Want to download this Obsidian setup as a free template? I recorded a walkthrough that you can download on my new video: ruclips.net/user/livepNWQRjeZu0Y Hope it's helpful!
This is a great testament for the flexibility of Obsidian. Your point at the beginning is exactly why I love Obsidian - it isn't opinionated. It's not someone else's workflow, but rather you make it into the workflow that you need. I use Obsidian for research, but it is always cool to see how others are using it.
@@danielleps0 Obsidian is great for both use cases. For research, I am primarily taking meeting notes, brainstorming ideas, linking ideas together, and syncing my Readwise (reader) account with Obsidian as a way to bring in what I read and then link it to relevant notes/writing.
exactly. it's so good for so many different use cases. I got it for my worldbuilding and writing, now I also use it for learning, but just today I was thinking abt how useful it would've been to have for taking notes and writing work reports during my apprenticeship (which was long before Obsidian existed, but hey if I do another one, I will be prepared, haha)
I'm not a novelist but a filmmaker working on a new series with lots of lore and collaborators. This seems like an easy way to keep the worldbuilding in one place. Thanks mentioning this!
@@legendfiction A flipped supernatural world where the protagonists are cryptids (vampires, werewolves, etc.) navigating human society trying to eradicate them. There are multiple formats of content (video, audio, text) that will augment an eventual mainline series. Basically it's a DIY Marvel MCU ;)
It's pretty rare to have this much detail on a writing workflow. I love how you organise your ideas. It's simple enough to be clear but complex enough to be extensive and deal with a lot of type of data at the same time. I will definitely use your workflow as inspiration. Mine is a bit messy. thank you for the video
@@legendfiction I am usually using Obsidian for research. I mainly focus on the linking of ideas for a book that I'm writing. At first, it was only non-fiction with some storytelling to explain and expand subject, but now it's more concentrated on the story. The main character live his life then reflect on event in a journal to better handle what's coming next. I wanted to use your approach to add more clarity with character, places, and especially general structure.
The reason I stopped using Obsidian is that it's too big. I ended up spending all my time configuring it, learning features and making it look pretty. I recommend Anytype for a more distraction-free version of the same thing.
@@hammillanvhanne1417 I think the best tutorials are made by Anytype themselves, which there should be a link to among the default pages of an Anytype vault. For writing and world building I found that I didn't really need much of a tutorial, just about how to turn a page into a category, because after just learning that I was able to make a category for characters, plots, scenes etc and link them all together in a complex matrix
Thanks for taking us through the ways you use this. There seems to be a hundred tutorials on RUclips all covering the basics, but very few actual demonstrations of day-to-day use! Thanks.
@@legendfictionIf you have a few hours some weekend, and a couple of friends who would be game, you can literally run a scenario involving characters and places from the story you’re writing. Using an appropriate TTRPG system for the genre (or use Chaosium’s Universal RPG system), and have a collaborative experience with friends that will help you kick the tires on your conception of who/what the characters/world could be. Or even help bring up character insights that you might not have considered. (Of course your friends have to be down with helping you in this regard.) And since TTRPGs involve randomness (dice throws), it can throw you off-balance enough to have to quickly make no-stakes creative decisions you’d never think of alone sitting in front of a monitor. Not that you’d end up using the actual play for anything necessarily. But it could help you get your head around worldbuilding and characters. Plus, you just talked your friends into taking time out to come over and giggle like an idiot with you for 6 hours. And it counts as professional development. 😂 Importantly, a RPG like this is a mutually creative activity, so the players need to be empowered to make imaginative decisions. As the GM (game master) doesn’t create the narrative, it’s created by all parties together. Which is its strength, but also its biggest difference from fiction writing.
@@sub-jec-tiv 100% agree! I've never yet played a session like this, but the green Neverland novel in the demo actually started out like a one-shot, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I'd hands-down love to do that some day, even over Zoom. :)
@@legendfiction Cool, did you use D&D, or some other system? I’m a long-time fan of Call of Cthulhu and its d100 system. In fact, 2 of the short stories I’m writing are from Call of Cthulhu scenarios that I haven’t even been able to run with players. But writing a scenario for RPG can really give you a different frame for doing the background work on characters and scenario. And because you’re not structuring it for the standard ‘3 act heroes journey’ structure 😴, you’re structuring it for players to find fertile creative play space, somehow it becomes a deeper resource for making unique creative decisions later in the process. At least that’s my experience 🤷♂️
@@sub-jec-tiv yeah, that's really fascinating to me. my Neverland world was build for a DnD oneshot, because I've never played DnD, so I tried to make a world. And then I worked backward into creating a character to 'play' through the world. I'd be really interested to have you keep unpacking your thoughts about how writing scenarios are different for RPGs vs a novel.
@@legendfiction A scattered assortment of Word files. And for years I was muttering to myself, "there has to be a better way than this..." Obsidian allows me to structure all of my projects, plans, reminders, etc. in a way that feels natural and is efficient to search through and update.
wow, the canvas feature is exactly what i've been looking for in a program! i can't believe i've used obsidian for a couple years and never noticed that feature. thanks!
As a user of Obsidian have you looked at Excalidraw as a plugin alternative to canvas? I find it great for building how different things link together. Great video and I love your layout of your vault
Thanks for sharing your experience with Obsidian! I am not very familiar with the different writing tools out there (I'm pretty technologically illiterate and just use Word or Google Docs for everything) but I am loving the idea of having a tool like this where I can organize all of my various projects and thoughts to more effectively craft my nonfiction books and fiction stories. I'm excited to look into this more!
Thanks for creating this video. I have used Scrivener for two novels, but I find it cumbersome and frustrating. Then, I wrote a novel of short stories using Google Docs, which is pretty good but lacks many features. You have shown me that it is worth learning Obsidian and creating something tailored for myself. Over the past few years I have discovered that every writer has their own style and workflow, whereas earlier in life I just assumed I was doing it all wrong. I now realise that each of us, like our stories, is unique. Your presentation is spot on.
This is awesome! I used obsidian for nanowrimo last year and had a lot of fun physically linking scenes together. I'm gonna have to mess around with the features you're showing, I don't think I even touched the canvas features quite yet
I didn't expect to find a new channel or tool I love but here we are! Also, great voice, needs to do audio books. Soooooo soothing. But seriously, thanks! Also this works well for older macOS where others don't, I'm running Mojave.
This is a great video for someone on the fence about switching to a new program. You had a very calming way of explaining how you use it without making it feel like you were hyping it up unnecessarily. I learned more from your video than I have from many other (longer) videos. You made this simple. Thank you for that.
Im so happy to hear! thats exactly how I've felt too, and this tool has been great. is it perfect and will I use it forever? no idea. but free is awesome when we're figuring things out!
I've been using Scrivener and WOW. I had no idea what I was missing out on. I'm spending my evening converting everything over and going to be on this a lot! Thank you so much
Glad it was helpful! I never used Scrivener, but it looks like Obsidian has other uses Scrivener doesnt. and vice versa. What features in Scrivener would you leave behind?
@legendfiction Truthfully it seems that Obsidian does everything Scrivener does but in a much better and streamlined way! The Canvas festure and being able to create boards is incredible. Being able to drop videos and pictures etc... will be a game changer for me!
Wow thanks youtube for the recommendation, I was looking for such a tool since 3 years... I am using a paying one but don't use it for month too, this one is very close to what I need in term of organisation and being able to visualy follow things. I'm so happy ! Many thanks !
@@legendfiction World of Andvil, which is more like a wiki online tool but with organisation subtool like Timeline, ancestry, map management etc... At first it was nice but the more they added feature the less I found my way in it and I started to complement with OneNote a lot for mindmap, research or extra idea. That was becoming a nightmare to organise to be honest, I see plenty of things were Obsidian is going to actually be more flexible without the bloat :D
That's so cool to hear that you're seeing a new way forward. I haven't used those tools - mostly because their sense of design and identity was too strong, and interfered with my own mindflow. :)
@@legendfictionYou are right it is very difficult to abstract the visual and organisation identity of World of Andvil, they aimed at roleplayer from big franchise at first, that's why... For OneNote I feel it was more neutral but could become very laggy... both require internet connection too, which is a liability when "on the go". In the end, I was back to the very trusty paper sketchbook full of post-it always in my backpack. That's how I managed until then... sktechbook idea --> export onenote --> convert to text --> wold of andvil... That was way too heavy... spend too much time on tool rather than creation... Anyway, downloaded Obsidian and gonna fiddle a bit with it :)
Thank you for this amazing video - all your tips are so clever! I've been using Obsidian on-and-off for years never quite managing to customize it to my liking and always switching back to Notion. I still use Notion for my everyday task management and workflow but I've really been struggling with using it as a writing tool. Your video has now given me so many ideas to try and implement in my own Obsidian system.
