Literature and Latte

Anyone else interested in a feature that allows you to enter a repeating event?

Just as iCal allows me to add an event that repeats on a defined timescale (frequency and end date), so I’d like to do that in Timeline. For example, if my character is born on the 15th May, having their birthday appear (especially if added to a separate, distinct arc easily toggled on and off) automatically for the rest of the calendar would warn me against fixing an event on such an important date. Wedding anniversaries are another example when it is potentially vital for characters to remember, or a major plot feature if they don't. And with a village of characters to control, these dates are potentially really important for a family saga. At the other end of the frequency scale, being reminded that Wednesday afternoon is half-day closing would be a real help.

In addition, I’d like the option of continuing the repeat even after a person's death; anniversaries are still relevant for the living, and potentially even more poignant after a death.

Thanks
Owen

Hi,
I can see a lot of merit in this, but at the same time, I imagine you would want to be fairly judicious in it's use.

If your timeline stretches for a decade, that is potentially 500 events for "close early on Wednesday"! Even birthdays every year could be annoying for a cast of 4-5 characters over 50 years.

Managing that would be tricky, as the timeline already can look pretty cluttered with lots of events.

Anyway, this would obviously be after 1.0 now, as it would be a large amount of work. Happy to keep discussing possibilities and pitfalls for howit would work.

Matt

I just downloaded the program and I'm poking around with it, and I too would love to be able to enter recurring events like birthdays.

Thanks!

I've manually entered repeating events to make sure I didn't have my characters miss something that was important to them, and also to let me keep the context of a regular event that I only show a couple of times in mind. For example, a main character visits his nieces and nephews every week without fail. I only show a couple of the visits, the ones relevant to the plot, but because the visits are important to both parties for non-plot reasons, they will both talk about previous visits sometimes, and when he's forced to miss a couple due to the plot it's a big deal to them all. It let me place events in the plot that the character intended to do around how the character would plan things, and also to disrupt his plans when that was better for the plot! I also marked weekends, because the two main characters were co-workers.

In another story, I marked two characters' shift schedules because if one of you works M-F/9-5, and the other works four 12s and four off, knowing when you're going to be able to meet for drinks gets complicated.

And because it can be a clutter, I put them in a story arc called "recurring events" so I could hide it easily.

(I also had a story arc for who learned what, when, because that was relevant to various plot points as well, in terms of how it affected the characters' actions and decisions.)