# General note taking on story idea(s)



## Masronyx (Dec 14, 2011)

I am curious, what is the best way to keep track of all your notes on your characters, plot line, places, world, etc?  How do you organize all of the notes/drafts for your stories?  A friend of mine suggested using index cards.  Right now I'm wanting to use a binder for each story, then use dividers for sections, (characters, places, outlines, draft, etc.) 

I am curious as to how other people keep record and keep their ideas as organized as possible. I appreciate the input and advice.


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## writeshiek33 (Dec 14, 2011)

i use mynovel 4.0 a writing software MyNovel 4.0: Inspirational novel writing software for Windows for an unorganized individual like myself this a dream


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Dec 14, 2011)

I just have a gigantic (56k words and counting) notes document that I manage in OpenOffice. It's got sections for characters, chapters, story elements (I tend to work out story problems by writing stream-of-consciousness analysis), and world-building, each of which are broken down into many sub-sections. It works well for me, but it might be overwhelming for some folks to have everything laid out this way.


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## Telcontar (Dec 14, 2011)

I also just keep documents of notes. I only write down the fairly detailed stuff, though - I figure if I easily forget something I'd thought of, then it wasn't worth putting in in the first place. Sort of like a time-delay filter. If it's good enough to write, it'll be good enough to remember.


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## Wormtongue (Dec 14, 2011)

I keep a section at the end of my WIP with my notes.  Story outline, timeline, characters, places, misc.  I also keep a small notebook on me at all times to jot down thoughts and ideas.  I was just using it today.

Unlike Telcontar I am quite capable of forgetting even GREAT ideas, so I write it all down.  If it looks as good when I read it next week then I'll use it.  I guess you could say that's my version of the time filter.


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## Sparkie (Dec 15, 2011)

I record notes in a rather stupid way, I think.  I'll be sitting with my laptop in front of me to write, and I'll jot things down in a notebook or legal pad to the right side of my keyboard.  I dunno.  Whatever works, I guess.  I make it harder on myself than it needs to be, really, especially since I have *abysmal* handwriting skills.


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## Devor (Dec 15, 2011)

I keep a OneNote file on most things.  It's kind of a neat program because of the way it's organized.  I find it useful for the worldbuilding, less so for characters and plots.

I know people who have had luck organizing their work in PowerPoint the same way you would index cards.  I've tried both but couldn't get my brain working that way.


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## JCFarnham (Dec 15, 2011)

Combination of a Evernote notebooks, real note books, openoffice and Scrivener.

The dream is to condense that down to just Evernote and Scrivener for my next project.


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## Masronyx (Dec 15, 2011)

Sparkie said:


> I record notes in a rather stupid way, I think.  I'll be sitting with my laptop in front of me to write, and I'll jot things down in a notebook or legal pad to the right side of my keyboard.  I dunno.  Whatever works, I guess.  I make it harder on myself than it needs to be, really, especially since I have *abysmal* handwriting skills.



I learned a long time ago to keep a notebook for ideas.  I tried to have one notebook for each story idea, but too many notebooks accumulated.  Now I just have one for any idea that comes to mind, whether it's for this story or that one.


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## Telcontar (Dec 15, 2011)

Used to keep a notebook. Now I just a Droid note app.

Also, does anyone else insert little reminders themselves in the actual story on read throughts? I forgot how often I did it until I opened up an older story and reading through it there were dozens of little bolded notes. Also, past me wasn't particularly helpful. One note read simply: *"This sucks. Rewrite."*


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## Masronyx (Dec 15, 2011)

Devor said:


> I keep a OneNote file on most things.  It's kind of a neat program because of the way it's organized.  I find it useful for the worldbuilding, less so for characters and plots.
> 
> I know people who have had luck organizing their work in PowerPoint the same way you would index cards.  I've tried both but couldn't get my brain working that way.




I have never heard of using power point, though I can kinda see how it would work.  One presentation for a certain category,then each slide containing notes.  I have OneNote, and I should use it more.  