Love the Kanban board for acts! Very inspiring and keen to try that out. I also love the use of generative art for moodboards and plotting character journeys on Obsidian Canvas. I haven't given any of these a go so thanks for the ideas and inspiration. Much appreciated!
Thanks for taking the time to share your discovery of Obsidian, I am inspired by the way you are using it. I am just in the process of approaching using it and can see the potential when I finally get a workflow suited to my needs. Good work man, Winning!!!
Some cool stuff i found from experimenting randomly: 1. You can put canvases within canvases, to help categorise/sort stuff 2. You can put a canvas within itself, allowing that recursion to act as a sort of "re-center screen button" Ill edit this comment if i find any more cool stuff
Just discovered your channel today and I love your content. You seem so centred and sincere. No BS content and very useful. Thank you so much! Subscribed, hit the like button and even shared with a few author friends.
I stumbled across this gem by pure chance and, wow, what a delightful surprise! I was so captivated that I watched the entire video! This is a really handy tool; I definitely will adopt it in my workflow. A huge shoutout and a heap of thanks for sharing this with us!
I was skeptic because I like to keep things simple but your video made me consider downloading obsidian and have everything I need to write in the same place.
@@legendfiction Quite a few, actually! But what catches me the most is the option to jump from regular writing to the canvas mode. As a visual professional, sometimes my brain just work better dragging boxes around 🤣😆 Thank you again for your content!
I'm quality assurance engineer, and I work with Obsidian myself. Honestly I use it with zettelkasten methodology, and it works perfectly. I'm more of note-oriented person, than building worlds, but projects and features I have designed in hub/second-brain like method, and I can easily go around and search relationships between features
This is great - started using this for my grpahic novel series (which is very deep lore and I am trying to add in the lore as nuggets, background info and in picture) so working through your demo was excellent. Thank you very much.
@@legendfiction Google Docs, Google Sheets, Miro (for storyboarding, linking contexts/character graphs), scanned pages of doodles... ...anything and everything
Just so everyone knows, when you use obsidian for your job you will have to buy the commercial license. Yes the Obsidian team doesn't check this, they believe in honesty in the community so please be honest when you use obsidian
Don't quote me on this, but if you're only 1 person I don't think you need the commercial license. I think it specifies 2 or more people for it to be commercial
OH WOW!! working on my first ever book and dnd campaign, this will be so so useful, the apps i'm using rn are, as you said, work on someone else's workflow also knowing me, i'm a very detailed worlbuilder so this is heaven thank you so much for sharing about this and even explaining in details!!
@@legendfictionhonestly, thank you again, i've already finished some very important things and kinda getting a grip on how everything works. amazing program!! surely will update on progress
I DIDN'T KNOW CANVAS WAS A THING, that's amazing i always wanted something like that.. Damn i may have to learn obsidian as a test now. When i tried it it felt so clunky but this looks great compared to my basic notion page haha
Haha! yeah, it's quite a nifty tool. I'm enjoying it. Let me know how you get along! I tried notion for a hot minute, but the learning curve was steeper than my ADHD brain had time for. XD
I kinda stopped caring about learning to use this hell of a tool bc i got very intrigued by your book, I REALLY REALLY want to read it!!! i hope it gets a release date soon
@@legendfiction the one titled "Days of Merry and Light", i was like "CHRISTMAS THEMED FANTASY????" Also the little creatures in your worldbuilding map catched my eye, i was really intrigued
@@dianadrewlight6170 thanks! I got a few chapters into it, and then had to pause it for a while. I'd love to come back to it. Follow my Substack, and I'll share any news on it when I can. dominicmdesouza.substack.com/
I was going to be mad that this video is a 19min ad, but then I saw it's free for personal use. If it's even close to as useful as the (imo) expensive Scrivener, I'm in. I'll give it a try...wearily.
Hey! This is incredible, and because of your video I've chosen to start using Obsidian as well. What plugins would you recommend? Would it be possible for you to make another video of the ones you use?
Really glad it's helpful :) So far, the plugins I'm using are few, mostly to keep it running fast. I've got - Editing Toolbar - File Explorer ++ - Image Converter - Kanban - Plugin Update Tracker -Typewriter Mode - Canvas Send to Back I was using Iconize, but for some weird reason the icons wouldn't stick after reloading, so I dropped it. Might be a bug, and I don't have the tech knowhow to dig into things. The Theme is called Minimal.
Such neat ideas -- I like the way you think about writing. I have Notes from a dozen sources or so for world building -- ready to get a little more complicated. I want to use Dataview to make lists while I'm weaving subplots and character arcs... We'll see how it goes.
The Kanban setup is interesting. It also has occurred to me that text in Kanban cards supports ! embedding, meaning each scene can be worked on in separate files and then combined on the board. Files can also have a short summary and the full script, so Kanban can embed only descriptions by paragraph for visibility.
If you're that good ar Obsidian, you're probably right! Im not, and I haven't slowed down to learn more of the tech. But yes, you totally could have full on chapters in a Kanban, if you can truncate them.
I love that you can add music straight in there! O.O I'm discovering a massive division in the creative community. Artists will curse AI beyond their dying breaths and understandably so. But, I also see now that writers don't want to take the time to either make their own reference art (be it good or scrappy) or comission it at high prices. I suppose that's also understandable because writers just want quick visuals to get to writing, but there's a growing conundrum here. Artists won't stand for their pieces being factory-processed into imitations, rip-offs, and mishmashes with others' art, regardless of the AI being "free" and non-copyright-able. I wonder where the solution lies...
yes, I've been following this division since day one. I think there's a lot of poor information on both sides about how the tool works, and what artists are due. But I genuinely think artists will pull out ahead in the future, since they instantly became luxury items in this market. AI generation is the poor person's access to visual communication. Sure, it can be badly done and for nefarious reasons, but it can also help millions more people communicate their ideas and visions like never before. I do think that if you can afford to hire artists, it is always a better idea and you'll always get a better product.
I would love to see more on your setup( plugins, icon packs, look-and-feel, themes) and how you use them. Ghostwriter for several years; love the way you keep yourself motivated by adding AI art! Brilliant!
Thanks, friend! I don't have much else to add at this point. You can check out the free vault setup that Im using today. Might be good to do a 3 months later review, or something :) anything more specific I can be helpful with for you?
@@legendfiction Thank you so much. Right now I am having fun setting up a new space on my Obsidian. I have also been tasked against my nature to be repulsed by AI to delve into it. Not going to lie: it's very interesting. Thanks again for the inspiration.
I use Notion and hear about Obsidian and think: can it work for me... in the middle of your video I thought: "If this can use with Chat GPT it will be perfect..." and now I will do all my writing work with it. Thank u so much!
I learned about this app a few weeks ago b/c it has a small (dedicated) following for people that play tabletop RPG games. It is a clever way to plan out multi-session scenarios or campaigns. None of those videos mentioned your plugins though. I'm DMing for a group and I started using the app. I can't wait to add some of these plugins and start tinkering.
@@legendfiction Pathfinder + DnD. Running my group thru a PF scenario that I converted to 5th edition DnD rules. Obsidian is honestly a perfect tool for campaign management. File Explorer++, Iconizer, and Banners are perfect additions. To get Copilot/ChatGPT working my understanding is I have to tie a credit card to my API key, but I only pay per usage. Can you comment to give an idea of how much it realistically costs? I use ChatGPT a ton to create descriptions and flavor text.
That's awesome. I'd love to know how you get along. Come back and sometime and share your own workflow tips! Plus, I want to hear what your high fantasy is about 🎉
Thanks! We've used all kinds of writing tools in the past, like Scrivener, but eventually, we always return to Microsoft Word, which is simple and allows you to customize it for your own writing purposes. And apart from it occasionally making suggestions to complete your sentences, it's AI free. We do use World Anvil for worldbuilding as well. I had never heard of Obsidian but am willing to check it out. From your video it looks like you can also use it without AI functionalities.
