or did. Honestly, I now read more classic novels, or reread my favorite writers of my youth, and far fewer new novels. There are novels, and a handful of nonfiction books, that I've read a dozen times, and I learn something new from each reading.
I have started writing again, though what I can do now remains to be seen. My health is getting worse, not better, not even remaining steady, but you can only play the cards you're dealt, though I would certainly cheat if I could. But I can't so I may as well do my best to use whatever time I have left as well as I can. As a saying we have goes, "If nothing else, it's something to do." Having something to do matters, I think, and while I do many things, I need to do something else, something that matters, and I think writing is it. Bad health, yes, but my mind still works. . .I think. We'll see, I guess.
I always wrote everything with a pencil at first, then with a fountain pen, if the deadline was long enough, and only used a typewriter or word processor if an editor wanted something yesterday. Now I'll just write with a fountain pen because I've found speech to text works just about perfectly with the latest version of MS Word. I've read several short stories into it, and it's just about flawless with almost zero training.
Sorry for rambling on. It's just that I've always been fascinated by how different writers go about what is essentially the same task.
Really interesting, and thanks for the comments.
I have to admit, I've only ever planned one book - my first - and I stopped because it was so obvious to me that since I knew who the murderer was, the way I wrote the story meant any reader would be able to guess too! Since then, all my other 50-odd novels, ten novellas and all the short stories have been written by me sitting at a keyboard with a blank screen. The stories come to me and they are as much a surprise to me as they will be to readers.
However, I'm returning to at least two books a year, and now I need to start seeing how to write more efficiently, I think. This software may not work and I may well return to the old approach. My problem is, with UA-cam and other distractions, I need to get better use out of every minute of every day. I just hope this does work!
Hi Michael, did you eventually write the two books with the help of using this software or did you end up turning back to notebooks and scribbles to make sense of your timelines and characters? I'm considering purchasing it - I tried it a while ago as a demo - and I'm still not sure. Advice greatly appreciated. 😊
Ah - the constant search for helpful software. No, in the end I found it was no good for me. Mainly because you have to spend so long invested in getting every detail right for the software to work effectively. I'm not really a planner, I'm a writer by the seat of my pants, and I've discovered a new software package - Obsidian - which seems to work better for me. I may try to make a video comparing the two early in January. Apologies for taking a while to respond.
Evening Mike , Late on Parade again
Glad you made it!
It’s so hard to see what you are doing. Zoom in. And why you are doing them. Hard to understand.
Sorry, Monalisa. Expect an update (which will be more carefully edited) in January.
@@writerlywitterings Thank you so much. Very useful info. Keep up the good work.
@@RavagesOfHonor My pleasure - I'm getting to grips with the camera, editing videos, as well as the software - and running into a deadline for the next book in January, so it's a little hectic. You know how it is! Have a great Christmas, and best of luck with the writing.