Hi all, I’ve been using Obsidian on and off for about 6 months now. I was mainly using it for notes but now am thinking about using it to outline a novel I began writing 3 years ago but never finished. I’m really considering it because the novel is somewhat complex in structure, with three different timelines that link together in different ways. I’m wondering if anyone has any recommendations on how I could go about outlining the novel with obsidian in a way that I can easily see how the different timelines relate to each other over time while maintaining a good degree of separation so I don’t get them mixed up. Any advice would be much appreciated!
I don’t know if any of the links here address that specific question, but:
Also if you’re on Discord you may want to look in the #creative channel of Obsidian’s server.
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Specifically with the intent to generate a timeline, no. I keep a world wiki inside Obsidian. If I were to outline something in Obsidian, I would do it this way:
- Outline the whole story in one file
- Split that file into chapters and expand outline for each chapter, OR each POV, then split each POV document into chapters
- Create a master outline and pull individual chapters into it using [[wikilinks]], then reareange as needed to come up with a cohesive timeline
3.5. Read the whole thing - Where POV chapters overlap, decide which is going to be the focus POV
- Begin writing.
It really depends on how complex the plotlines are. in most cases, I just use the kanban plugin for my plot and can move stuff around as necessary. You can tag and/or colour code them according to plot (need css snippets to color code).
However, with really complex interweaving plotlines, I found it necessary to use the Canvas or Excallidraw to map them out linearly with arrows