I've used Scrivener for years, but I really love Obsidian. Mostly planned on using Obsidian for my TTRPG games. They are very similar in so many ways, but now that I'm starting some rewrites I'm considering using Obsidian. I'm restructuring a lot of what I do, so I may as well try this.
@@legendfiction I currently use it to create a database of my life. Personal things like my library and my professional gear (I'm a filmmaker). I don't know if I like Obsidian more than Scrivener. However, I've been thinking of using Obsidian for part of the writing process. Which would still include Scrivener.
@@legendfiction I have a specific universe I’m writing for that will eventually be in a game my buddy and I plane on developing. I also have some other discovery written worlds that I have yet to dive much into. So a little bit of everything!
I've been an Obsidian user for about a year. I started using the NovelCrafter App but it's not flexible enough (yet) so I agree with you that having a more flexible tool is the way to proceed, especiallly if you write fiction AND non-fiction (as the processes aren't identical and tools like NovelCrafter aren't designed for both). I've also used Scrivener which is MORE flexible that most Apps but I've abandoned that also in favor of Obsidian. Great into to Obsidian for Writers!
Thanks! I like how you break these down. I've never been able to use Scrivener, which is the OG in this space... but I don't think I'd enjoy it much anyway. Not my speed. :D What kind of stories or workflow have you needed that Obsidian meets for you?
I use Campfire, it’s got tabs for maps, species, magic systems, items, characters, encyclopedias etc. I think they have moved onto Blaze but I use the older Campfire Pro they had
I’d love to do a video like this! I only use obsidian for my writing at this point. I’ve got a multi pov, non linear timeline series that I’m 500k words into and it became a lot. Obsidian allowed me to get more organized than I ever thought I would.
I’ve been between several notes apps for my projects through the decade. Aside from having a good and quick editor, one of my requirements has been something that syncs well on mobile devices. If I’m ever out in the wild and get a notion (pun not intended) that I want to capture, I want to be able to do it from my phone! There are a myriad number of ways to do it, but the ideal for me is to 1) not be “stuck” in Apple Notes or Google Notes, and 2) not have to spend a bunch of time copying and pasting from one system to another. I personally love Notion, but I’ve worked myself into a corner in having too complex a system that it becomes difficult to categorize everything. I gave Obsidian a try in the past, but it was slow to open each time. I think I’m going to give it another go, and just make sure to turn off all plugins on mobile (if possible). The plugins you showed for your writing process look incredible!
I hear you! I've struggled to try to get obsidian to sync or to access notes on my phone but that might be a paid plan and I do like trying to figure things out for free first. So my go-to is to use Google keep on my phone and then transfer it over on my desktop to obsidian.
Looks like a versatile tool that could be used for novels, role-playing games, film scripts, and more. I'm wondering even about historians using it to organize writing projects, research, footnotes, bibliographies. Is there a feature built in that already incorporates footnotes/citations and citation styles (Chicago Style, etc.?)
You're right! folk use it for all sorts of reasons, exactly as you describe. For footnotes, great question; I've not needed it yet, so I can't say. you'll want to explore their community plugins, or they have some relatively simple coding where you can link to external notes, then display them inline.
nope, you're not crazy. I accidentally left a gap when I was doing a trim on the video. It was meant to be for 2 friends, so I wasn't worried about it being perfect. LOL now its out there making a ton of friends I didn't expect. Hope you have fun with it!
I love your art that you made for the book, it is truly eye-catching. It would be a shame to not add them to the finished product. Maybe an image on every chapter? I wouldn't use an image that gives away what the chapter will contain, but rather about the previous chapter. This way, the reader can enjoy the art and immerse themselves in the fantasy world by picturing the scenes as they read. It really adds another level to the imagination and wonder, and highlights that the book isn't talking about humans but fantasy creatures. Too many novels that I have read, I thought were weird names for humans until I find out later that they were actually creatures. I can already see your book becoming an animated film for Pixar or something.
thank you! I love how we can generate images now that reflect the magic in our minds. I will probably use them to create my book cover, and the put the rest on a landing page for readers to come explore more of the world on my site. Putting them all in the book is a good idea too :)
Weird question: could I use this to organize a mod I want to make for Fallout 3? Things like flowcharts, mixed text and image notes, organizing dialogue choices etc. And can I sync between the mobile app and my desktop? This would be huge for me as a student.
I'm using Doom Emacs with Org-Roam. Mainly because it allows me to just create functions specific to how I like to work. Entry is really fast. Single key-presses call the most common tasks. It's my main hub that pushes to Obsidian for specific franchises / projects. So Emacs has everything in a way that would bring Obsidian down too much in performance. But using custom links that call Obsidian pages/vaults is pretty close to my ideal setup. Proper Desktop Bus support would make it more seamless.
@@legendfiction if you ever want to give Emacs a try anyway: I made an Emacs for Writers repository on GitHub. It’s based on Spacemacs which is slower than Doom but more beginner friendly. It’s what I learned Emacs with. If I put a link here, the comment just gets removed again.
thanks to this video i decided to use the canvas feature for the first time, and i LOVE it. how i'm using it so far is, i am popping notes in with things i want to fully realise at Some point, and when i'm ready to expand on them i convert them into documents. I'm also using the grouping feature a lot on the canvas, and i love you can have groups in groups, i have a "high council" group that's included in the "characters" group right now. i'd been using obsidian occasionally for about a year and a half, since before the canvas feature was added, and i never really paid it much mind, but that was a mistake! i still prefer scrivener for writing my actual prose, but it's also got a cost to it, and for brainstorming and worldbuilding i prefer obsidian
Smart thinking, there. Ive yet to really use the canvas seriously, and group things better. I'm already at the point where im thinking about the next easiest step to share chapters for feedback, and am thinking of Google Docs... I might look at what publishing Obsidian online can do...
Very great video! I love your workflow and some ideeas actually mighy help me too. I, personally, use obsidian for a lot of things, but mainly for reading books and learning code, which makes me change it's appearance a lot because I found that useful for learning css. If you change the appearance a lot though, the canvas might not work properly, so I try to find an alternative ^^" . Have fun in obsidian! It's truly a very powerful tool
@@legendfiction Figma is mostly used for Web Development. I saw the layout and tried it, but the organization of the hierarchy feels similar. Trello is also an interesting site, but it's more of a planner for projects...
@@legendfiction Thanks. I’m new to Obsidian and want to use it for writing historical novels (fiction based around actual events) and collecting research materials towards publishing. I will need notes of all types and materials. Can you reccommend a channel that can guide me through setup and collecting from various sources, preferably at beginner level? Any advice will be greatly appreciated. M
I don't have a favorite channel for learning Obsidian yet. I just watched a bunch of random videos to get an overview of it. wish i could be more helpful!
I used to use Anvil for worldbuilding, but the features I really wanted I would have to pay for. I recently started using OneNote, and that has a decent amount of features. It seems as if this program is similar but even better, though OneNote does have a better layout. Now it looks like I'll spend the day learning how to use Obsidian lol
I really like Obsidian, but I fell in love with novelWriter for my novels. It may not be for you, but it's free and open source, so it won't cost anything to give it a try!
I've been using Obsidian for a year. I can't believe I only now learned about the canvas lol I'm feeling like so stupid right now. I sure am glad I decided to click on this video
@@legendfiction I've got one monolithic vault for note taking. Research, study notes, even recipes go there. It's huge, but Obsidian is really fast so doesn't lag at all. Seeing a recipe for chicken cacciatore next to a summary of convolutional neural networks, next to a workout routine may sound weird but I got used to it. Everything is in its own folder anyway so things are pretty tidy. Then for each individual project I have a new vault that I use as the primary source of truth. I was also using Miro with it, but now that I learned about the canvas I may start relying less and less on Miro. Seriously underrated software. I used to work with Evernote but they made some changes that I didn't like at all and made me look for an alternative. All in all I'm pretty happy with Obsidian.
