What are items and tags for?

Both, items and tags, are used to add additional information to a scene, a character or a location.

What is the difference between items and tags?

An item is something that has a weight, e.g. a tool or a vehicle. On the other hand a tag is an abstract information, e.g. a relationship between two characters or an event.

Creating items

We'll start with the easier one, which are items. Here some example what items could be:

• Tools and weapons your characters are using.
• Vehicles your characters are using.
• Artifacts and objects your characters are dealing with.
• Everything else that is important to your story (keep in mind, not abstract things).

To add a new item choose "New item..." from the menu items, or add an entire item collection using "Add items from collections".

• Enter an item name and its category.
• If you've already entered categories before, you can select one from the list of existing categories (click the down arrow to show the list) - or enter a new one.
• An item category may be "Tools" for a hammer, or "Vehicles" for a car, or leave it blank if you're not sure yet.
• Add a description and notes to your item, if you want. Both is shown in the quick information area, if the item selected in the object tree.

As other objects, items can be manage using the dialog "Manage items...".

Making item assignments

To assign an item to a scene, open the dialog "Item assignment" from the menu items:

Select the item from the list, then press "New". A new dialog pops up:

Now select the object you want to assign to the item. Some notes about that:

• The simplest assignment is choosing a single object, e.g. choose only a character, or only a location, or only a scene (the "start scene", leave "end scene" blank). Such item assignments endures "forever", means they are assigned from the start of your story until to the end.
  An example: A character may have the item "glasses" assigned. In the story relevant acts, he is always wearing that glasses. So there is no need to define further restrictions (of course he is not wearing them at night while sleeping, but in this case that is not relevant).
• Some items may not be assigned to a character all the time. That's why there is a second field called "end scene". If you choose both, a start scene and an end scene, the item is assigned to the chosen object from the start scene until to the end scene.
  An example: As we all know, Frodo was not in possession of the ring all the time. Therefore for Frodo we would add an assignment that starts with the scene "The ring finds Frodo" and ends with the scene "Frodo destroys the ring":

• The number of assignments is unlimited. Simply press "new" again to add another assignment.
  For instance: Let's say in your story there is a magical fountain. That fountain magically disappears once in a while. Add a new assignment to the locations where the fountain usually is, and do that for each period it is there. After that the disappearment of the magical fountain can be traced easely using the Memoria Tool.
• As soon as you select the start scene, the scenes from the same strand are shown in the list for the field "end scene". Since a strand defines a line of actions, it is assumed that scenes from other strands wouldn't make sense.
• The item assignments are now shown in the overview list. If not, press the refresh button. The item overview list also shows the period(s) of all assignments made to an item.
• To edit existing assignments double-click on a item in the list or press the edit button.
• To remove all (!) item assignments of a selected item, press the button "Delete item assignments".
• If you remove an item, all assignments made for that item will be removed, too.

Where are the limits of items and tags?

Although there is no (technical) limit, only items and tags that are relevant for the entire story should be added. It doesn’t make sense to add everything ever mentioned in a scene. The big strength of items and tags is their tracing using the Memoria Tool. Things used only once in one single scene are probably not that important for tracing.
 

Continue with Part 2