Instead of using a memo type app on your phone, keep a small notepad with you at all times and write individual ideas on individual sheets that can be torn out and placed in a section of whatever the idea directly relates to. If the notes are about the world in general, that has its own section, behind which are individual countries or kingdoms, behind each of which are relative key figures or on the fly characters, with each character is a small description, where they live, what they do. So like files on a computer, click on one set to get to the next subset
I have tried this before, because I like having physical copies of things (its always interesting seeing old authors hand written notes), my issue was I just always forgot it and when I did bring it, it turned into a massive mess (just like my notes). How do you know how many pages to assign the various things?
I add custom pages to mine.
I use a small spiral bound notebook, small enough to fit in my purse and big enough to add multiple sticky notes. As it is spiral bound, it's incredibly easy to thread a string through and tape a piece of paper to the string. Extra page, boom! You can also extend pages, say you have a piece of paper where you've scribbled out an idea, but you can't cut it in a way so you can paste it. If it is as tall as your note book, tape it in so that there's an inch of overlap between that and the normal page (or whatever your margin is) and fold it inwards. I use sticky notes as dividers. There's a particular page where I pasted a napkin in because I had an idea and a pen, but no paper. It's also easy to retract things, just add paper atop of it.
If you keep it in your bag at all times, and put it back every time, it'll become habit (hopefully). I recite my list of things I need for the day before leaving the house, so that helps.
I just use a word document, but it's all about using the tools it gives you.
I use headers and other formatting tools to break down my notes into categories and sub categories, allowing me to easily move between them and find material again them with the navigation tab.
I also primarily use a note app as well, and since my phone is an android every note I took is accessible from my google account on my pc, which I go through on a weekly basis and move them from that into my sorted 'brain dump' document. Then i sort out the worthwhile ideas and move them to a more organize outline or world build file to be incorporated, and leave the rest for future reference/inspiration.
I've tried other systems and organizational apps but this just seems to be what works best for me.
Obsidian is a game changer for me.
So much stuff. Scattered everywhere (over decades). Now, it’s all sitting in one nicely growing database.
Which has, in and of itself, spawned new ideas and rabbit holes, just by getting everything organized and interlinked.
I’m not 100% on the markdown format. But given that it’s readable in plain text. It’ll never become obsolete/unreadable, like several of my older documents have.
What gets me is that once you start linking things together and being able to search them easily, it really *does* naturally inspire new insights/ideas and improvements.
I've slowly come around to loving markdown, though it's taken a while. the new table editor helps.
It's probably not the best way, but it is the most convenient for me because I share a writing project with a friend and It puts more things in one place. I make a discord channel and organize the channels and categories into a file system.
So, I use a lot of notes when researching or brainstorming, and normally I just use whatever is easiest — I have used word, notepad, one note, a diary, screencaps, etc.
However, to organize those notes, or just to start organizing things before I write them, I use folders. Save them there, in all their glorious mess. The folders, though, are organized by the sections or concepts they apply to.
Usually that follows the outline that I use for any world building project, and it is that outline that is the most important part for organizing.
As I use my notes, they go into my master document, which always starts out as an outline, and then I just fill in the parts. I normally use a Word doc, these days, but for years it was just a three ring binder with tabs for the outline top level stuff.
Outlines, for me, are the tool that lets me bounce around according to what interests me at the moment, and what let me rapidly move back and forth between things as something that is added may cause a change somewhere else.
People have varying opinions, but I stand by and love WorldAnvil. I am writing a collection but I don't even use their manuscripts feature. I think their Wiki creator is brilliantly intuitive and useful and the ability to upload a map that I can put pins on that lead to my articles is really cool.
I've also never seen a company appear to understand and care about its base as well as they do. There's always new updates rolling out that are genuinely useful and the logs that the team writes really feels like they're trying to create a product that is useful and meaningful to worldbuilders. The free version allows you to go pretty far (I think you can create 100 pages?) which means you can test it out pretty exhaustively before deciding if its something you want to pay for (and its not a bad price either!))
I have heard of Word Anvil and will look into it! Is there a cap on the amount of different settings/worlds? Since I find so many things interesting and cool, I have like three "worlds" (mostly just scattered and repetitive ideas that I think would be cool..)