Thank you so much for sharing. I have installed Obsidian thanks to your video. The kanban board pluggin was exactly what I’ve been missing, and just the overall organization of my thoughts. I’ve been really stuck on my first story and I hope this will help propel me forward. What ai art generator do you use? I love the idea of spurring my imagination and creativity with some images for my sci-fi story
So glad it's helpful for you too! I'm still trying to decide if it's the best tool for actual writing in, but it's good for organizing. I'm using Midjourney for my art generation. There are several others, like Leonardo AI. It's become a phenomenal source of inspiration for me! What kinds of projects are you working on?
I use it in a really similar way. I a am a comic creator so I am really visual. And Canvas is a blessing. But when the canvas got really big it started to slow down, it seems to have performance issues. So I started using the excalidraw plugin. I use it for almost everything, but really similar to the structure you presented. I write the chapter more in a screenplay format So I had to play a lot with the format and the themes for that.
@@legendfiction Right now I am writing two comics. The first one is a Dark Fantasy one about a girl that is in a Asylum because she started seeing and hearing things that most people can't. She is crazy, basically...but is she? The second is Fantasy/action about a Dreamworld and a battle that happens there, but which also affects the Real world in particular ways. I come from an Illustration and concept art background. So if I created stories they were short just for the specific illustration or concept design. But I had so much fun that I started thinking that I wanted to create something more complex. So this 2 are my first stories. I want to have both of them to decide which one to serialize. So I have a long way to go!
I have scrivner, it has alot of features but you can easily get overwhelmed by all of it. I still think its worth the money at 60 bucks. Espeically when i want to get into screenplay writing. Obsidian looks interesting to use.
@@legendfiction Yah, looking at your videos i see the functionality. I just downloaded your Obsidian template. Thank you for that, I'll need to learn and test out a setup that'll work for me.
in this example he has 2 books in a single vault. There are some advantages to this however, if want to go ham with the linking then I would recommend keeping each series in it's own vault. This way if you have say a character named greg two different series you won't run into conflicts.
Very smart. Yes, that's exactly the way. I've considered using a vault per novel. If It ever gets too complex, I'll just clone the vault and delete the books I don't need. Thanks for chiming in!
that's one idea :) For now, Im building all my books in a single vault and just expanding or collapsing the folder I'm working on. In the future, I could see one vault not being enough for all of the different notes and ideas. It might make sense to either create a new vault or clone my existing vault and delete all the stuff I don't want in it. I'm not using enough of Obsidian's amazing networking infrastructure to really make use of how it interconnects things. With my current process, it would end up interconnecting all kinds of different novels, like with the mind mapping tool. So I guess the answer is you create your own way that works best for you :)
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Want to download this Obsidian setup as a free template? I recorded a walkthrough that you can download on my new video: ruclips.net/user/livepNWQRjeZu0Y Hope it's helpful!
This is a great testament for the flexibility of Obsidian. Your point at the beginning is exactly why I love Obsidian - it isn't opinionated. It's not someone else's workflow, but rather you make it into the workflow that you need. I use Obsidian for research, but it is always cool to see how others are using it.
Thanks for chiming in!
What’s your research setup like? I stumbled upon this because I’m considering writing something - but I’m actually a researcher 🤓
@@danielleps0 Obsidian is great for both use cases. For research, I am primarily taking meeting notes, brainstorming ideas, linking ideas together, and syncing my Readwise (reader) account with Obsidian as a way to bring in what I read and then link it to relevant notes/writing.
@@andricheli The reader-notes linking is definitely something I need. I have a clunky onenote process for that now. Thanks!
exactly. it's so good for so many different use cases. I got it for my worldbuilding and writing, now I also use it for learning, but just today I was thinking abt how useful it would've been to have for taking notes and writing work reports during my apprenticeship (which was long before Obsidian existed, but hey if I do another one, I will be prepared, haha)
I'm not a novelist but a filmmaker working on a new series with lots of lore and collaborators. This seems like an easy way to keep the worldbuilding in one place. Thanks mentioning this!
What a great idea! what kind of film series are you working on?
@@legendfiction A flipped supernatural world where the protagonists are cryptids (vampires, werewolves, etc.) navigating human society trying to eradicate them. There are multiple formats of content (video, audio, text) that will augment an eventual mainline series. Basically it's a DIY Marvel MCU ;)
Sweet! That sounds really fun. Hope to hear more about that sometime! I love cryptozoology - cryptomythology stuff.
You can ask ai to generate you ideas too
It's pretty rare to have this much detail on a writing workflow. I love how you organise your ideas. It's simple enough to be clear but complex enough to be extensive and deal with a lot of type of data at the same time.
I will definitely use your workflow as inspiration. Mine is a bit messy.
thank you for the video
hey there! really cool to hear from you. :) what kind of project are you working on? I'd love to know what ends up working for you as you test stuff.
@@legendfiction I am usually using Obsidian for research. I mainly focus on the linking of ideas for a book that I'm writing.
At first, it was only non-fiction with some storytelling to explain and expand subject, but now it's more concentrated on the story. The main character live his life then reflect on event in a journal to better handle what's coming next.
I wanted to use your approach to add more clarity with character, places, and especially general structure.
That sounds like a smart way to go. Come back and let me know what works for you. I'm still evolving my workflow!
Think it is about time to start using links. I suggest reading How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens to get better at arranging your thoughts.
The reason I stopped using Obsidian is that it's too big. I ended up spending all my time configuring it, learning features and making it look pretty. I recommend Anytype for a more distraction-free version of the same thing.
That's helpful to know. I guess I haven't learned enough of what it can do to get stuck in it.
may i know if there is a tutorial on how to configure anytype for that? i am finding here on youtube but i can't find any at all
@@hammillanvhanne1417 I think the best tutorials are made by Anytype themselves, which there should be a link to among the default pages of an Anytype vault. For writing and world building I found that I didn't really need much of a tutorial, just about how to turn a page into a category, because after just learning that I was able to make a category for characters, plots, scenes etc and link them all together in a complex matrix
Thanks for taking us through the ways you use this. There seems to be a hundred tutorials on RUclips all covering the basics, but very few actual demonstrations of day-to-day use! Thanks.
Really glad you found it helpful. I think I watched all the ones you did, and didn't find one with my use case. :) How are you using it?
I use Obsidian to do worldbuilding for my dnd campaigns. Basically use it as a local wiki. It has been quite amazing!
fascinating. I've long wondered how worldbuilding for games could help worldbuilding for novels. :) would love to learn more about your usecase!
@@legendfictionIf you have a few hours some weekend, and a couple of friends who would be game, you can literally run a scenario involving characters and places from the story you’re writing. Using an appropriate TTRPG system for the genre (or use Chaosium’s Universal RPG system), and have a collaborative experience with friends that will help you kick the tires on your conception of who/what the characters/world could be. Or even help bring up character insights that you might not have considered. (Of course your friends have to be down with helping you in this regard.) And since TTRPGs involve randomness (dice throws), it can throw you off-balance enough to have to quickly make no-stakes creative decisions you’d never think of alone sitting in front of a monitor. Not that you’d end up using the actual play for anything necessarily. But it could help you get your head around worldbuilding and characters. Plus, you just talked your friends into taking time out to come over and giggle like an idiot with you for 6 hours. And it counts as professional development. 😂
Importantly, a RPG like this is a mutually creative activity, so the players need to be empowered to make imaginative decisions. As the GM (game master) doesn’t create the narrative, it’s created by all parties together. Which is its strength, but also its biggest difference from fiction writing.
@@sub-jec-tiv 100% agree! I've never yet played a session like this, but the green Neverland novel in the demo actually started out like a one-shot, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I'd hands-down love to do that some day, even over Zoom. :)
@@legendfiction Cool, did you use D&D, or some other system? I’m a long-time fan of Call of Cthulhu and its d100 system. In fact, 2 of the short stories I’m writing are from Call of Cthulhu scenarios that I haven’t even been able to run with players. But writing a scenario for RPG can really give you a different frame for doing the background work on characters and scenario. And because you’re not structuring it for the standard ‘3 act heroes journey’ structure 😴, you’re structuring it for players to find fertile creative play space, somehow it becomes a deeper resource for making unique creative decisions later in the process. At least that’s my experience 🤷♂️
@@sub-jec-tiv yeah, that's really fascinating to me. my Neverland world was build for a DnD oneshot, because I've never played DnD, so I tried to make a world. And then I worked backward into creating a character to 'play' through the world. I'd be really interested to have you keep unpacking your thoughts about how writing scenarios are different for RPGs vs a novel.