I've always hand wrote EVERYTHING.  I find it a hard habit to break.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Dec 15, 2011)

Telcontar said:


> Used to keep a notebook. Now I just a Droid note app.
> 
> Also, does anyone else insert little reminders themselves in the actual story on read throughts? I forgot how often I did it until I opened up an older story and reading through it there were dozens of little bolded notes. Also, past me wasn't particularly helpful. One note read simply: *"This sucks. Rewrite."*



I ended up with a whole bunch of "*TODO*" in my drafts, probably because I'm a programmer ;-)


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## Devor (Dec 15, 2011)

Masronyx said:


> I have never heard of using power point, though I can kinda see how it would work.  One presentation for a certain category,then each slide containing notes.  I have OneNote, and I should use it more.
> 
> I've always hand wrote EVERYTHING.  I find it a hard habit to break.



I think the advantage they were talking about was in visualizing their story in the multi-slide view.  If each slide is a scenes or chapter or event they can rearrange them pretty easily and see where the gaps were.


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## Telcontar (Dec 15, 2011)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> I ended up with a whole bunch of "*TODO*" in my drafts, probably because I'm a programmer ;-)



Heh, also a programmer. My story outlines all look like pseudocode.


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## Ravana (Dec 16, 2011)

Naah, they only begin to look like pseudocode if you start including a whole bunch of GOSUBs. 

I wouldn't even try to "break" the habit of handwritten notes. I find that my written and typed notes end up looking completely different… in particular, that when typing they end up being less "notes" and more "fragments." (I also realized, just recently, that I can't compose poetry effectively on the keyboard, only in written drafts.) 

As for how I keep notes for a given prose piece: I tend to have separate documents for the notes and the text, so that I can easily keep both open side-by-side. I find this easier than putting notes in a subroutine of the same document, since that way I don't have to decide _where_ in the document the note needs to go.

Yes, I do put notes within the text as well, as reminders. I'm always careful to frame these out–I use doubled square brackets: [[ note ]]. That way, I can find them on a simple text search, so that I can be _sure_ I've got them all cleared out before I send the thing off.


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## Masronyx (Dec 16, 2011)

For some reason, typed notes in Word looks and feels weird to me.  I've done it, but abandoned the idea soon after.
I have stacks and stacks of notes and drafts that have accumulated over the years. Sometimes I go back and reread them for nostalgia sake.

I just need to organize my notes, but I don't want to spend so much time on the notes themselves that I never get around to writing the manuscript.  I've always written notes/ideas as I went, now I'd like to get as much note written as possible then start the manuscript, with additional notes as it goes.  That way, I'm not writing myself into a corner as much with me sitting there wondering who in the heck is this character I just introduced out of the blue, or where is my protagonist going all of a sudden! 





Ravana said:


> Naah, they only begin to look like pseudocode if you start including a whole bunch of GOSUBs.
> 
> I wouldn't even try to "break" the habit of handwritten notes. I find that my written and typed notes end up looking completely different… in particular, that when typing they end up being less "notes" and more "fragments." (I also realized, just recently, that I can't compose poetry effectively on the keyboard, only in written drafts.)
> 
> ...


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## InsanityStrickenWriter (Dec 17, 2011)

I just use Wordpad for note files. It's simple and doesn't pester me about grammar and spelling, but it's not so simple as to be notepad, where it'll just keep typing horizontally into infinity without my say-so.


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## Neurosis (Dec 17, 2011)

I write class definitions for all my characters. Divide all my chapters into procedures. Use doxygen to comment each paragraph. I deal with secondary characters using generics. I create all my setting descriptions using OpenGL, and all my audio descriptions with OpenAL. I use pure functional programming to simulate magic. I use a python scripting front end for dialogue. I write all my stories in vim on a unix shell. I use an O algorithm for world building (where n is the number of worlds). If I want everyone to be able to read my stories, I write them in Java to ensure portability, otherwise I use C++ for the sake of efficiency. I code the important scenes in assembly language. I use a hash table to organize chapters. I use a red-black binary tree to search for particular words. I save my stories with an efficient B-TREE index on Oracle DB.

Another programmer here.

I actually just use a small note-pad -- I keep it in my back pocket.


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## Masronyx (Dec 17, 2011)

I can tell  I have a friend (a second mom, actually) who teaches that as a part time job. She's a systems analysis full time.  She tried to tell me a little bit about C++ and Python from her curriculum... went right over my head. 

