hi i need some help i got this new note book $20 at chapters indigo i want to use it to take notes down to help me form a novel i want to form a world a theme a plot and characters i started by writing down terminology such as protagonist antagonist character foils and such just to refresh my brain then i plan to take notes of my past "story's" and take notes on what i liked and did not like and what to improve on i also want to look at my poems and pick out sentences and words i can use to maybe describe the world setting or passably find a common theme threw out them to make in to the theme for my novel im just having a hard time putting it all together though i was wondering if anyone could give me some tips on how to bring everything together and take notes
Right, well, first off we need to get some grammar cleared up. Periods are your best friend. I'm not sure you used a single one. Trust me, they really help.
The problem with organizing from a notebook is that you cannot just insert things here and there, and the biggest one: you cannot edit very well without making it sloppy. I would probably make sections designated and labeled first like one for each character and a page or two left for minor characters, label and leave a page or so for each city/town, etc. and then leave the rest blank for me to do general plotting. I add any new information from the plotting into the character and setting locations. It wont be totally neat but it will kind of make it easier to navigate (especially if you reference page #s). I do something like this and then just type it up every night while editing it. It gives me a chance to rethink what I have already thought of and refine the ideas while giving me a more permanent and easier to organize/navigate reference. Hope that gives you some ideas for how to keep the journal.
some good tips from summer... you should probably also add titled tabs to the sections, so you can 'navigate' easily, go back and forth and find what you want without having to leaf through the whole thing...