Obsidian has been such a relief. I've been using it for a little over a year now, and it's exactly what I didn't know I needed.
Awesome! How has it been a relief for you? What were you using before?
@@legendfiction A scattered assortment of Word files. And for years I was muttering to myself, "there has to be a better way than this..." Obsidian allows me to structure all of my projects, plans, reminders, etc. in a way that feels natural and is efficient to search through and update.
@@OldTomato44 that's exactly how I've been.
that's a mood
wow, the canvas feature is exactly what i've been looking for in a program! i can't believe i've used obsidian for a couple years and never noticed that feature. thanks!
glad its helpful!
As a user of Obsidian have you looked at Excalidraw as a plugin alternative to canvas? I find it great for building how different things link together. Great video and I love your layout of your vault
It was added in December 2022. If you right click on folder to add new, you will see it.
Thanks for sharing your experience with Obsidian! I am not very familiar with the different writing tools out there (I'm pretty technologically illiterate and just use Word or Google Docs for everything) but I am loving the idea of having a tool like this where I can organize all of my various projects and thoughts to more effectively craft my nonfiction books and fiction stories. I'm excited to look into this more!
Agreed! It's something I'm really glad I discovered too. Come back and tell us what you find out, if you go with it. :)
Thanks for creating this video. I have used Scrivener for two novels, but I find it cumbersome and frustrating. Then, I wrote a novel of short stories using Google Docs, which is pretty good but lacks many features. You have shown me that it is worth learning Obsidian and creating something tailored for myself. Over the past few years I have discovered that every writer has their own style and workflow, whereas earlier in life I just assumed I was doing it all wrong. I now realise that each of us, like our stories, is unique. Your presentation is spot on.
I'm very glad it connects with you! I've tried all sorts of things too. I hope you find a path that works!
This is awesome!
I used obsidian for nanowrimo last year and had a lot of fun physically linking scenes together. I'm gonna have to mess around with the features you're showing, I don't think I even touched the canvas features quite yet
Thanks for chiming in! Come back and let us know what you think after messing around a bit. :)
You explained this like the bob ross of novel writing and I meam that as the highest of compliments. I will be downloading.
thanks friend :)
(takes a clumsy bow.)
what are you writing these days?
I'm blown away by the almost Escher like perpective twist of the archway in the world building screen.
lol AI do be doing that at times.
I didn't expect to find a new channel or tool I love but here we are! Also, great voice, needs to do audio books. Soooooo soothing. But seriously, thanks! Also this works well for older macOS where others don't, I'm running Mojave.
Nice to meet you! Glad you enjoyed the walkthrough :)
This is a great video for someone on the fence about switching to a new program. You had a very calming way of explaining how you use it without making it feel like you were hyping it up unnecessarily. I learned more from your video than I have from many other (longer) videos.
You made this simple. Thank you for that.
I'm so happy to hear that, and thank you for the kind words! What kind of tools have you been using to date?
@@legendfiction I’ve used Craft, Ulysses, Notion, Scrivener, and probably some others I can’t think of.
Been looking for a way to set up obsidian for writing and worldbuilding. Thanks so much. :)
Glad its helpful! What kind of worldbuilding projects are you working on?
@@legendfiction something where a city state is the main focal point in a high fantasy setting.
Thank you! I was honestly overwhelmed and my notes were completely unorganized. I'm glad to have found this video and more so for your channel. ❤
Im so happy to hear! thats exactly how I've felt too, and this tool has been great. is it perfect and will I use it forever? no idea. but free is awesome when we're figuring things out!
I've been using Scrivener and WOW. I had no idea what I was missing out on. I'm spending my evening converting everything over and going to be on this a lot! Thank you so much
Glad it was helpful! I never used Scrivener, but it looks like Obsidian has other uses Scrivener doesnt. and vice versa. What features in Scrivener would you leave behind?
@legendfiction Truthfully it seems that Obsidian does everything Scrivener does but in a much better and streamlined way! The Canvas festure and being able to create boards is incredible. Being able to drop videos and pictures etc... will be a game changer for me!
That is so cool :) I'm glad for you. I'd love to know how you end up afyer playing with it for a while.
@@hartlessforever Well I think Scrivener is better in outputting the Text in the right Format. But yes. Obsidian is so powerfull
I use both, and like them both a lot. I tend to get more immersed in my writing when in Scrivener, while I’m better at brainstorming in Obsidian.
Wow thanks youtube for the recommendation, I was looking for such a tool since 3 years... I am using a paying one but don't use it for month too, this one is very close to what I need in term of organisation and being able to visualy follow things. I'm so happy !
Many thanks !
I'm really glad you found it helpful! What was the tool you were using before?
@@legendfiction World of Andvil, which is more like a wiki online tool but with organisation subtool like Timeline, ancestry, map management etc... At first it was nice but the more they added feature the less I found my way in it and I started to complement with OneNote a lot for mindmap, research or extra idea.
That was becoming a nightmare to organise to be honest, I see plenty of things were Obsidian is going to actually be more flexible without the bloat :D
That's so cool to hear that you're seeing a new way forward. I haven't used those tools - mostly because their sense of design and identity was too strong, and interfered with my own mindflow. :)
@@legendfictionYou are right it is very difficult to abstract the visual and organisation identity of World of Andvil, they aimed at roleplayer from big franchise at first, that's why... For OneNote I feel it was more neutral but could become very laggy... both require internet connection too, which is a liability when "on the go".
In the end, I was back to the very trusty paper sketchbook full of post-it always in my backpack. That's how I managed until then... sktechbook idea --> export onenote --> convert to text --> wold of andvil...
That was way too heavy... spend too much time on tool rather than creation...
Anyway, downloaded Obsidian and gonna fiddle a bit with it :)
God I've been looking for something like this since YEARS!
Finally!
Hope its helpful! What kind of tools have you been using so far?
Thank you for this amazing video - all your tips are so clever! I've been using Obsidian on-and-off for years never quite managing to customize it to my liking and always switching back to Notion. I still use Notion for my everyday task management and workflow but I've really been struggling with using it as a writing tool. Your video has now given me so many ideas to try and implement in my own Obsidian system.
I'm glad it was helpful! Come back sometime and let us know how you make it work for you!
Love the Kanban board for acts! Very inspiring and keen to try that out. I also love the use of generative art for moodboards and plotting character journeys on Obsidian Canvas. I haven't given any of these a go so thanks for the ideas and inspiration. Much appreciated!
Awesome! Thank you! What kind of writing project are you working on these days? :)
Thanks for taking the time to share your discovery of Obsidian, I am inspired by the way you are using it. I am just in the process of approaching using it and can see the potential when I finally get a workflow suited to my needs. Good work man, Winning!!!
thanks friend! hope its helpful!
felt like it's obvious to use canvas like this but it doesn't really register until I saw you using it 😭 thank you for sharing your workflow ❤
Very glad its helpful :) What kinds of projects are you working on?
I am planning to write my first novel this year so this sounds perfect and exactly what I need... thank u
Congrats on your first novel! what are you writing about? Glad this walk-through might be helpful for you :)
Some cool stuff i found from experimenting randomly:
1. You can put canvases within canvases, to help categorise/sort stuff
2. You can put a canvas within itself, allowing that recursion to act as a sort of "re-center screen button"
Ill edit this comment if i find any more cool stuff
wow... I never thought of that 😄
@@legendfiction yeah, the 2nd one isn't really useful anyways, so I get why almost no one would try it, but the 1st one is quite useful
Just discovered your channel today and I love your content. You seem so centred and sincere. No BS content and very useful. Thank you so much! Subscribed, hit the like button and even shared with a few author friends.
That's really nice of you! Totally made my day here. Glad its helpful, and hope to follow more of your journey.
I stumbled across this gem by pure chance and, wow, what a delightful surprise! I was so captivated that I watched the entire video! This is a really handy tool; I definitely will adopt it in my workflow. A huge shoutout and a heap of thanks for sharing this with us!
Wonderful! I'm so happy it might be helpful for you. Come back sometime and let us know how you get along!
