Thread: How do you file your research notes? How do you find them again when you’re writing?

When I first began pulling an idea together for a novel, I needed to do heaps of research for background.

Now, much, much later, I have links and downloads possibly numbering in the hundreds. Maybe I’ve already memorised some of the stuff I’ve found, but no doubt there’s even more that I haven’t memorised.

Now, I have some folders with a work-in-progress in them, and scores of other folders with research notes in them, and little idea of how to remember much of the research as I'm writing.

So, if you too have gathered heaps of research material for a work-in-progress, my questions are, how do you keep track of it all, and how do you even remember what you've researched?

I prefer old fashioned, hard copy research. Depending on subject, there is a lot of info out there that no one has bothered putting on the web yet, and not everything on the web is reliable (really?). I buy my books. Used books are really cheap and usually still in excellent condition. Since I own the book, I highlight it. Usually, when I need to check a fact, I can remember which book it is in, or at least get it down to two or three books. Then I just skim the highlights. Non-fiction books are usually indexed, too. The other tool I use are my own notes, each subject with its own file name all in a folder called 'Research'.

I'm disorganized but I wonder if OneNote would help you? There might be an open source equivalent of this but not sure what it would be. A friend of mine really likes it (he's more organized than I am) and it might help you organize the links and notes, anyway.

Sounds like the difficulty is what kind of headings to gather things under. Wish I could help you more there but organizing is a struggle for me. Sorry.

Hard copy research or not, for easy reference it all needs to be electronically filed or referenced. All my files are by both date and subject. For example, for a value chain analysis of the domestic onion market I might have a file titled '110707 - Belmopan wholeslae price', meaning the file contains the range of prices for onion varieties traded at the Belmopan wholesale market on 7 July 2011. The computer automatically sorts by date. I never have two subjects listed under the same date. Whether it's onions or politicians the item concerns, all I have to do is remember about when I filed the item and run down the list to find it.

A book I've been trying to write for the past three years on political development between the devaluation of the dollar on 31 December 1949 and the adoption of a new constitution granting internal self-government on New Year's Day 1964 has requireed a great deal of research in the archives in Belmopan. A young man has been doing that research for me. He writes up his notes in spiral bound notebooks and passes them on to a young lady who types the notes into a computer. At first she emailed them to me, but now she uploads to Windows Skydrive for me to download. Most of the files reference newspaper articles or Government reports and are filed by date and subject. For example - '560701 - Extracts from Speeches by Phillip Goldson on Phase One of Social Services'. The notebooks themselves are sent to me as they are filled. If I suspect something may have been incorrectly copied I can ask for a photocopy of the original newspaper page or government document.

At the same time I've started gathering information for a novel with the tentative title, A Missionary's Tale, and using the same system, though with a different set of people to avoid confusion. I have found, interestingly enough, that much of the political history research provides background for the early chapters of the novel.

Filing by date and subject has worked well for me and rarely does it take more than a minute or two of searching to locate the file I need.

Edit - I forgot to mention that the files are stored twice - once in folders by subject and again in folders by year and month.

I have One Note as part of Office, but haven't used it. Perhaps I should give it a try.

I have a couple of sheets of butcher paper taped to the back of my office door. I've printed out a few hard copy pages for quick reference. Finally, I have some URLs saved as favorites.

Simplicity.

Winston - How many files can you keep up with that way? With thousands of files going back nearly 50 years I need a computerised system to keep track. My earliest electronic files were first composed on a TRS80 Model I in 1979 (Remember Scripsit?) and I have paper files, slowly being converted, going back to 1962. There is another truckload of notebooks, newspaper clippings, typescripts, and photos going back to the early 50's in a locker in the U.S. My grandsons will get the key to that when I'm gone.

Just imagine the bonfire they'll be able to create.

I use two ways.

1. Short term and story specific, the last pages of my book have my notes and research.


2. Long term, since my stories happen in the same world, I compile all research in Onenote.
The program is basically an endless "trapper keeper."(tm) Endless Files, columns and sub notes. You can also link web pages for useful information. (For dragons I have links to the anatomy pictures(body parts, muscle names, and bone names.)

I have one file for characters, each character I have developed is in there in a page. If the character has something else needed to be linked to his or her sheet, I use a subpage.

I have towns in a file, every town I have a description for is in there. Have the option of a sub page if needed.

I have animal or creature research, my biggest file. All the monsters I have worked on are there, and if multiple breeds, dragons for instance- I have sub pages with the specifics of Desert fire dragons compared to tropical lightning dragons.

I have a file of pictures of places I think could be interesting to put into my stories.

I haven't figured out how to link say a MC to the town they live in yet. But I just make a note and can cross reference it.

I know there are other ways to do it, but I like this one best for me.

example: Monster file-dragon page- Desert lightning dragon sub page.

I have a note book which I use to write down general ideas, however I don't really write down ideas that I have on longer stuff.
If I am writing a novel and I get an idea I will open a new word document and write it down, sometimes it might be a few lines, other times it might be a few thousand, but, usually it will slot into a place perfectly without any need for nudging or paring down.

To keep track of names and the like I have a giant DIY whiteboard, I used a plastic sheet thing, it's solid and screwed it into the wall. I can write on it with dry erase markers and keep track of characters/timeslines of each thing I am writing. It is really very handy.
Especially as I seem to have favoured the name 'Anna' without realising it. Three characters in what will hopefully be novels, all with vastly different personalities/looks/everything, but with the name of Anna. It is very strange. Pretty sure I've used it in a short story too.

It makes it worse because I hate changing names so I have to come up with new ones. What ever the first name I think of, whether I discard it or not, will almost always have the same first letter of the final name. It's like I think of say William, and discard it, but then I get stuck in thinking of male names begining with W. It's very odd.