Canvas

Relationships

The three ways to connect cards, relationship names, and relationships that change by chapter.

Cards on the canvas can be connected to each other. What a link means depends on what you connect. Connect two characters and you get their relationship. Connect a character to an event and it means they appear in that scene.

Kinds of links

There's no field for choosing a kind of link. Whether each end is a memo or an event is the kind.

What you connect	What it means	Name	Where it shows in the panel
Memo and memo	The relationship between two memos	You give it a relationship name	“Relationships”
Event and memo	The memo appears in the event	None	“Related memos” on the event, “Related events” on the memo
Event and event	Events tied to each other	None	“Related events”

Links have no direction. Connecting Elizabeth to Darcy and connecting Darcy to Elizabeth is the same link. Two cards can only have one link between them, so connecting two cards that are already connected doesn't add another one.

Memo and memo: a relationship

Connect two memos that aren't events, like characters, places, rules or clues, and you get a relationship. You can give it a relationship name, like “sisters” for Elizabeth and Jane, or “enemies” for Darcy and Wickham. You can also leave the name blank. How to name it is covered separately below.

Elizabeth pressed. Each connected memo takes on a color, and the relationship name sits on the other card.

Event and memo: they appear in that scene

Connect a character or a place to an event and it means that memo appears in that event. For example, connect Elizabeth, Darcy and Rosings to “The Proposal at Rosings.” This link has no name. What they did in that scene and where they stood go in the event's body or under By chapter (memo).

The event “Wickham's Grievance” pressed. Only the memos that appear in that scene light up, and their first letters show in the small circles on the event card too.

This link affects chapters as well. When an event is placed in a chapter's plot, the memos that appear in it come into that chapter with it. An event card in a plot carries the first letters of the memos that appear in it as small circles, so you can tell who's in it from the card alone. More in Chapters and plot.

Connecting a clue to an event is laying foreshadowing. While a clue card is connected to only one event, it has a strip of masking tape on top. Once it's connected to a second event and pays off, the tape turns into a tape mark. More on clues in Memos and tags.

When one event interlocks with another, connect the two. In Pride and Prejudice, “Wickham's Grievance” and “Darcy and Wickham's Past” are like that, because the story Wickham tells runs into what really happened. Related events have no name and no direction. How they tangle goes in the two events' bodies.

Two events connected as related events. Press one and a line runs to the other.

You don't need to connect events to show order. The chapter's plot already shows the order.

Making a link

Drag a card onto another card and drop it, and the two are connected. Drop it in the middle of the card. Drop it near the card's edge and it goes into the spot beside it, which changes the order.

What onto what	What happens
Memo → memo	The two memos get a relationship
Memo → event	The memo appears in that event
Event → memo	The memo appears in that event
Event → event	The two events are connected as related events

On a phone, hold a card for a moment to pick it up. Drag and drop and moving with the keyboard are in Using the canvas.

Event and memo, and event and event, are connected the moment you drop. Drop a memo onto a memo and a small window with both memo names appears first. Type a name in the “Relationship” field and press “Create” to connect them. Create with the field empty and you get a relationship without a name.

Drop two memos that are already connected onto each other again and the window says “Already joined,” and lists the names given so far in order. The button becomes “Save,” and the name you type replaces the name in that place.

Naming relationships

A relationship name is a word or two for what the two are to each other. Like sisters, siblings, sworn foes, enemies, ex, friends, married couple, engaged, or aunt and nephew. If the name brings to mind right away what the two are to each other, that's enough.

The backstory doesn't go in the name. It goes in the memo body. A few examples give you the idea.

When you want to write	Relationship name	The rest
Exes who split up five years ago	ex	When and why they split goes in the body
They meet again	reunion	Don't end it with a sentence or a verb
Probably father and son	father and son	How sure it is goes in the body or under By chapter
Big sister	sisters	What they call each other isn't a relationship
Secretly in love with Sora	unrequited love	Don't put the other person's name in it

Relationships have no direction, so a name that reads the same from both sides works best. “Big sister” is only true from one side, but “sisters” is true from either.

Relationships that change by chapter

As the story moves on, relationships change too. In PenPick you give a relationship a separate name for each chapter to keep track of that change.

The name you give when you first connect them is the Outside chapters name. It's the name shown in the “Whole work” box at the top, and every chapter uses it until a chapter gives its own name.

When a relationship changes in some chapter, drop the two cards in that chapter onto each other again. Drop onto a card inside a chapter and the window shows an “As its name from {chapter} on” checkbox. Turn it on and type the new name, and that name is used from that chapter until the next name comes along. Leave it off and the Outside chapters name changes.

Keep Elizabeth pressed and move through the chapters. The relationship name on Darcy and the two memos' By chapter entries change from chapter to chapter. Chapters 2 and 5 don't give their own names, so they carry on the name from the chapter before.

For chapters where the relationship doesn't change, like Chapters 2 and 5, leave them empty and the previous chapter's name carries on. You only need to give a name in the chapters where it changes.

Editing names in the panel

Press a memo card and the “Relationships” section of its panel lists each connected memo. Each one has an “Outside chapters” name, and any names given in chapters sit below it in chapter order. Edit a name and leave the field or press Enter to save.

Clear a chapter's name and that chapter goes back to following the previous chapter's name (or the Outside chapters name if there's none). You can't add a name for a new chapter in the panel. Drop the cards onto each other inside that chapter, as described above.

Lines you see when you press a card

Normally the canvas only shows the flow lines running along each chapter's plot. Links show up when you press a card. Only the cards connected to the pressed card light up, and the rest fade.

Press a memo and each memo it has a relationship with gets a colored border. Each one has its own color, so when you press Elizabeth, Jane, Darcy and Charlotte each show in a different color. On the top edge of each card, the relationship name hangs like a tag in that color, and a dotted line of the same color runs from the pressed card to it. The relationship name sits on the other card, not on the line.

Chapter 2 with Elizabeth pressed. Darcy gets “sworn foes,” Jane “sisters,” and Charlotte “friends.”

Lines and names are drawn separately for each chapter. In every chapter where both memos are, they're connected with that chapter's name. So if you keep Elizabeth pressed and go down through the chapters, the tag on Darcy's card changes from “sworn foes” to “rejected suitor” to “lovers.” In the “Whole work” box, a line is drawn when there's an Outside chapters name, or when the two memos have never been in the same chapter.

The events the memo appears in light up too, and in each chapter a short dotted line runs between the memo card and those event cards. The pressed memo's card in the “Whole work” box also shows how many chapters and events it appears in.

Press an event and the memos that appear in it light up, and inside the chapter short dotted lines run between the event card and those memos. If it has related events, a line in another color runs to them.

Removing links

To remove a link, press a card to open its panel. Each row in the “Relationships,” “Related memos” and “Related events” sections has an × on the right. Press it and the link between the two is removed. For a relationship between two memos, the names given in each chapter go with it.

If you removed one by mistake, “Undo” brings it back, names and all. Press the name in a row and the other card opens.

Choosing what to connect

Everything in a work is connected somehow. But connect it all and pressing a card lights up everything, so nothing stands out. Ask whether you'd lose something without this link, and connect only when you would.

Don't connect a background many things share. “Marriage by Rank and Fortune” reaches almost every character. Instead of connecting it to each one, write in the memo body who is tangled up in it and how. The same goes for a city or an era everyone lives in.
Connect only what actually appears in an event. A character who is only mentioned in a scene's dialogue isn't connected.
Don't connect events just for order. The plot shows what comes before and after. Connect them only when one event interlocks with another.
Connect a clue to the event where it first appears and the event where it comes back. A clue connected only once stays marked as not yet paid off.