Your story looks so cute just looking at the pictures and characters. This is such a cool setup I will have to see what I can do now.
Wonderful video. I didn't know Obsidian was this capable. Thanks for sharing.
Glad it was helpful! What tools are you using these days?
I'm used to using CherryTree but I want to move to something else. So I've been eyeing Obsidian and Logseq@@legendfiction
I was skeptic because I like to keep things simple but your video made me consider downloading obsidian and have everything I need to write in the same place.
it can be a cool tool with good uses :) glad you might make it work for you.
Your book looks absolutely adorable! I'll be looking for it. :) Thanks for the tutorial.
thank you! i plan to get back to it!
WOW! This is pure magic! Thanks for the video
So glad its helpful! Are you writing any projects these days?
@@legendfiction Quite a few, actually! But what catches me the most is the option to jump from regular writing to the canvas mode. As a visual professional, sometimes my brain just work better dragging boxes around 🤣😆 Thank you again for your content!
I hear you! I think I work in the same way.
Exactly what I needed to see! Great work!
Really glad it's helpful! What kinds of projects are you working on?
I'm quality assurance engineer, and I work with Obsidian myself. Honestly I use it with zettelkasten methodology, and it works perfectly. I'm more of note-oriented person, than building worlds, but projects and features I have designed in hub/second-brain like method, and I can easily go around and search relationships between features
how cool to have you stop by :) thanks for the comment!
@@legendfiction my feed is so random that it showed up to me, your workflow looks neat and nice
This is great - started using this for my grpahic novel series (which is very deep lore and I am trying to add in the lore as nuggets, background info and in picture) so working through your demo was excellent. Thank you very much.
That sounds awesome! Glad my walk-through was helpful for you. What tool have you been using so far?
@@legendfiction Miro and Google Docs but a lot of the storyboarding and details get lost in documents
@@legendfiction Google Docs, Google Sheets, Miro (for storyboarding, linking contexts/character graphs), scanned pages of doodles... ...anything and everything
@@WhimsicalShark lol yeah, me too. I did all of that too!
Just so everyone knows, when you use obsidian for your job you will have to buy the commercial license. Yes the Obsidian team doesn't check this, they believe in honesty in the community so please be honest when you use obsidian
Great point. Obsidian deserves our support for making such a good tool free to use. I haven't yet used it for work. Interesting idea.
Don't quote me on this, but if you're only 1 person I don't think you need the commercial license. I think it specifies 2 or more people for it to be commercial
I was using a Microsoft whiteboard and an app of notes for so long ! This will be game changer ! JUST IMAGINE HOW HAPPY TOLKIEN COULD BE !
LOL agreed! Silmarillion would be utterly insane with a tool like this!
OH WOW!!
working on my first ever book and dnd campaign, this will be so so useful, the apps i'm using rn are, as you said, work on someone else's workflow
also knowing me, i'm a very detailed worlbuilder so this is heaven
thank you so much for sharing about this and even explaining in details!!
Im stoked it can be helpful for you! Come back and let us know how you get along. You'll probably have other use cases that I've not thought of!
@@legendfictionhonestly, thank you again, i've already finished some very important things and kinda getting a grip on how everything works.
amazing program!!
surely will update on progress
that's awesome! best of luck, and I can't wait to hear how you get along. :)
Super nice! Thanks for sharing your vault!
cheers!
I absolutely love this ❤ Thank you for this insight. I didnt know about the canvas thing. This looks really amazing.
Awesome! Yes, the canvas may be disabled by default,and many miss that. Let me know sometime how you get along with it!
I DIDN'T KNOW CANVAS WAS A THING, that's amazing i always wanted something like that.. Damn i may have to learn obsidian as a test now. When i tried it it felt so clunky but this looks great compared to my basic notion page haha
Haha! yeah, it's quite a nifty tool. I'm enjoying it. Let me know how you get along! I tried notion for a hot minute, but the learning curve was steeper than my ADHD brain had time for. XD
i love this thanks. I always wondered how you guys create these Worlds and remember all the details
Lots of tools for all sorts of writers!
I kinda stopped caring about learning to use this hell of a tool bc i got very intrigued by your book, I REALLY REALLY want to read it!!! i hope it gets a release date soon
lol thanks! I demo'ed 2 books. Which one grabbed your attention?
@@legendfiction the one titled "Days of Merry and Light", i was like "CHRISTMAS THEMED FANTASY????" Also the little creatures in your worldbuilding map catched my eye, i was really intrigued
@@dianadrewlight6170 thanks! I got a few chapters into it, and then had to pause it for a while. I'd love to come back to it. Follow my Substack, and I'll share any news on it when I can. dominicmdesouza.substack.com/
Thank you for the detailed review! Good old suffering with Scivener cannot compete 😁
Glad it could be helpful for you! What kind of stories do you like to write about?
Thanks for the video. I couldn’t figure out how to do column canvas.
That's a toggle on in the settings area, I think.
This was great! A big help. I was trying to see how I could use Obsidian for exactly this purpose. Thank you.
How cool! Thanks for stopping by. What kind of project are you working on?
I was going to be mad that this video is a 19min ad, but then I saw it's free for personal use. If it's even close to as useful as the (imo) expensive Scrivener, I'm in. I'll give it a try...wearily.
Hope you find it helpful... and its not an ad. It's just me sharing my workflow. But hey, Obsidian... if you're noticing, I'll take my paycheck now!
Thanks I did not know that canvas would be so powerful, I try to use and migrate my document to obsidian now.
Hope you have fun with it! Let us know how you get along!
I’m currently on a writing block/ procrastinating but maybe this can help me come out of it and start writing again. Thank you for showing this😄
I'm very glad! Keep at it!
@@legendfiction will do, or try at least
Hey! This is incredible, and because of your video I've chosen to start using Obsidian as well. What plugins would you recommend? Would it be possible for you to make another video of the ones you use?
Really glad it's helpful :) So far, the plugins I'm using are few, mostly to keep it running fast. I've got
- Editing Toolbar
- File Explorer ++
- Image Converter
- Kanban
- Plugin Update Tracker
-Typewriter Mode
- Canvas Send to Back
I was using Iconize, but for some weird reason the icons wouldn't stick after reloading, so I dropped it. Might be a bug, and I don't have the tech knowhow to dig into things.
The Theme is called Minimal.
Such neat ideas -- I like the way you think about writing. I have Notes from a dozen sources or so for world building -- ready to get a little more complicated. I want to use Dataview to make lists while I'm weaving subplots and character arcs... We'll see how it goes.
Hope you have fun with it!
The Kanban setup is interesting. It also has occurred to me that text in Kanban cards supports ! embedding, meaning each scene can be worked on in separate files and then combined on the board. Files can also have a short summary and the full script, so Kanban can embed only descriptions by paragraph for visibility.
If you're that good ar Obsidian, you're probably right! Im not, and I haven't slowed down to learn more of the tech. But yes, you totally could have full on chapters in a Kanban, if you can truncate them.
I love that you can add music straight in there! O.O
I'm discovering a massive division in the creative community. Artists will curse AI beyond their dying breaths and understandably so. But, I also see now that writers don't want to take the time to either make their own reference art (be it good or scrappy) or comission it at high prices.
I suppose that's also understandable because writers just want quick visuals to get to writing, but there's a growing conundrum here. Artists won't stand for their pieces being factory-processed into imitations, rip-offs, and mishmashes with others' art, regardless of the AI being "free" and non-copyright-able. I wonder where the solution lies...
yes, I've been following this division since day one. I think there's a lot of poor information on both sides about how the tool works, and what artists are due. But I genuinely think artists will pull out ahead in the future, since they instantly became luxury items in this market.
AI generation is the poor person's access to visual communication. Sure, it can be badly done and for nefarious reasons, but it can also help millions more people communicate their ideas and visions like never before.
I do think that if you can afford to hire artists, it is always a better idea and you'll always get a better product.
I would love to see more on your setup( plugins, icon packs, look-and-feel, themes) and how you use them. Ghostwriter for several years; love the way you keep yourself motivated by adding AI art! Brilliant!
Oops! Never mind, found it! Thank you so much. Please keep these videos coming.
