i have been randomly inputting data in my vault for a year or so. I am failing to see any value in my efforts. Maybe it is me or my limited use of it as I write a novel, but I have seen lots of stuff about organization, inputs, and techniques but little of practical help to me. I would like to know what I should be looking to extract from my inputs that makes the exercise worthwhile. Any help, particularly from novelists, would be appreciated. Thank you.
There are some plugins out there, not sure of the name, for novelists to organize the metadata of characters, places, themes, to do things like see how many times and what parts of the story a character appeared, what themes are associated with each character and place, etc. This would be helpful to make sure the right characters are fleshed out, find characters that need to be associated more with a theme, make sure the protagonist isn’t appearing less than a secondary character, and more.
Have you looked at the StoryLine plugin? It offers a way to store your series bible, plot, and write in Obsidian.
You might have it a little backward. First, figure out what you want from a tool. Then folks can offer tips on how to achieve it.
Without know what you’d like to extract—or even what struggles sent you searching for solutions—others aren’t going to know better than you what, uh, you’d like to extract.
Starting a task by randomly taking actions without a goal is, sadly, likely to waste time and effort.
People could better help if you either explain what you’re looking for—so folks can offer suggestions or share relevant parts of their writing process—or explain what you’re struggling with—so folks can help you explore what you would find valuable.
For example, if you weren’t having any issues before randomly inputting data, then the solution is probably to stop inputting data.
What’s valuable won’t be the same for someone who’s looking for better ways to resurface forgotten scenes vs. create a series bible vs. track their publishing deadlines vs. write better prose.
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I’m writing my literary novel using Scrivener. I input some of my readings, research, and articles in Obsidian and created a folder with subfolders for relevant concepts discussed in my book, like religion, ships, death, etc. I did not necessarily read them for the book, but after reading, I sometimes thought it might be applicable once I learned more about Obsidian, so I made a note. Now, I have a bunch of what I think are random notes. I can word search in Obsidian, but I can do the same in Scrivener. My brain has not picked up what else can be done, but the youtubes I’ve watched suggest there is a lot I am missing. Does this help explain my predicament?
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