By the way, this REPLY went over my head. LOL!




Neurosis said:


> I write class definitions for all my characters. Divide all my chapters into procedures. Use doxygen to comment each paragraph. I deal with secondary characters using generics. I create all my setting descriptions using OpenGL, and all my audio descriptions with OpenAL. I use pure functional programming to simulate magic. I use a python scripting front end for dialogue. I write all my stories in vim on a unix shell. I use an O algorithm for world building (where n is the number of worlds). If I want everyone to be able to read my stories, I write them in Java to ensure portability, otherwise I use C++ for the sake of efficiency. I code the important scenes in assembly language. I use a hash table to organize chapters. I use a red-black binary tree to search for particular words. I save my stories with an efficient B-TREE index on Oracle DB.
> 
> Another programmer here.
> 
> I actually just use a small note-pad -- I keep it in my back pocket.


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## Masronyx (Dec 17, 2011)

Here's another thought, I wonder if anyone's used the Microsoft program Access...everything is organized into tables and databases...

I hate that program by the way.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Dec 17, 2011)

Neurosis said:


> I write class definitions for all my characters. Divide all my chapters into procedures. Use doxygen to comment each paragraph. I deal with secondary characters using generics. I create all my setting descriptions using OpenGL, and all my audio descriptions with OpenAL. I use pure functional programming to simulate magic. I use a python scripting front end for dialogue. I write all my stories in vim on a unix shell. I use an O algorithm for world building (where n is the number of worlds). If I want everyone to be able to read my stories, I write them in Java to ensure portability, otherwise I use C++ for the sake of efficiency. I code the important scenes in assembly language. I use a hash table to organize chapters. I use a red-black binary tree to search for particular words. I save my stories with an efficient B-TREE index on Oracle DB.
> 
> Another programmer here.
> 
> I actually just use a small note-pad -- I keep it in my back pocket.



I just about died laughing reading this.


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## Shadoe (Dec 17, 2011)

Telcontar said:


> Also, does anyone else insert little reminders themselves in the actual story on read throughts? I forgot how often I did it until I opened up an older story and reading through it there were dozens of little bolded notes. Also, past me wasn't particularly helpful. One note read simply: *"This sucks. Rewrite."*



I do this all the time. I like to keep going when I'm trying to complete a thought, and when the thoughts start piling up on me I have to put them somewhere. And yes, "This is crap, rewrite" appears more often than I'd like.


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## Shadoe (Dec 17, 2011)

Masronyx said:


> Here's another thought, I wonder if anyone's used the Microsoft program Access...everything is organized into tables and databases...



this is the one I use. All the time.


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## Masronyx (Dec 18, 2011)

Update:  I've started using Notebook like some of you do, and I like it, oddly...
I say oddly, because, like I've stated before, I'm used to writing everything longhand.
I'm not going to stop drafting longhand though....


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## ShortHair (Dec 19, 2011)

Ravana said:


> I wouldn't even try to "break" the habit of handwritten notes. I find that my written and typed notes end up looking completely different… in particular, that when typing they end up being less "notes" and more "fragments." ...
> As for how I keep notes for a given prose piece: I tend to have separate documents for the notes and the text, so that I can easily keep both open side-by-side. I find this easier than putting notes in a subroutine of the same document, since that way I don't have to decide _where_ in the document the note needs to go.
> 
> Yes, I do put notes within the text as well, as reminders. I'm always careful to frame these out–I use doubled square brackets: [[ note ]]. That way, I can find them on a simple text search, so that I can be _sure_ I've got them all cleared out before I send the thing off.



Separated at birth....

My notes tend to go through cycles of growth and mitosis. If they retain my interest long enough to grow beyond a sentence or two, they get a separate piece of paper. If they get bigger than a handful of pages, they go in a file. If they outgrow the file, they split into several files. Eventually there's a file for old pages that got replaced by new pages.

Actual writing happens in a word processor. There used to be a program called FrameWork (late 80s), the best organizer I've ever seen, <googles it> and it's still around in a barely recognizable version.

Representing all that in programming terms is left as an exercise.


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## Masronyx (Dec 19, 2011)

I'm still carrying a notebook around for ideas that pop up out of nowhere. I think OneNote will be used to get them all organized to a point.


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