Thanks, friend! I don't have much else to add at this point. You can check out the free vault setup that Im using today. Might be good to do a 3 months later review, or something :) anything more specific I can be helpful with for you?
@@legendfiction Thank you so much. Right now I am having fun setting up a new space on my Obsidian. I have also been tasked against my nature to be repulsed by AI to delve into it. Not going to lie: it's very interesting. Thanks again for the inspiration.
Come back and let us know how you get along!
This is absolutely great, Thanks mate! ❣
Fantastic! Thanks for stopping by!
Absolutely inspiring!
hope you have fun with it!
I use Notion and hear about Obsidian and think: can it work for me... in the middle of your video I thought: "If this can use with Chat GPT it will be perfect..." and now I will do all my writing work with it. Thank u so much!
How fun! I'm so glad it's helpful :) Hope you enjoy using it!
exactly what i need. thanks for sharing!
I'm very glad! Have fun!
I learned about this app a few weeks ago b/c it has a small (dedicated) following for people that play tabletop RPG games. It is a clever way to plan out multi-session scenarios or campaigns. None of those videos mentioned your plugins though. I'm DMing for a group and I started using the app. I can't wait to add some of these plugins and start tinkering.
How cool! I'm glad it's helpful. It's fascinating how many use cases there are out there. What kind of RPG games to you play?
@@legendfiction Pathfinder + DnD. Running my group thru a PF scenario that I converted to 5th edition DnD rules. Obsidian is honestly a perfect tool for campaign management. File Explorer++, Iconizer, and Banners are perfect additions. To get Copilot/ChatGPT working my understanding is I have to tie a credit card to my API key, but I only pay per usage. Can you comment to give an idea of how much it realistically costs? I use ChatGPT a ton to create descriptions and flavor text.
Ive used ChatGPT for a year now, and its been like pennies. Maybe a few bucks after several months
It was really helpful, thank you. I was looking for something like that to start my project.
excellent! what kind of project are you working on? a fellow fiction author?
I'm aiming at high fantasy, but who knows, it's still in an embryonary phase. I'm certain that the obsidian tools are going to help.
That's awesome. I'd love to know how you get along. Come back and sometime and share your own workflow tips! Plus, I want to hear what your high fantasy is about 🎉
Btw it's very easy to export a vault, since it's basically a folder. Just zip it, and you're good to go! I do that between my phone and my laptop.
Thanks! We've used all kinds of writing tools in the past, like Scrivener, but eventually, we always return to Microsoft Word, which is simple and allows you to customize it for your own writing purposes. And apart from it occasionally making suggestions to complete your sentences, it's AI free. We do use World Anvil for worldbuilding as well. I had never heard of Obsidian but am willing to check it out. From your video it looks like you can also use it without AI functionalities.
yes, its true :)
Thanks a lot, very informative and inspirational video☺
I'm glad its helpful!
I've used Scrivener for years, but I really love Obsidian. Mostly planned on using Obsidian for my TTRPG games. They are very similar in so many ways, but now that I'm starting some rewrites I'm considering using Obsidian. I'm restructuring a lot of what I do, so I may as well try this.
How cool! Thanks for dropping by. I've not used Scrivener. What do you like more about Obsidian?
@@legendfiction I currently use it to create a database of my life. Personal things like my library and my professional gear (I'm a filmmaker). I don't know if I like Obsidian more than Scrivener. However, I've been thinking of using Obsidian for part of the writing process. Which would still include Scrivener.
smart. good for you!
Omaga, this is really helpful, thanku!
I'm glad :) hope you have fun with it 👋
I appreciate this video, didn't know obsidian existed. I tried Scrivner and liked it, but I think this may fit my needs more tbh.
That's really cool :) What kind of projects are you working on?
@@legendfiction I have a specific universe I’m writing for that will eventually be in a game my buddy and I plane on developing. I also have some other discovery written worlds that I have yet to dive much into. So a little bit of everything!
this was awesome man
I'm very glad you think so! are you working on creative projects?
I've been an Obsidian user for about a year. I started using the NovelCrafter App but it's not flexible enough (yet) so I agree with you that having a more flexible tool is the way to proceed, especiallly if you write fiction AND non-fiction (as the processes aren't identical and tools like NovelCrafter aren't designed for both).
I've also used Scrivener which is MORE flexible that most Apps but I've abandoned that also in favor of Obsidian.
Great into to Obsidian for Writers!
Thanks! I like how you break these down. I've never been able to use Scrivener, which is the OG in this space... but I don't think I'd enjoy it much anyway. Not my speed. :D What kind of stories or workflow have you needed that Obsidian meets for you?
I use Campfire, it’s got tabs for maps, species, magic systems, items, characters, encyclopedias etc. I think they have moved onto Blaze but I use the older Campfire Pro they had
nice! I've trialled that years ago. very nifty setup.
I’d love to do a video like this! I only use obsidian for my writing at this point. I’ve got a multi pov, non linear timeline series that I’m 500k words into and it became a lot. Obsidian allowed me to get more organized than I ever thought I would.
Wow! Dude, you totally should. I'd love to see how you've scaled up the use to that level.
...I'm sold... this is happening. Au revoir, Google Docs... it's been fun :D
agreed :)
I’ve been between several notes apps for my projects through the decade. Aside from having a good and quick editor, one of my requirements has been something that syncs well on mobile devices. If I’m ever out in the wild and get a notion (pun not intended) that I want to capture, I want to be able to do it from my phone! There are a myriad number of ways to do it, but the ideal for me is to 1) not be “stuck” in Apple Notes or Google Notes, and 2) not have to spend a bunch of time copying and pasting from one system to another. I personally love Notion, but I’ve worked myself into a corner in having too complex a system that it becomes difficult to categorize everything. I gave Obsidian a try in the past, but it was slow to open each time. I think I’m going to give it another go, and just make sure to turn off all plugins on mobile (if possible). The plugins you showed for your writing process look incredible!
I hear you! I've struggled to try to get obsidian to sync or to access notes on my phone but that might be a paid plan and I do like trying to figure things out for free first. So my go-to is to use Google keep on my phone and then transfer it over on my desktop to obsidian.
Looks like a versatile tool that could be used for novels, role-playing games, film scripts, and more. I'm wondering even about historians using it to organize writing projects, research, footnotes, bibliographies. Is there a feature built in that already incorporates footnotes/citations and citation styles (Chicago Style, etc.?)
You're right! folk use it for all sorts of reasons, exactly as you describe. For footnotes, great question; I've not needed it yet, so I can't say. you'll want to explore their community plugins, or they have some relatively simple coding where you can link to external notes, then display them inline.
Is it just me or is there a delay in the voiceover? Maybe I'm crazy, haha. Either way, this seems like an awesome program and I can't wait to use it!
nope, you're not crazy. I accidentally left a gap when I was doing a trim on the video. It was meant to be for 2 friends, so I wasn't worried about it being perfect. LOL now its out there making a ton of friends I didn't expect. Hope you have fun with it!
Great video. If possible, could you please share the file of the image in timestamp 1:08? Looks very cool!
That image is one I generated myself for my novel. :) It's created in MidJourney with the --niji feature.
Nice these tips will in handy ❤
Glad you think so!
This looks super cool!
Hope you find it helpful!
Thanks!@@legendfiction
I love your art that you made for the book, it is truly eye-catching. It would be a shame to not add them to the finished product. Maybe an image on every chapter? I wouldn't use an image that gives away what the chapter will contain, but rather about the previous chapter. This way, the reader can enjoy the art and immerse themselves in the fantasy world by picturing the scenes as they read. It really adds another level to the imagination and wonder, and highlights that the book isn't talking about humans but fantasy creatures. Too many novels that I have read, I thought were weird names for humans until I find out later that they were actually creatures.
I can already see your book becoming an animated film for Pixar or something.
thank you! I love how we can generate images now that reflect the magic in our minds. I will probably use them to create my book cover, and the put the rest on a landing page for readers to come explore more of the world on my site. Putting them all in the book is a good idea too :)
and I can't lie... I'd kinda dig a Pixar film with this story!
Weird question: could I use this to organize a mod I want to make for Fallout 3? Things like flowcharts, mixed text and image notes, organizing dialogue choices etc.
And can I sync between the mobile app and my desktop? This would be huge for me as a student.
