Multi-day events in month/year view

Question

I still use a paper year-planner because I can use it to more clearly visualise the shape and pattern of a month's (or the whole year's) major events: conferences, holidays, area meetings, upcoming bank-holidays and so on.
I put everything in my year-planner, but it helps me visualise and plan. When something lasts a few days, I write with large letters across all the days, or even use arrows to show the extent of the event if it's really big. Personal items go in in red, and business in black.
I wondered whether there might be a way to do a similar thing in iCal? Rather than have small text or even (as Outlook used to do) just put a little blue box in the day if anything was scheduled: hopeless if you want to visualise more than a very occasional appointment.
Thanks,
David

Answer 1

I guess I understand now but I don't have an answer.
To paraphrase: you want the effect that you see in week view reflected in month view; start time to end time clearly marked but shrunken in size when displaying the entire month.
I agree it seems natural to view a month that way, and I agree that a start time in month view doesn't really indicate the gravity of what you see in week view. Along the same lines, I wish that there was an option to scroll a week at a time rather than toggle month to month, so I understand what you mean about feeling constrained in what you display. That's the only Outlook feature that I'm a bit jealous of, but even Outlook aggravates me because it won't put the current week into the middle of the screen; I have to scroll every time I open it because the current month is centered like iCal.
Something I've done to make an event more prominent is check the all-day box, then write details of significance, like specific times, into the note. A possible workaround might be to use a colour that stands out for a calendar, that you create specifically to hold and indicate day wrap-around events so you know to toggle week view if you see that colour. Neither elegant.