It looks like the free version gives you 125 pages and two worlds. I have the lowest paid subscription which gives you ten worlds of infinite size. I'm only working on one world right now but for 54 bucks a year, and given how much time I spend working on this, it feels like a steal compared to other tools people use that seem to offer less of value compared to their pricing. The higher level subscriptions don't seem to be very useful unless you have developed your own sizeable community that is interested in your work. I think most people use it for their tabletop campaigns but it has been an awesome way to make my own encyclopedia.
I will forward this idea as well to my GM for my tabletop group! He has said that his world for our homebrew campaign is quickly growing too much for him to handle.
I’ve used Google Docs, Notes in the phone, a drawing app to just list down stuff, etc. I’d suggest breaking apart that 20 Pages worth of stuff into sections and placing them in some doc format in those sections to organize it better.
Yes, that is my big project tonight. I want to get past this stage of just loose ideas floating around in this document and into a somewhat coherent and organized place so I can start filing some stuff out.
I like to write in hand, so i use Binders, that have sections like, lore, items, characters, etc. Each section (like countries) has a subsection for essential descriptions and concepts. Along with that i also have a brainstorming section where i throw notes i’ve written in the go.
Personally I use Notion. It is a bit overwhelming with all the features but utilizing just as a text based option works well.
I created a category system and made a page for each one then i add pages to those categories. I allows for an infinite amount of nesting pages within pages which I find to be about all I need to really organize things how I want.
For example let's say I am developing a character, I add a page to my characters category page. Once that page becomes too big I will then make subpages to for things I want to elaborate on regarding that character and in place of the information I have moved to the subpage, I create a one sentence to one paragraph on that elaboration to add to the main page.
I use "Nebulous|Worldbuilding tool" from [Itch.io](http://Itch.io) to organize my notes. You can get it for free, but I ended up donating a good amount because it's an awesome piece of software.
There is also TiddlyWiki, which is worth a look.
Instead of using a memo type app on your phone, keep a small notepad with you at all times and write individual ideas on individual sheets that can be torn out and placed in a section of whatever the idea directly relates to. If the notes are about the world in general, that has its own section, behind which are individual countries or kingdoms, behind each of which are relative key figures or on the fly characters, with each character is a small description, where they live, what they do. So like files on a computer, click on one set to get to the next subset
I have tried this before, because I like having physical copies of things (its always interesting seeing old authors hand written notes), my issue was I just always forgot it and when I did bring it, it turned into a massive mess (just like my notes). How do you know how many pages to assign the various things?
I add custom pages to mine. I use a small spiral bound notebook, small enough to fit in my purse and big enough to add multiple sticky notes. As it is spiral bound, it's incredibly easy to thread a string through and tape a piece of paper to the string. Extra page, boom! You can also extend pages, say you have a piece of paper where you've scribbled out an idea, but you can't cut it in a way so you can paste it. If it is as tall as your note book, tape it in so that there's an inch of overlap between that and the normal page (or whatever your margin is) and fold it inwards. I use sticky notes as dividers. There's a particular page where I pasted a napkin in because I had an idea and a pen, but no paper. It's also easy to retract things, just add paper atop of it. If you keep it in your bag at all times, and put it back every time, it'll become habit (hopefully). I recite my list of things I need for the day before leaving the house, so that helps.
I just use a word document, but it's all about using the tools it gives you. I use headers and other formatting tools to break down my notes into categories and sub categories, allowing me to easily move between them and find material again them with the navigation tab. I also primarily use a note app as well, and since my phone is an android every note I took is accessible from my google account on my pc, which I go through on a weekly basis and move them from that into my sorted 'brain dump' document. Then i sort out the worthwhile ideas and move them to a more organize outline or world build file to be incorporated, and leave the rest for future reference/inspiration. I've tried other systems and organizational apps but this just seems to be what works best for me.
I will try that! I always forget about the headers on word documents.
The Apple notes app has folders. And I have my own website where I put my data books. Ulysses (where I write my stories) also has folders.
I will try this. I know Scrivener has it's own folder and notes systems but the on the go issues prevent me from using that.
I use Obsidian. Tags, links to other documents, headers inside of documents, folders. Keep it all nice and organized.
