4 ms·
My brother just finished writing a fantasy novel. By the time he was finished, he had created a searchable wiki with every idea, lore snippet, and references lo
by softfalcon 2y ago
My brother just finished writing a fantasy novel. By the time he was finished, he had created a searchable wiki with every idea, lore snippet, and references logged into his note taking app.
As easily as we would google an event in history, he could bring up the tagged items associated to a chapter, world event, or character in his book.
At the late stages, when he was modifying a lot with the help of his publisher/editor, this was worth its weight in gold.
Amazing level of discipline and wisdom choosing to set it up in that way for himself.
I would recommend similar to anyone considering writing a book.
His book was recently published and is sold in stores everywhere under the title “Gods-Forged”.
- dunyakirkali 2y agoVery interesting
- sankumsek 2y agoDo you mind sharing what note taking app it was? I've heard Scrivener alot.
- chrisdbanks 2y agoProbably Obsidian. It's popular for this because of the linking ability.
- softfalcon 2y agoHe was using Evernote and then switched to Google Drive for collaborating with the editor. I’ve in the past, suggested Obsidian. He is interested in trying it out.
- codazoda 2y agoWhat did he use as a wiki?
- softfalcon 2y agoA combination of Evernote and Google Drive. He’s going to look into Obsidian for his next books.
- Nathanba 2y agoYes I've suspected for a long time that this is really what you have to do. Either you are so immersed and have such a good memory that you live in your own fantasy world every day... or reality sets in and you treat fantasy worlds just like the real world, I mean that's what you want after all: For it to feel as real and believable as possible. The real world is pretty complex and full of details, facts and history and lore. Doing this without a database or without treating it like a historical research project is futile. You'd never hope to archive the entire lore and history of e.g the aztek culture in the real world without writing it all down. Hoping against hope that you'd somehow manage to make a believable window into a whole fantasy culture without having a far bigger corpus available at all times so you can adjust that window is futile. After all you have to move that window around for the story to develop and if there is nothing behind it, you constantly have to invent new things adhoc for every millimeter that you moved it. It's too hard.
- umvi 2y agoI wonder if that's what Brandon Sanderson does to keep track of Cosmere details
- becquerel 2y agoYes, except he has a paid team who manage the wiki and keep it updated because his world is so extensive (not joking).
- Terr_ 2y ago> At the late stages, when he was modifying a lot with the help of his publisher/editor, this was worth its weight in gold. I know a developmental editor, and occasionally we bond over the the overlap in our fields of resolving rafts of conflicts between versions of big text datasets. I remember I once showed off Mediawiki as a "just so you know this kind of cross-referencing tool exists", but I think they have their own note-taking strategies.
- vancroft 2y agoThis was such a great pitch for the book, I went ahead and ordered it! With fantasy settings in particular it's crucial to keep the setting consistent, since the book is the only "source of truth" on the matter. This sounds like the way to go. Excited to check it out.
- softfalcon 2y agoWow, I was not expecting that, but thank you so much!