Research for Writers

Category: Writing Tips

Writing Tips: The Writing Journal

Journals. Those lovely, empty books so full of potential and that I have far too many of. There are many benefits to keeping a writing journal, and it’s one of the first things I recommend to people when they ask for advice on how to get things rolling with their stories. Here are a few reasons for filling up a journal yourself:

A new perspective

It’s amazing how helpful getting your thoughts down on paper can be. By getting your ideas out of your head you make room for new ones, and being able to read your ideas instead of just thinking them allows you to look at them in a different way.

Writing your ideas down will also help you process them faster and potentially untangle issues you’ve been struggling with.

A look into your creative past

Once you’ve written it down, you won’t have to worry so much about losing it. It’s fun to look back on what you were thinking about in the past, and you never know when an idea might come in handy in the future. You might even find a concept to rework or add to an already-existing project in one of your old journals.

Bringing order to the chaos

If you’re working with a lot of characters and plot threads it’s useful to have a place to write them down to reference later. Same goes for world building elements. A writing journal is your initial dumping ground for ideas which will then be refined and recorded in a more polished state later.

A place to keep your research

Research is important to most writing projects, but sometimes there’s a point where your eyes start to slide off the text without really comprehending what’s been written. Writing down notes on your research can help you commit things to memory and will ensure that you have them stored somewhere to find and use later.

Collecting is fun

It’s fun to collect journals and feels very satisfying to finish filling one and put it on the shelf. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

A few bits of advice

Use sticky notes to mark important pages so you can find them more easily later. I like to link certain colors of sticky note to certain stories that I’m writing, so I can have notes and musings for multiple different stories going without things getting too muddled.

No need to use a physical journal if you don’t want to, there are phone apps that you can use to record things with no matter where you are.

If you’re picking out physical journals, remember that if you want to fill it completely you’ll be stuck with it for at least a few months. Choose carefully and make sure that you like it. Things to check are page count, paper texture, page thickness, and line width.

I’d recommend against really expensive journals, at least to start with, since the price tag might make you police the sorts of things you write in it. The point of the journal is to dump everything in, it’s like an artist’s sketchbook, it’s where you store ideas and thoughts regardless of how silly or tacky you might think they are now! Picking a journal that’s too “special” or valuable may end up hindering that.

Have fun!

Good luck and have fun in your journaling! I think you’ll find the results very helpful and rewarding.

How many blank journals do I have?

These are all waiting to be filled…

Too many.

Have fun choosing your journals but maybe don’t hoard them like I do!

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Writing Process: Flash Card Plotting

So if you’re like me and future arcs, scenes, and twists just materialize in your head without a fixed place in the overall story, then you might find this plotting technique useful.

The basic idea is to keep the order of events fluid and easily changeable by writing arcs, events, chapters, etc. on flash cards and swapping them around as you please. You can also record little notes and reminders for things you want to accomplish in the story or specific arc that are kept along with the collection. Putting events and arcs on flash cards allows for easy order swapping, and gives a different view of the plot as a whole when it’s physically laid out in front of you.

For starters let’s work with five types of cards: Arc, Event, Chapter, Character, and Note. You can always make up new types as needed.

First we’ll start with the Arc card:

This is the start of an arc that various events, chapters, pieces of character development, and notes may fall under. Write the major goals for the arc on the back of the card.

Next, the Event card:

Events can be a single scene or a series of them, and can span multiple chapters. The “Arc Title” section can be left blank until you decide which arc the event belongs to.

For individual chapters:

I find that going by chapter can be useful when dealing with stories that run on the more episodic side, with specific chapters forming their own mini-story within the larger narrative arc.

Next is the Character Development card:

Record goals for the named character’s development by the end of the arc. These can be kept at the top or bottom of the arc’s stack, whichever is more convenient.

Last but not least, the Note card:

These cards are for more general notes, like small but important background details that run throughout the story arc. These can be kept at the top or bottom of the arc’s stack, whichever is more convenient.

I find flash card plotting to be particularly useful for writing ongoing fanfic, where you’re updating chapter to chapter without being able to edit the whole thing before publishing. I always like to have some idea of where I’m going, and this achieves that while also being malleable enough to accommodate an actively evolving plot. The fic below mostly goes event by event when it comes to the cards, while other more episodic fics I’ve done have gone chapter by chapter.

The horizontal cards have a set place in the plot, while the diagonal cards have a rough order but do not have a solid place yet.

I also suggest keeping a writing journal where you can keep more long-form descriptions of planned arcs, events, and such so you can keep the information on the backs of the cards concise and avoid losing anything as time passes. The flash cards are also a good accompaniment in that they can be used to quickly reference the highlights of previous chapters instead of having to spend time flipping through your writing journal.

I hope you find this useful in your writing endeavors! Good luck and have fun!

If you like what you see, please consider supporting the site on Patreon! I would like to keep things ad-free, so any support is deeply appreciated.

Got anything you’re curious about? Let me know down in the comments or ping me on Twitter or Tumblr!