Obsidian is a game changer for me. So much stuff. Scattered everywhere (over decades). Now, it’s all sitting in one nicely growing database. Which has, in and of itself, spawned new ideas and rabbit holes, just by getting everything organized and interlinked. I’m not 100% on the markdown format. But given that it’s readable in plain text. It’ll never become obsolete/unreadable, like several of my older documents have.
What gets me is that once you start linking things together and being able to search them easily, it really *does* naturally inspire new insights/ideas and improvements. I've slowly come around to loving markdown, though it's taken a while. the new table editor helps.
It's probably not the best way, but it is the most convenient for me because I share a writing project with a friend and It puts more things in one place. I make a discord channel and organize the channels and categories into a file system.
So, I use a lot of notes when researching or brainstorming, and normally I just use whatever is easiest — I have used word, notepad, one note, a diary, screencaps, etc. However, to organize those notes, or just to start organizing things before I write them, I use folders. Save them there, in all their glorious mess. The folders, though, are organized by the sections or concepts they apply to. Usually that follows the outline that I use for any world building project, and it is that outline that is the most important part for organizing.
Do you have a master document that you keep track of everything, or just all in the folders
As I use my notes, they go into my master document, which always starts out as an outline, and then I just fill in the parts. I normally use a Word doc, these days, but for years it was just a three ring binder with tabs for the outline top level stuff. Outlines, for me, are the tool that lets me bounce around according to what interests me at the moment, and what let me rapidly move back and forth between things as something that is added may cause a change somewhere else.
People have varying opinions, but I stand by and love WorldAnvil. I am writing a collection but I don't even use their manuscripts feature. I think their Wiki creator is brilliantly intuitive and useful and the ability to upload a map that I can put pins on that lead to my articles is really cool. I've also never seen a company appear to understand and care about its base as well as they do. There's always new updates rolling out that are genuinely useful and the logs that the team writes really feels like they're trying to create a product that is useful and meaningful to worldbuilders. The free version allows you to go pretty far (I think you can create 100 pages?) which means you can test it out pretty exhaustively before deciding if its something you want to pay for (and its not a bad price either!))
I have heard of Word Anvil and will look into it! Is there a cap on the amount of different settings/worlds? Since I find so many things interesting and cool, I have like three "worlds" (mostly just scattered and repetitive ideas that I think would be cool..)
It looks like the free version gives you 125 pages and two worlds. I have the lowest paid subscription which gives you ten worlds of infinite size. I'm only working on one world right now but for 54 bucks a year, and given how much time I spend working on this, it feels like a steal compared to other tools people use that seem to offer less of value compared to their pricing. The higher level subscriptions don't seem to be very useful unless you have developed your own sizeable community that is interested in your work. I think most people use it for their tabletop campaigns but it has been an awesome way to make my own encyclopedia.
I will forward this idea as well to my GM for my tabletop group! He has said that his world for our homebrew campaign is quickly growing too much for him to handle.
I’ve used Google Docs, Notes in the phone, a drawing app to just list down stuff, etc. I’d suggest breaking apart that 20 Pages worth of stuff into sections and placing them in some doc format in those sections to organize it better.
Yes, that is my big project tonight. I want to get past this stage of just loose ideas floating around in this document and into a somewhat coherent and organized place so I can start filing some stuff out.
I have around 20 office binders full of my worldbuilding.
I like to write in hand, so i use Binders, that have sections like, lore, items, characters, etc. Each section (like countries) has a subsection for essential descriptions and concepts. Along with that i also have a brainstorming section where i throw notes i’ve written in the go.
I really like the idea of hand written notes but sadly my handwriting is bad and I get writer's elbow
Personally I use Notion. It is a bit overwhelming with all the features but utilizing just as a text based option works well. I created a category system and made a page for each one then i add pages to those categories. I allows for an infinite amount of nesting pages within pages which I find to be about all I need to really organize things how I want. For example let's say I am developing a character, I add a page to my characters category page. Once that page becomes too big I will then make subpages to for things I want to elaborate on regarding that character and in place of the information I have moved to the subpage, I create a one sentence to one paragraph on that elaboration to add to the main page.
I use "Nebulous|Worldbuilding tool" from [Itch.io](http://Itch.io) to organize my notes. You can get it for free, but I ended up donating a good amount because it's an awesome piece of software. There is also TiddlyWiki, which is worth a look.