I am always looking for easier ways to organize the writing of my books. I’ve used everything from Scrivener to physical index cards. Recently, I came across a plug-in for Obsidian that looks like it might be promising (no guarantees yet).
It’s called StoryLine.
I’m still getting to know this software, but it is definitely the most complete novel-writing plug-in for Obsidian I’ve found. A lot of people use Longform which is terrific for actually writing in the app, if that’s what you want to do. Storyline can be used to write in as well, and both plug-ins allow you to compile your book into a Word doc or PDF.
StoryLine, however, has so much more. There is a bulletin board where you can create pages for your scenes and organize them by chapter, POV, status (draft, idea, finished), or act. There’s also just an open blank board where you can move your scenes around as you like.
For each scene there is a side menu where you can fill in all sorts of details: POV, status, date, #words, plotline, conflict, emotion, and more. Like in many novel-writing apps, there is a place to add characters, places, and items.
The character sheet included in extensive and you can add to it if you want. Sadly, you can’t edit it to include only the items you want. You can add your own scene template, but not character template for some reason.
One very nice feature is the Plotlines graph. When you create a scene, you can label it with the plotline of the scene and then on the plotlines graph you can see how they line up as you progress through the story.
And, finally, the plug-in follows your stats and has a pomodoro timer.
As for negatives, I don’t find it very easy to move scenes around and don’t know what to do with scenes I haven’t written yet — I have to assign them to a chapter even though I don’t yet know what chapter they’ll be in. I also do wish I could modify the character template. The one they include is extensive, but doesn’t have the most basic things of goal, motivation, and conflict all together. Under “Personality” you can enter the character’s motivation, but you have slide down to “Character Arc” to find a place to enter their goal (just one, when there is both internal and external motivation).
All-in-all, it’s a really nice way to keep track of your novel and even write it, if you want. Personally, I think it’s better than Scrivener, which is terrific for writing in, but doesn’t allow you to track your plotlines or see scenes organized by POV.
Another terrific thing about StoryLine is that it’s free. Obsidian also costs nothing to download and use. I do recommend, however, if you use StoryLine consistently, to make a donation to the developers of the software who spent a lot of time and thought into creating it.