For the past two and a half years, I've been writing a sci-fi novel. One of the reasons it took me so much time and I haven't even published the first book of the series, was finding the right place to store and organize all my thoughts and ideas.
Like most beginner authors, I started with a blank document on Google Docs. But as I kept writing the book and the story progressed, everything from the characters and locations to events and dates grew to a point where I found myself looking at a document with hundreds of comments and notes. Unlike other writers, my mind can't work like that, and looking at my document was enough to make me procrastinate and pause the writing for a few weeks.
I started looking for apps that I could use for worldbuilding and novel outlining, and I found quite a few options. First, the king: Scrivener. This is what most professional career authors recommend for every beginner, and after a good week of using it (that's how long their free trial gives you), I knew that Scrivener wasn't it. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty good and powerful and all, but not as customizable as I wanted it to be. I wanted something simpler, yet as powerful as Scrivener, but minimal enough to reduce the chaos I felt I was living with my novel.
First, I tried creating my own software, a native app that fully supported Markdown, and it could have everything I wanted, exactly how I wanted it to be. But as many programmers/developers know, creating, maintaining, and making sure such a program actually works is far from easy. But it wasn't the coding part that I was afraid of, but how much time I'd have to invest in building it.
Time was in essence, because I had just switched my career and focused on becoming what I had always dreamed of: a full-time author. But the only thing that was stopping me was me, unable to find a way to store my thoughts and ideas that my mind would appreciate. Because, you know, if it doesn't, I don't get those beautiful creativity boosts that it gives me every day.
That's when I found Obsidian, and let me tell you, it was love at first sight. Sure, it came with a learning curve, especially for me, who kept looking at their developer docs, but I knew it was the perfect app for what I needed.
So I built my own Vault and put everything there. As time went by, I kept improving it and adding whatever I needed. I kept things simple, used a minimal theme, and made sure that everything was well-linked. And after a while, I thought of sharing it on my Medium.com blog for authors who may find it interesting.
And my oh my, do they found it interesting.
Currently, it has over 180+ downloads on Gumroad alone, and a 5-star rating from a total of 6 reviews. People sent me a lot of feedback, and I've already released two versions of it. I'll continue updating, and the next version is gonna be even better after all the emails I've gotten from people who downloaded it.
It's also closing on making $100 in donations, which is something I never believed I'd see - and for which I'm so grateful, as it supports me to continue focusing on my dream.
With that in mind, say hello to 'The Novelist', a free and open-source Vault for Obsidian that's designed for novel writing and worldbuilding. Although it wasn't designed for non-fiction writers, you can easily adjust it to your needs.
Here's everything you need to know about this Vault.
1. Worldbuilding with Canvas
There's nothing special about this one if you've already been using it. Canvas is a built-in plugin that every Obsidian user can enable or disable, but few know how powerful it is for worldbuilding.
This Canvas includes everything my book and story do, including the book's title and description, characters and locations overviews, ideas, notes, to-do lists, and everything else I feel like putting there. You can probably improve it and make it even better, as I did on my novel's vault, but for demo purposes, I kept it simple.
2. Colorful File Explorer
Obsidian's 'File Explorer' is located on the left side, and it's the place where all your folders, files, and documents are located. I didn't want to have to scroll through hundreds of those, so I organized everything as simply as I could.
The structure:
Chapters
Includes a document called "All Chapters" and, just below it, you can find all the chapters separated individually (e.g, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, and so on). I keep the 'All Chapters' document as my backup and move each chapter I fully complete there. At the end, it's a process of exporting/copying the whole document and importing it into Atticus, Vellum, etc.
Characters
This is where your characters are located. If you have just a few characters, you can have them all inside this folder, or organize them into folders if you have lots of them. Each character has a few details that you can fill in, such as name, nickname, gender, role, age, family members, friendships, occupation, and so on, but you can remove/rename every property or add more. I've also written about their backgrounds, what kind of people they are, their biggest secrets and fears, and so much more.
Locations
The same as for characters, you can organize them in folders, and each location has its own properties, such as location name and type, how many citizens live there, and everything else that's needed for your story. I've also given a full background for each location, like when (and how) it was built, important events through its history, who's been running it, and everything I feel my story needs.
Tab splitting
What I love about Obsidian is that it lets you split your tabs side by side, or even by placing them above or below your current tabs. This is perfect because while I'm writing for, let's say, a specific location or characters, I want another tab just beside it to see their backgrounds and all the details I've added for them. It's easy to forget some details when you're dealing with lots of different locations and characters.
The 'Graph View' that shows your connections
In the beginning, the 'Graph View' feature doesn't show a lot of information, and it's not as useful and powerful as it will become as your story progresses and you link everything together.
Make sure to link your characters, locations, and everything else you want to be included in the 'Graph View', and after a while, you'll be able to see if you have any missing questions.
Like any feature and tool, you can disable the 'Graph View' if you don't need it.
Installing Obsidian & The Novelist
- Download and install the latest version of Obsidian.
- Download the latest version of The Novelist (Gumroad | GitHub).
- Extract the the-novelist.zip file (double-click on macOS or right-click and "Extract here" on Windows and Linux).
- Launch Obsidian and click on your Vault’s name in the bottom left corner, and click on “Manage vaults…".
- In the “Open folder as vault” section, click on the “Open” button and select the ‘The Novelist’ folder.
- Obsidian will ask you to "Enable community plugins and trust the author". Make sure to click on the "Trust" button to load everything the vault has to offer.
Documentation
If you don't know how to use Obsidian and The Novelist, please refer to the Documentation page, where I share all its features and options with images included (and soon, videos).
As always, I love getting feedback from people who use 'The Novelist', so don't hesitate to leave your comment or contact me with your ideas, bug reports, etc.
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