Sounds like it is doable :) if you pay for the Obsidian Sync plan, you can get it across devices, I think.
I'm using Doom Emacs with Org-Roam. Mainly because it allows me to just create functions specific to how I like to work. Entry is really fast. Single key-presses call the most common tasks. It's my main hub that pushes to Obsidian for specific franchises / projects. So Emacs has everything in a way that would bring Obsidian down too much in performance. But using custom links that call Obsidian pages/vaults is pretty close to my ideal setup. Proper Desktop Bus support would make it more seamless.
I have no idea what this means, but I'm really glad you do. (not tech savvy on this end!) Thanks for stopping by :)
@@legendfiction if you ever want to give Emacs a try anyway: I made an Emacs for Writers repository on GitHub. It’s based on Spacemacs which is slower than Doom but more beginner friendly. It’s what I learned Emacs with. If I put a link here, the comment just gets removed again.
this will help so much, thank you
I'm glad 👊 I'd love to know how you get along with it. Come back and share your hacks sometime!
thanks to this video i decided to use the canvas feature for the first time, and i LOVE it. how i'm using it so far is, i am popping notes in with things i want to fully realise at Some point, and when i'm ready to expand on them i convert them into documents.
I'm also using the grouping feature a lot on the canvas, and i love you can have groups in groups, i have a "high council" group that's included in the "characters" group right now.
i'd been using obsidian occasionally for about a year and a half, since before the canvas feature was added, and i never really paid it much mind, but that was a mistake!
i still prefer scrivener for writing my actual prose, but it's also got a cost to it, and for brainstorming and worldbuilding i prefer obsidian
Smart thinking, there. Ive yet to really use the canvas seriously, and group things better. I'm already at the point where im thinking about the next easiest step to share chapters for feedback, and am thinking of Google Docs... I might look at what publishing Obsidian online can do...
Very great video! I love your workflow and some ideeas actually mighy help me too.
I, personally, use obsidian for a lot of things, but mainly for reading books and learning code, which makes me change it's appearance a lot because I found that useful for learning css.
If you change the appearance a lot though, the canvas might not work properly, so I try to find an alternative ^^" .
Have fun in obsidian! It's truly a very powerful tool
Thanks for sharing your take! I'm looking forward to playing more with it.
The sight of it looks like Figma all over again.
Visual planner and worldbuilding outliner? It's interesting.
Really? Fascinating. I've not used Figma much, but I can see what you mean about the canvas.
@@legendfiction Figma is mostly used for Web Development. I saw the layout and tried it, but the organization of the hierarchy feels similar.
Trello is also an interesting site, but it's more of a planner for projects...
yeah, I've used those as well in the past. have you tried them for fiction worldbuilding? I almost tried Asana, but never started.
I installed your template. It works really well.
I'm really glad!
@@legendfiction Thanks. I’m new to Obsidian and want to use it for writing historical novels (fiction based around actual events) and collecting research materials towards publishing. I will need notes of all types and materials. Can you reccommend a channel that can guide me through setup and collecting from various sources, preferably at beginner level? Any advice will be greatly appreciated. M
I don't have a favorite channel for learning Obsidian yet. I just watched a bunch of random videos to get an overview of it. wish i could be more helpful!
You made me realize that I don't need PureRef, having Obsidian canvas. Thank you.
good for you! what kind of projects are you working on?
@@legendfiction Game development and systems administration. I think I'm an Obsidian fanboy at this point.
lol good for you :) I'd love to learn more about game dev sometime
I used to use Anvil for worldbuilding, but the features I really wanted I would have to pay for. I recently started using OneNote, and that has a decent amount of features. It seems as if this program is similar but even better, though OneNote does have a better layout. Now it looks like I'll spend the day learning how to use Obsidian lol
I watched a couple of tutorials, and its easy to get into! How did you make out with it?
I really like Obsidian, but I fell in love with novelWriter for my novels. It may not be for you, but it's free and open source, so it won't cost anything to give it a try!
Very helpful tip! Thank you!
What plugin are you using for the mood board? Great video, thank you 😊
That's the inbuilt Canvas feature. May just be switched off for you?
I've been using Obsidian for a year. I can't believe I only now learned about the canvas lol I'm feeling like so stupid right now. I sure am glad I decided to click on this video
Thanks for chiming in! i think it's disabled by default. what do you use obsidian for?
@@legendfiction I've got one monolithic vault for note taking. Research, study notes, even recipes go there. It's huge, but Obsidian is really fast so doesn't lag at all. Seeing a recipe for chicken cacciatore next to a summary of convolutional neural networks, next to a workout routine may sound weird but I got used to it. Everything is in its own folder anyway so things are pretty tidy.
Then for each individual project I have a new vault that I use as the primary source of truth. I was also using Miro with it, but now that I learned about the canvas I may start relying less and less on Miro.
Seriously underrated software. I used to work with Evernote but they made some changes that I didn't like at all and made me look for an alternative. All in all I'm pretty happy with Obsidian.
thats incredible. my journey is only just beginning!
Thank you so much for sharing. I have installed Obsidian thanks to your video. The kanban board pluggin was exactly what I’ve been missing, and just the overall organization of my thoughts. I’ve been really stuck on my first story and I hope this will help propel me forward. What ai art generator do you use? I love the idea of spurring my imagination and creativity with some images for my sci-fi story
So glad it's helpful for you too! I'm still trying to decide if it's the best tool for actual writing in, but it's good for organizing. I'm using Midjourney for my art generation. There are several others, like Leonardo AI. It's become a phenomenal source of inspiration for me! What kinds of projects are you working on?
LOVE AND THANKX
glad it was helpful!
I use it in a really similar way. I a am a comic creator so I am really visual. And Canvas is a blessing. But when the canvas got really big it started to slow down, it seems to have performance issues. So I started using the excalidraw plugin. I use it for almost everything, but really similar to the structure you presented. I write the chapter more in a screenplay format So I had to play a lot with the format and the themes for that.
That seems really smart. I haven't yet used Excalidraw. A lot of folk have recommended it! What kind of comics do you create?
@@legendfiction Right now I am writing two comics. The first one is a Dark Fantasy one about a girl that is in a Asylum because she started seeing and hearing things that most people can't. She is crazy, basically...but is she?
The second is Fantasy/action about a Dreamworld and a battle that happens there, but which also affects the Real world in particular ways.
I come from an Illustration and concept art background. So if I created stories they were short just for the specific illustration or concept design. But I had so much fun that I started thinking that I wanted to create something more complex. So this 2 are my first stories. I want to have both of them to decide which one to serialize. So I have a long way to go!
Wow, these sound very cool! Im especially fascinated at your dreamworld idea. Love how much thought you put into your art!
I have scrivner, it has alot of features but you can easily get overwhelmed by all of it. I still think its worth the money at 60 bucks. Espeically when i want to get into screenplay writing.
Obsidian looks interesting to use.
That's helpful to know! Scrivener has a huge fan base, for sure.
This looks very similar to what I've been using "One Note" and "One Note for Windows 10" for. So this might be a very useful backup or alternative.
Very cool. I've not played with that. I've used Upnote, which has a lovely design. This has more function for me, so far.
@@legendfiction Yah, looking at your videos i see the functionality. I just downloaded your Obsidian template. Thank you for that, I'll need to learn and test out a setup that'll work for me.
in this example he has 2 books in a single vault. There are some advantages to this however, if want to go ham with the linking then I would recommend keeping each series in it's own vault. This way if you have say a character named greg two different series you won't run into conflicts.
Very smart. Yes, that's exactly the way. I've considered using a vault per novel. If It ever gets too complex, I'll just clone the vault and delete the books I don't need. Thanks for chiming in!
Thanks for the info, my oldest daughter has written 5 books but it still trying to make money at it.
we all wish her the best!
Do you create a separate vault for each book?
that's one idea :) For now, Im building all my books in a single vault and just expanding or collapsing the folder I'm working on. In the future, I could see one vault not being enough for all of the different notes and ideas. It might make sense to either create a new vault or clone my existing vault and delete all the stuff I don't want in it. I'm not using enough of Obsidian's amazing networking infrastructure to really make use of how it interconnects things. With my current process, it would end up interconnecting all kinds of different novels, like with the mind mapping tool. So I guess the answer is you create your own way that works best for you :)